The Pleiades were born to Atlas, the Titan who stood at the western edge of the world holding up the broad sky upon his shoulders, and Pleione, one of the three thousand Oceanid nymphs who were daughters of the Titan Oceanus and the goddess Tethys. They were seven sisters: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope. Maia would become the mother of Hermes, the messenger god, in a cave on Mount Cyllene. Electra bore Dardanus, the founder of Troy. Taygete bore Lacedaemon, the eponym of Sparta. Sterope bore Oenomaus, the king of Pisa. And Merope, the youngest, married Sisyphus, the king of Corinth who was so cunning that he twice tricked Death himself and was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill in Tartarus for eternity. They grew up in the shadow of their father's eternal labour, roaming the mountains and valleys of Arcadia and Boeotia, companions to Artemis, the virgin huntress who protects young maidens and drives her golden chariot across the wild hills.

The defining crisis of their lives came in the form of Orion, a giant hunter of such stature that he could wade through the deepest seas with only his head above the waves. Orion saw the seven sisters walking through the woods of Boeotia and desired them, pursuing them across hill and valley for five long years. Some say he was driven mad by lust, others that he simply would not accept refusal. The sisters fled before him, running until their feet bled and their lungs burned, but the giant's stride was longer than a mountain and he gained upon them with every step. They ran through Arcadia and over the peaks of the Taurus Mountains, begging the gods for deliverance from a hunter who would not tire and would not relent. Their cries reached Olympus, and Zeus answered.

Zeus took pity on the seven maidens and transformed them into doves, the sacred birds of the gods, so that they might fly beyond Orion's reach. They soared into the heavens, but even there the giant pursued them, stretching up his great arms toward the stars. In final mercy, Zeus changed them again, this time into stars, and fixed them in the constellation of the Bull where they shine still as a tight cluster of seven lights. Yet even in the sky Orion follows them, for the same heavens that hold the Pleiades also hold his figure nearby, eternally chasing but never catching the sisters he desired. The transformation was not without sorrow, for they left behind their mortal lives and their children, and the heavens are cold compared to the green valleys of Arcadia.

Not all the sisters accepted their stellar fate with equal grace. Merope, the youngest, had married Sisyphus, the king of Corinth. Because she had chosen a mortal husband while her sisters had lain with gods, Merope shines more dimly than the others, and the Greeks called her the Lost Pleiad. Some said she hid her face in shame at her husband's crimes, others that she simply grieved for him still. Electra, another sister, was said to have veiled her star in mourning when Troy fell, for her son Dardanus had founded the city and its destruction broke her heart. The tears of the Pleiades were said to fall as rain upon the earth, and the rising of the cluster before dawn marked the beginning of the sailing season in the Mediterranean, while their setting warned of winter storms.

For three thousand years, farmers and sailors have watched the Pleiades rise and set to mark the turning of the year. Ancient Greek poets wrote that the cluster set in autumn and rose in spring, and that the forty days and nights of their absence were the time to sharpen ploughs and prepare seed. The cluster appears on ancient Greek coins, in Babylonian star-lists, and in the earliest Chinese astronomical records. The Japanese car company Subaru takes its name and six-star logo from them, though the logo shows only six because tradition holds that one sister is always hidden. The cluster itself contains hundreds of stars, but only six or seven are visible to the naked eye, and every culture from the Maya to the Maori has told stories of lost sisters and celestial maidens who shine together in the shoulder of the Bull.