ABSTRACT
Spenser’s allusions to the constellations allow two inferences: that they were understandable to his contemporaries without reference to chart or handbook; and that their variety, splendor, and mythological associations made them an immediate presence in his world. The advantage of gaining some familiarity with them as conventionally depicted in Spenser’s day is demonstrable from Faerie Queene II ii 46. There, Orion the hunter, one of the bestknown groups of stars, is described as setting while ‘flying fast from hissing snake.’ According to classical mythology, when a scorpion killed Orion, both were elevated to the sky and placed so that one rises as the other sets; and so readers have identified Spenser’s ‘snake’ with Scorpio. But in conventional representations of the stars, more than half the interval between Scorpio and Orion is occupied by a very snaky object a single-headed Hydra, poised to strike at Orion’s back. The sense of urgency implicit in ‘flying fast’ is therefore much more realistic and intelligible if the snake is identified with Hydra.
