Pegasus

Origin

The earliest literary reference is Hesiod's Theogony 280-286 (eighth century BCE), where Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor leap from the severed neck of Medusa as Perseus strikes. Hesiod gives the name's etymology as pege ('spring'), since the blood-and-foam from which Pegasus was born was a marine spring. The Iliad VI.181ff., in the tale of Glaucus, first mentions the slaying of the Chimera. Pindar's Olympian 13 and Isthmian 7 develop the partnership of Bellerophon and Pegasus. The canonical narrative is fixed in pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca II.3.2 (first to second century CE), which describes Athena giving Bellerophon a golden bridle and the taming of Pegasus at the Corinthian spring of Peirene. Ovid's Metamorphoses IV and V complete the Latin reception, and the constellation Pegasus enters Ptolemy's Almagest among the 48 classical constellations in the second century, retained in the modern IAU list of 88.

Features

• Snow-white winged horse
• Born from Medusa's severed neck alongside his brother Chrysaor
• Name derives from Greek pege ('spring' or 'fountain')
• Strikes Mount Helicon with his hoof to open the spring of Hippocrene
• Companion to Bellerophon in the slaying of the Chimera
• Bearer of Zeus's thunderbolts on Olympus

Stories

Pegasus is among the most frequent figures of Greek art: emblem of Corinth on its silver staters from the sixth century BCE, painted on black-figure and red-figure vases alongside Bellerophon, set in Pompeian wall paintings, Roman mosaics, and Byzantine silks. In astronomy the constellation Pegasus, listed in Ptolemy's Almagest, persists in the modern IAU 88; its Great Square of Pegasus is a canonical autumn landmark of the northern sky. The Renaissance produced Andrea Mantegna's and Sandro Botticelli's paintings of Pegasus, and the Baroque ceiling of Pietro da Cortona established the figure as emblem of the Muses. In modern times the TriStar Pictures logo (1984), the British Airways logo of 1984, the Pegasus statue in Minneapolis, and the countless astronomy tools named for the constellation keep the iconography alive.

Weakness

Pegasus rarely has stated personal weaknesses; the constitutive limit is the question of who may ride him. Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca makes clear that Pegasus cannot be mounted by just anyone: only the bearer of Athena's golden bridle can tame him. Bellerophon himself could not catch Pegasus at the Corinthian spring of Peirene without Athena's dream-vision and her gift of the bridle. When Bellerophon, grown proud, tried to ride Pegasus up to Olympus, Zeus sent a gadfly that stung the horse and threw the hero, fixing the symbolic limit that Pegasus's back is not safe for mortals lacking divine warrant. After his catasterism into the constellation Pegasus, the horse is no longer available to human heroes at all, a final mythic closure.

Cultural Significance

Pegasus is not merely a mythic animal but the allegory of poetic inspiration. The Muses' spring of Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, opened by Pegasus's hoof, is identified with Hesiod's own poetic invocation at the start of the Theogony, and this tradition produced the Renaissance figure of the poet's Pegasus, the embodiment of poetic afflatus. Dante invokes Pegasus canonically in Paradiso XVIII, and from the seventeenth century onward Pegasus became the standard frontispiece motif of European poetry volumes. In astronomy, the constellation Pegasus and its Great Square remain the canonical marker of the autumn northern sky; in heraldry, the Pegasus of the Inner Temple in London, the British Airways logo of 1984, and the TriStar Pictures logo of 1984 fixed the modern reception. The figure continues to be renewed in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Disney's Hercules (1997), and the Dungeons and Dragons monster manuals.

In Popular Culture

Hesiod, Theogony 280-286 (8th c. BCE) — Pegasus and Chrysaor born from Medusa's bloodHomer, Iliad VI.181 ff. — Pegasus and the slaying of the Chimera in the tale of GlaucusPindar, Olympian 13 and Isthmian 7 — partnership of Bellerophon and PegasusPseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca II.3.2 (1st-2nd c. CE) — canonical Bellerophon narrativeOvid, Metamorphoses IV and V — Latin receptionPtolemy, Almagest (2nd c.) — Pegasus among the 48 classical constellationsDante, Paradiso XVIII — canonical re-reading of Pegasus