to catch sight of him (Orion) up in the heavens on a clear night, he should not expect to behold anything more splendid when he gazes up at the sky." Cicero and Germanicus, the translators of Aratus's Phaenomena, expressed it as , Latin for "sword". Arabic astronomers also saw this asterism as a sword ( ), calling it , Sword of the Powerful One or Sword of the Giant. Orion is one of the few constellations to have parallel identities in European and Chinese culture, given the name Shen, the hunter and warrior. Chinese astronomers made the sword a sub-constellation within Shen called Fa. In the myths of the Nama of Namibia and the western Cape, this was the arrow of the husband of the Pleiades, daughters of the sky god, who was represented by Orion's SW main star Rigel. When he fired his arrow at three zebras (Orion's belt) and missed, he was too afraid to retrieve the arrow due to its proximity to a fierce lion, represented by Betelgeuse. Therefore, he sits in the cold, suffering from hunger but too ashamed to return home. Regionally the prevailing cold breezes and currents come from that direction. The Tswana to the east traditionally call the unusually bright nebula and its companions , three dogs which chase the three pigs (the belt). This serves as an etiological myth for why pigs have their litters in the same season Orion is prominent in the sky. Orion's sword is referenced in the song "The Dark of the Sun" by Tom Petty on his 1991 album Into the Great Wide Open, in the line "saw you sail across a river underneath Orion's sword...". It is also mentioned in Jethro Tull's song "Orion", on their 1979 album Stormwatch, in the lines "Your faithful dog shines brighter than its lord and master, your jewelled sword twinkles as the world rolls by." Gallery See also Orion (constellation) Orion's Belt Thornborough Henges Orion Correlation Theory Notes Orion (constellation) Asterisms (astronomy)