HYADES, in astronomy, are seven stars in the bull's head, famous among the poets for the bringing of rain. Whence their name Tades, from the Greek word "to rain." The principal of them is in the left eye, by the Arabs called aldebharan.
The poets feign them the daughters of Atlas and Pleone. Their brother Hyas being torn to pieces by a lioness, they wept his death with such vehemence, that the gods, in compassion to them, translated them into heaven, and placed them in the bull's forehead, where they continue to weep; this constellation being supposed to presage rain. Others represent the Hyades as Bacchus's nurses; and the same with the Dodonides, who fearing the retribution of Juno, and flying from the cruelty of king Lycurgus, were translated by Jupiter into heaven.