Del star chart (IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine, Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg).

One of the 88 IAU constellations.

Cyg, Lyr, Del, Aql and Sge on the Kugel Globe (1st century BCE), SMH 2024.

Etymology and History

The Greek constellation ...

Origin of Constellation

Babylonian

Greco-Roman

Aratus

[316] The very slight Dolphin runs just above Capricorn, dark in the centre, but four jewels outline it, two lying parallel to two. (Kidd 1997)

Eratosthenes

Ovid, Fasti

[79] The Dolphin, which of late thou didst see fretted with stars, will on the next night escape thy gaze. (He was raised to heaven) either because he was a lucky go-between in love’s intrigues, or because he carried the Lesbian lyre and the lyre’s master. What see, what land knows not Arion?14 By his son he used to stay the running waters. Often at his voice the wolf in pursuit of the lamb stood still, often the lamb halted fleeing from the ravening wolf; often hounds and hares have couched in the same covert, and the hind upon the rock has stood beside the lioness: at peace the chattering crow has sat with Pallas’ bird,15 and the dove has been neighbour to the hawk. ‘Tis said that Cynthia16 oft hath stood entranced, tuneful Arion, at thy notes, as if the notes had been struck by her brother’s hand. Arion’s fame had filled Sicilian cities, and by the music of his lyre he had charmed the Ausonian land. Thence wending homewards, he took ship and carried with him the wealth his art had won. Perhaps, poor wretch, thou didst dread the winds and waves, but in sooth the sea was safer for thee than thy ship. For the helmsman took his stand with a drawn sword, and the rest of the conspiring gang had weapons in their hands. What wouldst thou with a sword? Steer the crazy bark, thou mariner; these weapons ill befit thy hands. Quaking with fear the bard, “I deprecate not death,” said he, “but let me take my lyre and play a little.” They gave him leave and laughed at the delay. He took the crown that might well, Phoebus, become thy locks; he donned his robe twice dipped in Tyrian purple: touched by his thumb, the strings gave back a music all their own, such notes as the swan chants in mournful numbers when the cruel shaft has pierced his snowy brow. Straightway, with all his finery on, he leaped plump down into the waves: the refluent water splashed the azure poop. Thereupon they say (it sounds past credence) a dolphin did submit his arched back to the unusual weight; seated there Arion grasped his lyre and paid his fare in song, and with his chant he charmed the ocean waves. The gods see pious deeds: Jupiter received the dolphin among the constellations, and bade him have nine stars.

Ovid. Fasti. Translated by Frazer, James George. Loeb Classical Library Volume. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1931.

Hipparchus

Hyginus, Astronomica

Eratosthenes and others give the following reason for the dolphin's being among the stars. Amphitrite, when Neptune desired to wed her and she preferred to keep her virginity, fled to Atlas. Neptune sent many to seek her out, among them a certain Delphin, who, in his wandering s among the islands, came at last to the maiden, persuaded her to marry Neptune, and himself took charge of the wedding. In return for this service, Neptune put the form of a dolphin among the constellations. More than this, we se that those who make statues of Neptune place a dolphin either in his hand or beneath his foot — a thing they think will please the god especially.

Aglaosthenes, who wrote the Naxica, says that there were certain Tyrrhenian shipmasters, who were to take Father Liber, when a child, to Naxos with his companions and give him over to the nymphs, his nurses. Both our writers and many Greek ones, in books on the genealogy of the gods, have said that he was reared by them. But, to return to the subject at hand, the shipmates, tempted by love of gain, were going to turn the ship off course, when Liber, suspecting their plan, bade his companions chant a melody. The Tyrrhenians were so charmed by the unaccustomed sounds that they were seized by desire even in their dancing, and unwittingly cast themselves into the sea, and were there made dolphins. Since Liber desired to recall thought of them to men's memory, he put the image of one of them among the constellations.

Others, however, say that this is the dolphin which bore Arion, the citharist, from the Sicilian Sea to Taenarum. He excelled all others in skill, and was travelling about he island for the sake of gain, when his servants, thinking there was more profit in treacherous freedom than in quiet servitude, planned to cast their master into the sea and divide his goods among them. When he realized their designs, he asked from them, not as a master from his salves, nor as an innocent man from evil-doers, but as a father from his sons, to allow him to attired himself in the garb he had often worn when victor, since there was no other one who, so well as himself, could honor his death with lamentation. When he had obtained permission, straightway taking up his cithara, he began to mourn his own death, and attracted by the sweet sounds, dolphins from all over the sea swam along at the singing of Arion. Then, invoking the power of the immortal gods, he threw himself down upon them, ad one of them took him and carried him to the shore at Taenarum. In memory of this, the statue of Arion placed there seems to have on it the likeness of a dolphin, and for this happening the dolphin's form is pictured by ancient astronomers among the constellations. But the slaves who thought they had escaped from servitude, driven by a storm to Taenarum, were seized their master and visited with no slight punishment. (Mary Ward 1960)

Geminos

Aquila as stickfigure drawn to the description in the Almagest (137 CE) and as drawn on the Farnese Globe (marble, 2nd c. CE), mapped to Stellarium by Susanne M Hoffmann (2021)

Almagest Δελφὲν

Transfer and Transformation of the Constellation

Mythology

IAU WGSN names

1. Sualocin for α Delphini was approved in 2016
2. Rotanev for β Delphini was approved in 2016
3. Aldulfin for ε Delphini was approved in 2017.

Weblinks

References

• References (general)
• References (Babylonian)
• References (ancient Greco-Roman)
• References (medieval)