James Baquet

It is said that when the hero Perseus cut off the head of Medusa — who had snakes for hair, and a look at whose face could turn men to stone — a few drops of her blood sank into the earth. From that sprang Pegasus, the horse of the Muses and an inspiration to poets and playwrights.

German Friedrich Schiller tells of the time a needy poet sold the divine horse to do heavy labor for a peasant. The master could do nothing with him, but when an elegant youth got on his back, he mounted to the sky — a comment on the importance of mingling talent and inspiration.

In one story, Pegasus was ridden by a gallant young warrior named Bellerophon to defeat the dreaded Chimera, which had a lion and a goat for his front end, and a dragon for the rear. (Naturally, he breathed fire.) It happened like this.

After numerous attacks on the land of Lycia, that land’s king, Iobates, called for a hero.

Bellerophon appeared, recommended by Iobates’ son-in-law Proetus, who praised Bellerophon. But in fact Proetus was so jealous of him — thinking that his wife Antea was a bit too interested in him — that he asked Iobates to ensure the hero’s death.

Iobates was not sure what to do — killing him would break the laws of hospitality — so he decided that the Chimera could solve the problem for him. Before the battle, Bellerophon — advised by a soothsayer to procure the aid of Pegasus — spent the night in a temple of Athens, where he dreamed that she came to him with a golden bridle. When he awoke, it was still in his hand!

When the horse saw Bellerophon with the bridle, he agreed to be tamed. With such a mount, Bellerophon made quick work of the Chimera.

Iobates continued to send Bellerophon into danger, but at last, seeing that Bellerophon was favored by the gods, he gave the hero his daughter in marriage and made him successor to the throne.

But Bellerophon was a proud man. Once he tried to fly on Pegasus all the way to heaven, but Zeus sent a fly to sting the horse. It threw Bellerophon to Earth, and thereafter he was lame and blind, until he died miserably.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. get; acquire;

2. a device for steering a horse;

3. brave and noble;

4. unable to walk properly;

5. poor;

6. a farmer; person of the lowest class;

7. the Greek goddesses of artistic inspiration;

8. heir; the next in line;

9. a fortune teller;

10. from then on