Poseidon, god of the sea, had a son named Orion, who was gifted with great skill as a hunter but cursed with poor judgment. Eos, goddess of the dawn, fell in love with him, but Orion was not true to her. He chose to go hunting with Artemis, the goddess of hunting and the moon.
Orion boasted to Artemis that he was such a skilled hunter that he could kill all of the world’s wild beasts and monsters. Artemis’ brother Apollo did not trust Orion and did not consider him a good match for his sister. When he heard of Orion’s boastful claim, he asked Mother Earth to send a huge scorpion to attack Orion. Orion fought valiantly, but he realized that his mortal skills were no match for the scorpion. Hoping for Eos’s protection, Orion plunged into the ocean and swam toward the island of Delos to reach her.
As he swam toward the island, though, Eos wasn’t waiting for him, but Artemis was. Apollo joined her there. As he and Artemis stood on the shore, he saw a tiny figure far off in the distance and recognized that it was Orion, swimming toward the island. Apollo challenged his sister to hit the small, distant shape in the ocean with her arrow. Artemis shot accurately and killed Orion.
When Artemis realized what she had done, she pleaded with Asclepius, the god of healing, to restore Orion to life. Zeus, King of the gods, forbade Asclepius to do so, so Artemis placed Orion’s image in the sky, where the scorpion, the constellation Scorpio, still chases him among the stars.
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