Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Cassiopeia.
The gallery
Cassiopeia
Julia Margaret Cameron, 1866
Cameron's albumen print (Metropolitan Museum of Art) stages the Ethiopian queen as a Victorian allegory — Cassiopeia's boast against the Nereids distilled into a single seated figure whose vanity still names a northern constellation.
Perseus and Andromeda
Jacob Matham (after Hendrick Goltzius), 1597
Matham's engraving after Goltzius returns to the crisis Cassiopeia caused: Andromeda chained for the sea-monster while the royal parents' boast still hangs over the shore — the queen's vanity as the hinge of the Ethiopian rescue.
On screen
In play
Cassiopeia (constellation)
The boastful queen was set among the stars as the W-shaped northern constellation — punished to circle the pole, still the most recognizable mythic signature in the autumn sky.
Cassiopeia (mother of Andromeda)
Wife of Cepheus and mother of Andromeda — the Ethiopian queen whose vanity against the Nereids remains the cautionary opening of every Perseus rescue.