| Aldebaran rises in the northern hemisphere, after the Pleiades and the Hyades and it was thought that Aldebaran pursued them in order to marry them. We read in the introduction by Giuseppe Bezza to the chapter on fixed stars (Arcana Mundi, p. 428-429);" Al-Bîrûnî says that Aldebaran, is called "fanîq", the adult, male camel and there is a certain number of young , female camels, called "qalû'is" around it. Abu 'l Faraj says that for Greek people, the Hyades form a complete figure, a separate asterism, however, their origin is not Greek, but Babylonian, it is the asterism of the floods. Some people affirmed that the name "hyades" derived from a Greek letter Y, which ancient form was V, the etymon which is not worth considering at all: we can as well say that they have the form of "lambda" as Alî ibn Ridwân asserts in the commentary on Ptolemy or that they have the form of the Arabic letter "dal". Other people say that its name derives from "hyein", "to rain" since they cause storms and rains at their rising and at their setting. In fact, it is universally considered that these stars bring the rain and the sailors and the farmers fear their apparitions. However, the Latin name of the Hyades is "suculae", little sows, the she-piglets, diminutive of "sus". Nevertheless, even if Pliny and Cicero consider the etymon "hyades" from "us"- "sow", wrong, they testify the fact that their contemporaries called the Iades "suculae". This is the opinion of W.Gundel, of Boll and of Scherer". |
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