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Crater is identified with a story from Greek mythology in which a crow or raven serves Apollo, and is sent to fetch water, but it rests lazily on the journey, and after finally obtaining the water in a cup, takes back a water snake as an excuse. According to the myth, Apollo saw through the fraud, and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. The constellations of [[Corvus]] the crow and [[Hydra]] the water-snake are also identified with this myth.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_%28constellation%29 Crater]</ref> | Crater is identified with a story from Greek mythology in which a crow or raven serves Apollo, and is sent to fetch water, but it rests lazily on the journey, and after finally obtaining the water in a cup, takes back a water snake as an excuse. According to the myth, Apollo saw through the fraud, and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. The constellations of [[Corvus]] the crow and [[Hydra]] the water-snake are also identified with this myth.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_%28constellation%29 Crater]</ref> | ||
==Etymology== | |||
Crater, the Cup, is often considered a part of the threefold constellation; Hydra, Corvus and Crater. It relates to the myth [Ovid's Fasti, 2.243-66] that Apollo sent a Raven (Corvus) to fetch water in the god's cup (Crater). The raven got back late because he waited at a fig tree for figs to ripen before returning. He brought back a Water-snake (Hydra), along with the water-filled cup (Crater), and told Apollo that the Hydra had caused the delay. Apollo was not deceived by the lie and placed the Raven (Corvus), the cup (Crater), and the Water-snake (Hydra) among the stars, where the Water-snake guards the water from the thirsty Raven. | |||
The word Crater comes from the Indo-European root *kere-1 'To mix, confuse, cook'. Derivatives: uproar(from Middle Low German hror, motion), rare² (cooked just a short time, from Old English hrer), idiosyncrasy,acrasia (Greek akrasia, a-, 'not' + kerannunai, 'to mix'; 'bad mixture', excess; intemperance), dyscrasia (any disease condition, especially in hematology, as in 'blood dyscrasias.' The term 'dyscrasia' was borrowed from the Greek meaning 'a bad mixture' referring to imbalance between the four humors which caused disease [1]),crater (from Greek krater, mixing vessel). [Pokorny kere- 582. Watkins] | |||
According to Christian legend, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers [2]. The word grail is believed to be related to Crater, grail is from Old French graal, grael, from Medieval Latin gradalis, 'cup, platter', from Vulgar Latin *cratalis, from *cratus, 'a mixing bowl', from Latin crater, from Greek krater. [Klein, Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary]. <ref>[http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Crater.html Crater]</ref> | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||