Constellation Myths: with Aratus's Phaenomena (Oxford World's Classics)

My chief motivation for purchasing this book was that it provided a prose translation of Aratus' Phaenomena, a book that is very influential in the history of astronomical culture and was a best seller in Antiquity; it was quoted in the Bible and the Greek Anthology. It's surprisingly hard to find faithful translations of it; many that are available are old-fashioned and try to render the Greek verse into English rhymes, and the result, as you might expect, is not good and is a poor paraphrase of Aratus' fluid verse.

Imagine reading the thoughts of the man who defined the word 'geography' and described the circumference of the earth ... Eratosthenes.

This book translates four texts: (i) the Epitome and (ii) the Fragmenta Vaticana, which are versions of the Catasterisms of Eratosthenes, (iii) the Astronomica of Hyginus, and (iv) the Phaenomena of Aratus. The Phaenomena of Aratus has been edited and translated in  Aratus: Phaenomena (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries) . These works were widely read and commented on in antiquity, and to have more than a facile idea of the ancient image of the world one must understand how people looked at the heavens.The translations and commentary about mythology in this book are first rate. But the commentary about how the stars move on the celestial sphere is weak. There are only three figures in the whole book, two of which are undersized photographs given without explanation. I suspect that nearly all modern readers will have less sense of the sky than even a weakly educated ancient reader would. I do not ask for the editor to teach astronomical computations to the reader, but for the descriptions of constellations moving around the celestial sphere to be more than word play, we must be shown detailed figures, either drawings or photographs (one can get a good sense for how stars move from photographs at a fixed interval of time). For Sirius or the Pleiades to be a sign of something we must have a feeling for the pattern followed by them, and because the modern reader will with near certainty not have this, which would be expected of the ancient reader, the commentary requires many more pages spent giving images or explanations.Thus, if you want to use these myths to get an idea of the ancient view of the world, this edition is inadequate for not showing enough pictures, because a modern reader does not have as much knowledge about the stars as an ancient reader (readers of popular science have a huge amount of pseudo-knowledge, like hearing about the sizes of black holes without being able to do any computations or make any predictions with this information, and not being able to explain what the tropics are). But if you are studying just mythology and the references to constellations are irrelevant, I have no complaints about this book. And even though I have made complaints, they are complaints about the book not being as good as it could have been; it is still good, and we are well served by having reliable English translations of these celebrated works.

What a bargain! You get three ancient texts in one volume. The Phaenomena of Aratus has been translated before (in the Loeb Classical Library and the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries series) but this is the newest and cheapest. Hyginus (who wrote in Latin) has also been previously translated (in an obscure and out of print edition). However the epitome of the Catasterism of Eratosthenes has never before been translated.I found the format helpful. Robin Hard has 50 constellations. Under each he translates the sections of Eratosthenes and Hygenius and then supplies a short commentary. There are plenty of famous myths like Orion and Capricorn but also plenty obscure ones. It is a nice read in a fluent English translation. Well worth the money.

impeccable

The description by Amazon "this translation brings together the later summaries from Eratosthenes' lost handbook with a guide to astronomy compiled by Hyginus, librarian to Augustus... these texts provide a complete collection of Greek astral myths" is a bit misleading. The book is an 'anthology' of selections from Hyginus's Astronomy appended to a selection of what there is left of the work of Eratosthenes as summarised by later writers.The layout of this book does not follow the layout of the originals. In order to present a constellation per section, the translator has given each section the format of (1) summary of Eratosthenes, (2) extract from Hyginus, (3) commentary by translator. The translation of Phaenomena by Aratus is given as a section at the back of the book.I was hoping that the complete text of Astronomy by Hyginus would be included - as per the misleading description - but it is not.The translator does explain in his introduction that the book concerns itself only with the presentation of the storylines of myths by Eratosthenes and Hyginus and does not include other related material found in the ancient texts in question. It would be good if the Amazon description was as accurate.That said, Robin Hard's translation is a good one with helpful commentaries and notes on the text.

Excellent edition with excellent introduction and commentary. Why aren't there more editions of this level of scholarship that are as readable?

Needs careful reading to understand the sources of the material.

Excellent