PLEIADES

, an assemblage of seven stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus, the bull; although there are now only six of them visible to the naked eye. The largest of these is of the third magnitude, and called Lucido Pleiadum.

The Greeks fabled, that the name Pleiades was given to these stars from seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione one of the daughters of Oceanus, who having been the nurses of Bacchus, were for their services taken up to heaven and placed there as stars, where they still shine. The meaning of which fable may be, that Atlas first observed these stars, and called them by the names of the daughters of his wife Pleione.