Heroes: Volume II of Mythos

BELLEROPHON fn1 Usually pronounced with the emphasis on the second ‘e’ – ‘Bell-er-ophon’. The early Greeks tended to call him Bellerophontes. fn2 As we shall discover in due course, Theseus had a similarly problematic paternity. fn3 The poet Hesiod says of Eurynome, in a fragment from the eighth century BC: ‘A marvellous scent rose from her silvern raiment as she moved, and beauty was wafted from her eyes.’ No one has ever said anything as wonderful as that about me. fn4 Poseidon was a god not just of the wide oceans, but of springs and fountains too. His offspring Pegasus, after flying free from the severed neck of Medusa, made landfall first on Mount Helicon. He struck his hoof on the ground and water bubbled up to become the famous Hippocrene, which means horse fountain. Helicon, like Parnassus, was one of the places where the nine MUSES liked to live (see Mythos, Vol. I, page 46). To drink from the Hippocrene became a metaphor for poetic inspiration (as in Keats’s longing for ‘the true, the blushful Hippocrene’ in his Ode to a Nightingale). But Pegasus did not linger there, he flew on to Corinthian Pirene, another place sacred to the Muses. fn5 Pronounced Sthen-a-bee-a or perhaps Stheneebia. Up to you. The name means ‘strong cow’ – or, if one is feeling kinder, ‘one made strong through their possession of cows’. Earlier sources, like Homer, called her ANTEIA. fn6 A not uncommon mythic trope or ‘mytheme’. You may remember in the Bible (or the musical) that Potiphar’s wife made the same false accusation against Joseph after failing to seduce him. Achilles’ father Peleus was to suffer similarly at the hands of ASTYDAMEIA, wife of King ACASTUS, who – in just the same way that Proetus was purifying Bellerophon – was cleansing Peleus of the crime of accidental fratricide at the time. Make of these repetitions what you will. fn7 Often given the rather more handsome name Amphianax (pronounced ‘Amph-eye-an-ax’). fn8 When Homer has Bellerophon’s grandson GLAUCUS tell this story in the Iliad, the letter is actually not written but composed of ‘symbols’ or ‘murderous signs’ enclosed, not in a letter, but a ‘folding tablet’ … Homer pre-dated paper and alphabets (or at the most coincided with the very beginning of the Phoenician alphabet), but he would have been aware of the Linear B syllabary and other early scripts. The tablets would have been of clay. fn9 Usually pronounced ‘kai-meera’, though the Greeks say something closer to ‘heemera’, with a hissy opening ‘h’. fn10 Almost certainly a literal meandering. He was over Caria, through which the River Maeander, eponym of all wandering streams, still winds its lazy course. fn11 Home of the wise centaur Chiron, master of the healing arts. See the story of Jason (here, here). fn12 Cheimarrhus was said to sail in a ship with a lion’s figurehead for the prow and a serpent for the sternpost which, taken with the similarity of his name to that of the Chimera (both derive from a Greek word for ‘goat’), makes one wonder if he wasn’t just another version of the monster’s story. See the Afterword for a discussion of this kind of ‘Euhemerism’, or historical interpretation. fn13 Another version says that Bellerophon returned to Tiryns, made a show of forgiving Stheneboea and offered her a ride on Pegasus. Once they were far out at sea he pushed her off.

ORPHEUS fn1 Who would certainly have been father of Heracles’ unfortunate music teacher, Orpheus’s brother or half-brother Linus. fn2 See Mythos, Vol. I. fn3 Now Cape Matapan. fn4 The Asphodel Meadow was sometimes given as the place where ordinary, non-heroic mortals resided in the underworld. As I mentioned in a footnote on the death of Heracles, there is little consistency across the sources and poets as to what happened to the dead. An asphodel, incidentally, is a white heathland flowering plant. Homer’s Odyssey seems to have the first mention of such a flower carpeting the Elysian Fields of Hades, but it later entered the poetic language across Europe. William Carlos Williams’ poem ‘Asphodel, That Greeny Flower’ is a notable example. fn5 Charon liked to use old-fashioned words like ‘Avaunt’, ‘Nay’ and ‘Forsooth’. He believed they enhanced his dignity. fn6 The three judges were sons of Zeus, mortal kings famed for the righteousness of their rule, who determined on behalf of Hades the fates of the dead in the underworld. Heracles sensibly avoided them during his visit. See the first volume of Mythos (page 143). fn7 The Greeks even had a word for this Dionysian tearing apart, this frenzied dismemberment – they called it sparagmos.