Pegasus (Pegasos), Greek Myth
Pegasos, pegasus, greek myth, zeus, mytholohy horse
PEGASOS (or Pegasus) was an immortal, winged horse which sprang forth from the neck of Medousa when she was beheaded by the hero Perseus. Pegasos was tamed by Bellerophon, a Korinthian hero, who rode him into battle against the fire-breathing Khimaira. Later, after the hero attempted to fly to heaven, the gods caused the horse to buck, throwing him back down to earth. Pegasos continued to wing its way to heaven where it took a place in the stables of Zeus.
The horse was also placed amongst the stars as a constellation, whose rising marked the arrival of the warmer weather of spring and seasonal rainstorms. As such he was often named thunderbolt-bearer of Zeus. In the constellation myths, Pegasos (“Springing Forth”) may have represented the blooming of spring whilst Khimaira (“Frosty Air” ?) (perhaps winter-rising Capricorn) was the cold chill of winter.
—- In Greek mythology, Pegasus is the winged horse that was fathered by Poseidon with Medusa. When her head was cut of by the Greek hero Perseus, the horse sprang forth from her pregnant body. His galloping created the well Hippocrene on the Helicon (a mountain in Boeotia).
When the horse was drinking from the well Pirene on the Acrocotinth, Bellerophon’s fortress, the Corinthian hero was able to capture the horse by using a golden bridle, a gift from Athena. The gods then gave him Pegasus for killing the monster Chimera but when he attempted to mount the horse it threw him off and rose to the heavens, where it became a constellation (north of the ecliptic).
In another version, Bellerophon killed the Chimera while riding on Pegasus, and when he later attempted to ride to the summit of Mount Olympus, Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, and it threw Bellerophon off its back.
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Hypotheses have been proposed regarding its relationship with the Muses, the gods Athena, Poseidon, Zeus, Apollo, and the hero Perseus.
The symbolism of Pegasus varies with time. Symbol of wisdom and especially of fame from the Middle Ages until the Renaissance, he became one symbol of the poetry and the creator of sources in which the poets come to draw inspiration, particularly in the 19th century. Pegasus is the subject of a very rich iconography, especially through the ancient Greek pottery and paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance. Personification of the water, solar myth, or shaman mount, Carl Jung and his followers have seen in Pegasus a profound symbolic esoteric in relation to the spiritual energy that allows to access to the realm of the gods on Mount Olympus.
