page_title: Andromeda (mythology)
section_title: Constellations
hierarchical_section_title: Andromeda (mythology) / Cultural references / Constellations
caption_attribution_description: Gloria Frederici, Andromeda, and Triangula, plate 5 in Urania's Mirror, a set of celestial cards accompanied by A familiar treatise on astronomy ... by Jehoshaphat Aspin. London. Astronomical chart showing the constellations of Andromeda, Triangula - a variant of Triangulum using stars too small to feature in this star chart to make a second triangle - and the obsolete constellation Gloria Frederici. 1 print on layered paper board&#160;: etching, hand-colored.
context_page_description: In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of the king of Aethiopia, Cepheus, and his wife Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Andromeda is chained to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but is saved from death by Perseus, who marries her and takes her to Greece to reign as his queen.
  Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek Ἀνδρομέδα or Ἀνδρομέδη: "ruler of men", from ἀνήρ, ἀνδρός meaning "man", "husband", or "human being", and μέδω "I protect, rule over".
  As a subject, Andromeda has been popular in art since classical times; it is one of several Greek myths of a Greek hero's rescue of the intended victim of an archaic hieros gamos, giving rise to the "princess and dragon" motif. From the Renaissance, interest revived in the original story, typically as derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
context_section_description: Andromeda is represented in the Northern sky by the constellation Andromeda, which contains the Andromeda Galaxy.
  Several constellations are associated with the myth. Viewing the fainter stars visible to the naked eye, the constellations are rendered as:
  A maiden (Andromeda) chained up, facing or turning away from the ecliptic.
  A warrior (Perseus), often depicted holding the head of Medusa, next to Andromeda, .
  A huge man (Cepheus) wearing a crown, upside down with respect to the ecliptic.
  A smaller figure (Cassiopeia) next to the man, sitting on a chair; as it is near the pole star, it may be seen by observers in the Northern Hemisphere through the whole year, although sometimes upside down.
  A whale or sea monster (Cetus) just under the ecliptic.
  The flying horse Pegasus, who was born from the stump of Medusa's neck after Perseus had decapitated her.
  The paired fish of the constellation Pisces, that in myth were caught by Dictys the fisherman who was brother of Polydectes, king of Seriphos, the place where Perseus and his mother Danaë were stranded.
caption: The constellation Andromeda as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards by Sidney Hall published in London c. 1825
exif: {}