 Walls of the Sky
Winter is here in all its frosty glory, and many of us are now greeted by darkness after finishing afternoon classes. An early sunset may not be desirable, but it nonetheless provides an opportunity to notice something people tend to ignore in the hurry of their daily lives, something burning-hot yet too far away to bring us any warmth, gazing from above as though mocking us pitiful mortals freezing in the cold. Purple prose aside, I am talking about stars. How many of them can you name? Sun, Sirius (Akyıldız) and Polaris (the current North star) are the easy ones, but what about others? People usually don't pay attention to individual stars, but when asked about constellations they can name at least a dozen. A very specific dozen, in fact - the Zodiac.
It must be noted that constellation designations are rather arbitrary, they merely divide the night sky into areas (indeed, a constellation is not only a group of stars). The stars within a constellation need not to be physically close to each other, and most are not. But our twelve, the Zodiac, do have a special quality to set them apart. Each one passes through the ecliptic plane, defined by the path the Sun traces out throughout the year with respect to Earth.
So, you may ask, what is the point of this boring trivia? Simply said, this is how horoscopes are determined. (Yes, people don't just make them up! ) At the most basic level, one's birth sign is determined by the sun's position respective to the Zodiac on the day he was born.
Constellations, of course, have a wide variety of stories associated with them, although I only have space for a few, and I wish to tell a tale of how the Chinese zodiac was formed. Read it in full on Wikipedia, if you wish.
One day, the Jade Emperor held a race to find animals worthy of being placed on the zodiac. Their task was to swim across a wide river and report to the Emperor. Both the cat and the rat weren't good swimmers (although in real life, both can swim exceptionally well!) so they came up with a plan to secure victory. They asked the help of the ox, and rode comfortably on his back as he swam. But the rat was greedy and wanted to come first, so he pushed the cat into the water and when the ox reached the other shore, the rat jumped off and reported first. For this, he was granted the right to be the first amongst the animals in the Zodiac. The ox, naturally, was placed second.
The tiger and rabbit came later, the tiger swimming across the river and the rabbit hopping along the rocks. The rabbit explained how he lost his balance and fell into the water, but found a log floating by and barely made it to the other side. Then came the dragon - who, being a flying animal, should have finished first. When asked what took him so long, the dragon replied he had to bring rain to Earth (a task attributed to dragons in China) and afterwards saw a rabbit grasping a log, so he descended to help the beast and brought him to shore.
The horse and snake came next, the snake taking a leaf out of the rat's book and hiding under the horse's hoof for an easy victory. Rooster, ram and monkey arrived next; they had teamed upto build a raft to cross the river. The dog came next, having been delayed by his bath, and the pig last, having been tempted by food and gorged himself instead of racing.
After all twelve received their honors, the battered cat finally managed to swim across, only to find himself too late for the contest. He cursed water and he cursed the rat, and that's why cats despise water and hunt rats to this day.
And I just have to add this when speaking about stars. Go on Youtube, search for the 10th Anniversary Concert of the Les Miserables musical, and listen to that part - Stars, that is. Or just listen to the entire musical, it's well worth it. Philip Quast's performance as Javert is admirable.
BY ALPER ÖZKAN (MBG/III)
d_ozkan@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
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