Guards of the Pole.

The two stars β and γ in the Great Bear. Shakespeare, in Othello, ii. 1, refers to them where he says, the surge seems “to quench the guards of the ever-fixéd pole.”

“How to knowe the houre of the night by the [Polarʹ] Gards, by knowing on what point of the compass they shall be at midnight every fifteenth day throughout the whole year.”—Norman: Safegard of Sailors (1587).