The North Star as a symbol

Few stars carry as much meaning as Polaris. It has stood for constancy, for guidance and, in American history, for freedom. The symbolism below is documented; the prompt at the end is this site's own.

Constant as the northern star

Shakespeare gives the line to Julius Caesar. Refusing to change his mind, Caesar says (opens in a new tab) he is "constant as the Northern Star", which has no equal in the sky for staying put. Moments later the conspirators stab him. The symbol of constancy is spoken by a man about to fall.

The guiding star

The Greeks called the Little Bear Kynosoura, "dog's tail", and English kept the word as cynosure (opens in a new tab), a guiding star. Aratus wrote that the Phoenicians steered by it.

The road to freedom

The National Park Service (opens in a new tab) describes the North Star as a beacon to true north and freedom for people escaping slavery in the United States, who found it by the Big Dipper, the drinking gourd; Harriet Tubman was among those who used it. The song "Follow the Drinking Gourd", the NPS notes, was composed decades after the Civil War, from those accounts. After returning to the United States in 1847, Frederick Douglass (opens in a new tab) published an abolitionist newspaper in Rochester, New York, and named it The North Star.

A symbol that moves

The constant star is constant only on a human scale. In Ptolemy's day (opens in a new tab) Polaris was about 11° from the pole, and a couple of thousand years ago, NASA notes (opens in a new tab), the pole stars were Kochab and Pherkad. The Polaris guide has the astronomy.

Reflect