"_The cheval volant--the pegasus--
He bounds from the earth; he treads the air._"
A poetic creation of the ancients, a winged horse captured by Bellerophon,
the great hero of Corinthian legend. In this he was assisted by the
goddess Minerva, who also taught him how to tame and use it. At Corinth
there was a temple erected to Αθηναχαλινίτις (Minerva the Bridler), in
allusion to that part of the myth which describes Minerva as instructing
Bellerophon in the mode of placing the bridle on the winged steed. The
legend states that the hero caught this wonderful animal as it descended
at the Acro-Corinthus to drink of the spring of Pirene. Mounted on his
winged steed Pegasus, Bellerophon engaged the dire Chimera, and succeeded
in destroying the monster by rising in the air and shooting it with
arrows.
[Illustration: Coins of Corinth and Syracuse.]
Pegasus is the steed of the Muses, and classic story ascribes to it the
origin of the Castalian fountain "Hippocrene," situated on Mount Helicon,
part of Parnassus, a mountain range in Greece. When the Muses contended
with the daughters of Pieros, "Helicon rose heavenward with delight"; but
Pegasus gave it a kick, stopped its rise, and there gushed out of the
mountain "the soul-inspiring waters of Hippocrene."
The Standard of Corinth was a winged horse, in consequence of the
tradition connecting the fountain called Pirene, near the city, with
Pegasus, the fiery winged steed of Apollo and the Muses. The same device
was the leading type upon the ancient coins of the city of Corinth. The
Corinthians founded the colony of Syracuse, in Sicily, which city likewise
adopted the winged horse and the head of Athena upon its coinage.
[Illustration: Pegasus salient.]
Pindar, who grandly relates the feat of the hero Bellerophon, says that he
incurred the enmity of the gods by attempting to fly to heaven on his
winged horse. Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, who thereupon cast
its rider and flew of his own accord to the stables of Zeus, whose
thunder-chariot he has ever since drawn.
The pegasus is of frequent occurrence in heraldry. In its classic
allusions it denotes fame, eloquence, poetic study, contemplation.
Some modern heraldic writers, however, discarding its classic references,
regard it merely in the matter-of-fact light as an emblem of swiftness.
But it is impossible to disassociate the old and well-known ideas
respecting the horse of Apollo and the Muses. In fancy the poet mounts his
winged steed to bear his soaring spirit in its wayward flight through the
realms of fancy.
As a type of the perfect horseman, Shakespeare pictures Prince Henry as
able to--
"Turn and wind a fiery pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship."
_1 King Henry IV._, Act 4, sc. 1.
Elsewhere he takes up the later interpretation of the myth, which connects
it with Perseus:
"The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut
Like Perseus' horse."
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act i. sc. 3.
Cardinal Bembo, poet and historian, secretary to Pope Leo X., used as his
impress a pegasus and a hand issuing from a cloud holding a wreath of
laurel and palm, with the motto, "Si te fata vocant" ("If the fates call
thee").
_Azure, a pegasus salient, the wings expanded argent_, is borne as the
arms of the Society of the Inner Temple, London.
A very early seal of the Knights Templars exhibits two knights riding upon
one horse.
A recent writer remarks upon this strange device that "it is exceedingly
probable that some rude and partially defaced representation of this
device was mistaken by the lawyers of the reign of Queen Elizabeth for a
pegasus. The fact that the Middle Temple adopted the device which appears
upon the other seal of the ancient Knights strongly confirms this view."
One of the supporters of the arms of Oliver Cromwell is a horse having the
wings and tail of a dragon.