[The Ruins by C. F. Volney]@TWC D-Link book
The Ruins

CHAPTER XII
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According to Grecian fable, the crab was transported to heaven at the request of Juno, after it had been slain by Hercules during his battle with the serpent Python, but the evident design of the name is to represent the apparent backward motion of the sun in June, which is said to resemble the motions of a crab.
LEO, the Lion: ([symbol for LEO]) .-- Is the fifth sign in the zodiac, and contains one star of the first magnitude, called Regulus, or Cor Leonis--the Lion's Heart.

The fervid heat of July, when the sun has attained its greatest power, is now symbolized in our almanacs by the figure of an enraged lion; and the feasts or sacrifices formerly celebrated among the ancients during this month, in honor of the sun, (which they also represented under the form of a lion,) were called Leonitica.

The priests who performed the sacred rites were called Leones.

This feast was sometimes called Mithriaca, because Mithra was the name of the sun among the Persians.

The sacred writings abound with references to the "king of beasts;" among the most interesting of which is the story of the battle between the lion and Samson, the Jewish Herculus; while the most wonderful example of animal evolution on record is found in the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, where we are gravely informed that "the lion shall eat straw like the bullock." VIRGO, Virgin Mother, Venus, Eve, Isis, &c .-- ([symbol for VIRGO]) .-- Is the sixth sign of the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 21st of August.


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