Pisces

Pisces belongs to the zodiac, but with no bright stars it is a large, faint constellation whose shape can be made out only under dark skies. Two fish swim in different directions, bound together by a long ribbon, and the knot where the ribbon meets is the chief star Alrescha (meaning "the knot"). It holds a place of great importance in astronomy: because of the precession of Earth's axis, the "vernal equinox" — the point where the Sun crosses the celestial equator northward in spring — has drifted out of neighboring Aries and now lies here in Pisces. And so today spring begins when the Sun passes through this constellation.

This is the story of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, and her son Eros. As the two rested by a riverbank, the monster Typhon — a beast half man, half animal that even the gods feared — suddenly bore down upon them. In their panic the mother and son turned into fish and leapt into the river to flee, and so as not to lose each other in the confusion, they bound their tails tightly together with a long cord. Thus the two swam safely away and escaped the danger, and these two fish and the cord that joined them rose into the sky to become a constellation.