Cancer (mythology)

[3] Since it is not a main element of the myth, it does not always appear in the versions that have reached the present day; nevertheless, classic mythographers, astronomers, historians or philosophers such as Plato, the Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Apollodorus and Hyginus mention the character in their texts.

Zeus' wife, the goddess Hera, jealous of her consort's infidelity, turned her spite on the child and attempted to cause him death or suffering on several occasions throughout his life.

The crab attacked Heracles' feet with its claws to throw him off so that the Hydra could kill him; however, the enraged Greek hero crushed it with his heel in response and continued the battle.

Like the figure of the Hydra, Carcinos has several variants depending on what the author of the version includes in his text: The crab Carcinos does not appear in all versions of the myth of the second labor of Heracles and, therefore, in those related texts, mainly about mythology or astronomy, that have come down to us; for example, in the famous poem around 275 BC by Aratus, Phenomena, (which describes the constellations and other celestial bodies, commenting for some of them on the associated myth) only the constellation of Cancer is mentioned to locate the Asses and the Manger: Observe also the Manger.

Resembling a small nebula, it marches encompassed in the Crab in a northerly direction; around it revolve two stars that shine little, neither too far away nor too close to it, but which, to the naked eye, would appear to be about a cubit apart; one is to the North, the other faces South.

[22] In De astronomia, a work on catasterisms traditionally attributed to Hyginus (1st century BC), the myth is also mentioned in its most widespread version:[23] It is said that the Crab was placed among the stars by Juno, because, when Hercules was confronting the Hydra of Lerna, it came out of the swamp and bit him on the foot.

In Bibliotheca, an exhaustive compilation of Greek mythology written around the 1st–2nd centuries AD, erroneously attributed to Apollodorus of Athens, the creature is also mentioned:[12] As his second labor [Eurystheus] ordered him [Heracles] to kill the Hydra of Lerna.

So he killed it and asked Yolaos for help [...].On the other hand, many other classical authors do not mention Carcinos in their texts in the myth of the Hydra, such as Hesiod in his Theogony,[24] Pausanias in his Description of Greece,[25] Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica,[26] or Euripides in his Herakles,[27] which emphasizes the secondary character of the Crab with respect to the second labor of Heracles.

Various interpretations of the second labor of Heracles have been attributed to him throughout history:[28] The classical authors who mention Carcinos in the myth of the Hydra do not offer in their texts descriptions of the shape or type of crab beyond the occasional allusion to the remarkable size of the specimen.

The writings of classical naturalists or geoponists, such as Aristotle, Pliny the Elder or Cassianus Bassus,[34] and modern studies in carcinology give an idea of the known species of crabs that would influence the mental image that people would obtain upon hearing the myth, as well as the artistic representations that have been made of it: Of the crabs cited, Cancer pagurus specimens are the most voluminous, with a carapace width of about 24 cm, the maximum recorded being 30 cm.

The artistic techniques used in their representations are diverse, highlighting Ancient pottery, the reliefs and stained glass of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance engravings or the drawings in the atlases of astronomy of the last centuries of the second millennium.

During Classical antiquity, examples of ceramic decoration found on Greek lekythoi, hydriai, aryballoi and other types of vessels, usually from the 6th and 5th centuries BC and belonging to the predominant black and red-figure styles of the time, stand out.

In another field, the Lithuanian painter and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, belonging to modernism and symbolism, produced in 1907 a cycle of twelve paintings called Zodiakas (The Zodiac); Vėžys (Cancer) represented the sign of Carcinos, in the form of a crayfish.

[59] On the influences received, the American polymath Richard Hinckley Allen exposes in his work Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (1899) that the constellation of Cancer was also identified by other peoples, apart from the Greek and later ones, with a crab: The constellation was known as Cherjengh and Kalakang to the Persians; Lenkutch, to the Turks; Sartono, to the Syrians and perhaps to the later Chaldeans; Sarṭān, to the Hebrews; and Al Saraṭān, to the Arabs; all terms equivalent to Cancer.Paul Jensen relates it to the Babylonian turtle of the 4th millennium BC, and it has also been associated with the Egyptian Scarabaeus sacer of the 2nd millennium BC.