In Greek mythology, the Hyades (Eng. IPA: /ˈhaɪədiz/, Gk. Ὑάδες), meaning "the rainy ones", are a sisterhood of nymphs that bring rain. They do not appear in Roman mythology,[1] where Pluvius is an epithet of Jupiter, as "he who sends rain". The Hyades were daughters of Atlas in most tellings[2] sisters of Hyas, envisioned to account for their collective name and to provide an etiology for their weepy raininess: Hyas was killed in a hunting accident and the Hyades wept from their grief.[3] They were changed into a cluster of stars, the Hyades set in the head of Taurus. Their names are variable, according to the mythographer: Phaola, Ambrosia, Eudora, Coronis, and Polyxo.[4] Additionally, Thyone and Prodice were supposed to be daughters of Hyas by Aethra (one of the Oceanides), have been added to the group of stars. The Greeks believed that the rising and setting of the Hyades star cluster were always attended with rain, hence the association of the Hyades (sisters of Hyas) and the Hyades (daughters of ocean) with the constellation of the Hyades (rainy ones) and called also 'huo pluo'/ ("the rain bringer"). The Hyades are sisters to the Pleiades. They are also confused with the Nysiads, the nymphs who nursed Dionysus, in some tellings of the latter's infancy.
Notes
- ^ "Taurus’ face gleams with seven rays of fire, which Greek sailors call Hyades from their rain-word." (Ovid, Fasti, v.164. In Ancient Greek, "to rain" is hyein
- ^ Hyginus gives their parents as Hyas and Boeotia (Poetical Astronomy ii. 21 )
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae, 192.
- ^ Of such societies of gods, Walter Burkert says "Genealogical myths, in Hesiod especially, also give them individual names, but these are quite clearly secondary and carry no great weight." (Burkert 1985: 173)
