LIFE AS MYTH
A FEMININE MYTH
Hsi Wang Mu, goddess of immortality
The girl with the peaches: portrait of Vera Mamontova (Valentin Serov)
Carnation Lily, Lily Rose (John Singer Sargent)
The mermaid at Clonfert Cathedral
Olympia (Édouard Manet)
WINTER 2007
THE SLAYING OF THE CHIMERA
Chimera on clay dish. 350-40 B.C.E. Louvre.
While Bellerophon was visiting Argives, King Proteus and his wife Antea entertained him. During his stay, Antea asked Bellerophon to meet her secretly so that they could lie together but he was an honorable man and refused. In retaliation, Antea told her husband that Bellerophon had tried to lie with her against her will. She begged her husband to execute him.
Proteus was unwilling to kill Bellerophon himself. Instead he dispatched him to Lycia with letters of introduction which contained many slanderous lies. He told Bellerophon to present the letters to his father-in-law with the hope that the king of Lycia would kill him.
When he reached Lycia, the king entertained him for nine days. On the tenth day, Bellerophon presented him with the letters. After reading them, the king was furious and determined to send him to his death by commanding that he slay the Chimera.
. . . the Chimera, who was not a human being, but a goddess, for she had the head of a lion and the tail of a serpent, while her body was that of a goat, and she breathed forth flames of fire. Iliad, Book VI. Homer. trans. Samuel Butler.
Before Bellerophon went into battle, however, a seer advised him to first capture Pegasus. With the aid of Athena and her golden bridle, he caught the winged horse.
While riding Pegasus and battling the Chimera, Bellerophon hurled lead-tipped spears into its throat. The fiery breath of the monster quickly melted the lead tips, thereby suffocating it. But the story does not end here.
Artist Unknown. Source: Myths Every Child Should Know. Mabie, Hamilton Wright (Ed.). 1914.
From the Greek word for excessive pride or wanton violence, hubris is the defiance of the gods and their divine order and Bellerophon fell prey to this tragic flaw.
One day while riding Pegasus, he turned the steed toward the divine realm of Mount Olympus with the intent of joining them. Zeus saw him approaching and sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus. When bitten by the fly, the horse reared, throwing his rider back to earth.
Afterward Zeus placed Pegasus in his heavenly stables where he can be seen as a constellation to this day. Bellerophon was not so fortunate. According to the myth, he lived out the remainder of his mortal life crippled and despairing.
