Andromeda

Pronunciation pronunciation key
andromădă

Definition 
A constellation in the Northern Hemisphere, located between Cassiopeia and Pegasus. It was named after the legendary Andromeda, daughter of King Cepheus of Ethiopia and Cassiopeia, who was greatly admired for her beauty. When Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than the sea nymphs known as the Nereids, they persuaded the sea god Poseidon to send a monster to ravage Cepheus's land. In order to appease the monster, Andromeda was chained to a rock and offered as a sacrifice. She was rescued by Perseus, who killed the monster by showing it the severed head of Medusa, who turned all who looked at her into stone. Perseus and Andromeda subsequently married. After her death she was placed among the stars. "With these were to be seen at intervals some of maturer years, full-blown flowers among the opening buds, with that conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear during the period when they never meet a single man without having his monosyllable ready for him,—tied as they are, poor things! on the rock of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting for her Perseus" (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner, 1861).