Constellation Hydra Astrology

Constellation Hydra the Water Snake, is a southern constellation sitting under constellation Leo and constellation Virgo, and on it’s back sits constellation Crater, constellation Corvus, and constellation Noctua. Hydra spans 90 degrees of the Zodiac, in the Sign of Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, and contains 5 named fixed stars.

Hyrda Constellation is the Female Water Snake, bigger and older than Hydrus Constellation, the Male Water Snake formed in 1597.

Constellation Hydra is said to give an emotional and passionate nature, threatened by great troubles, and to cause some interest in shipping. According to Ptolemy, the bright stars are like Saturn and Venus (slovenly, very immoral, shameless, revolting, mean, sorrows in love. If rising, good-tempered, healthy, gain by industry and marriage. If culminating, improved health, fame by help of superiors.) [1]

The Hydra of Lerna with its multiple heads represents the Water-snake which Hercules encountered and combated in his second labor… Its stars are now well defined under this single title, but anciently were described, with their riders Corvus and Crater…

Hydra is supposed to be the snake shown on a uranographic stone from the Euphrates, of 1200 B.C., “identified with the source of the fountains of the great deep,” and one of the several sky symbols of the great dragon Tiamat. Certain stars near, or perhaps in the tip of Hydra’s tail and in Libra, seem to have been the Akkadian En-te-na-mas-luv, or En-te-na-mas-mur, the Assyrian Etsen-tsiri, the Tail-tip. Theon said that the Egyptians considered it the sky representative of the Nile, and gave it their name for that river.

After Al Sufi’s day, in our 10th century, the figure was much lengthened, and now stretches for nearly 95° in a winding course from Cancer to Scorpius; this well agreeing with the fable of its immense marine prototype, the Scandinavian Kraken. Conrad Gesner, the 16th-century naturalist, gave an illustration of this in its apparently successful attack upon the ship Argo. [2]

It is pictured as the female serpent (Hydra), the mother and author of all evil. Hydra has the significant meaning, he is abhorred! It is an immense constellation extending for above 100 degrees from east to west, beneath the Virgin, the Lion, and the Crab. It is composed of 60 stars; one of the 2nd magnitude, three of the 3rd, twelve of the 4th, etc.

The brightest star, α (in the heart of the Serpent), is sometimes called by the moderns Cor Hydrae on that account. Its ancient name is Al Phard (Arabic), which means the separated, put away. Another is called Al Drian, the abhorred. Another star is named Minchar al Sugia, the piercing of the deceiver. [3]

References

1. Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923, p.47.
2. Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Richard H. Allen, 1889, p.246-247.
3. The Witness of the Stars, E. W. Bullinger, 40. Hydra (the Serpent).