Orion. Son of Neptune and one of the best looking men of his time.  He became renowned for the knowledge of astronomy which he acquired from Atlas, for his taste for hunting, and for his death which was attributed by Mythologists to the hand of Diana.  This goddess, saddened for having taken the life of the handsome Orion, obtained for him from Jupiter a place in the sky where he forms one of the most brilliant constellations comprised of 38 stars. As it takes up such a large place in the sky, according to the expression by the poet Manilius, magni pars maxima coeli, this phenomenon could have supplied the idea for the commendable size which Virgil gave to Orion , who, when walking in the middle of the sea, still had his head and shoulders above the water because the constellation is half above the equator and the other half below.

In their tales, the Arabs create a very delicate woman from this constellation, while the Greeks turn it into a hero who conquers ferocious beasts, and whose gallant behavior was made formidable to wise nymphs and stern goddesses.  Diana, said Hygin, had trouble escaping from him; and when he was transported to the sky next to the Pleiads his proximity still seemed so fearsome to the divine Electra, to escape his advances she abandoned her sisters and went to hide at the Arctic pole. 

M. Fourmont's essay in l'acad, des Inscript. tome XIV. in 4 ° ties the tale of Orion to a corrupted version of the story of the patriarch Abraham.  The work of which I speak is full of erudition, but also full of conjectures and assumptions that cannot overcome the sentiments of those who think that Ancient Greece held nothing of the patriarchs of God's people and did not even know them.