Parallel Myths by J.F. Bierlein

Author:J.F. Bierlein [Bierlein, J.F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

BELLEROPHON

(Greece)

Bellerophon was accused of killing both the wicked Bellerus (hence the name Bellerophon, which means “murderer of Bellerus”), as well as Bellerophon’s own evil brother, Deliades. Bellerophon then fled to the palace of King Proeteus of Tiryns, seeking asylum. As Bellerophon was of royal blood, King Proeteus gladly granted asylum. Proeteus’s wife, Anteia, was a wicked woman who fell in love with the young visitor and tried to seduce him many times. But Bellerophon chastely refused her advances. Anteia, however, told Proeteus that Bellerophon had tried to rape her. Proeteus now wanted to kill him.

But it would have violated protocol for the king to kill a guest of royal birth. So Proeteus sent Bellerophon to King Iobates in Lycia, accompanied by a sealed letter explaining that Bellerophon had tried to violate Anteia, Iobates’s daughter. The letter asked for Iobates’s assistance in killing Bellerophon.

However, Iobates also thought it bad protocol to kill a visitor of royal blood. So he decided to give Bellerophon a dangerous, possibly fatal, task. Iobates asked Bellerophon to kill the horrible monster the Chimera. This was a fire-breathing monster that had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and a serpent’s tail. But before taking up the task, Bellerophon spoke to a seer who told him that the job would be simple with the help of Pegasus, the flying horse.

So Bellerophon found and tamed Pegasus, and killed the Chimera with ease.

Iobates, still wishing to see Bellerophon dead, did not reward the young hero for this, but rather sent him to defeat two fierce armies, one of which was that of the Amazons, a race of women warriors. By flying over them, mounted on Pegasus, Bellerophon defeated both armies with ease.

Iobates continued to plot the demise of Bellerophon, and did not reward the young hero for his great deeds, and Bellerophon did not understand how the king could be so ungrateful. Offended, Bellerophon rode Pegasus to visit the sea god, Poseidon. Poseidon decided to punish Iobates by causing a great tidal wave to strike the kingdom of Lycia. When the waves were in sight, the people of Lycia begged Bellerophon to call them off. The promiscuous Lycian women stood along the shoreline and lifted up their skirts, offering themselves to Bellerophon in the hope that he would call off the tidal wave. But Bellerophon’s high morals kept him from taking advantage of their offer. Flying high over Lycia on the back of Pegasus, Bellerophon asked Poseidon to call off the tidal wave.

After this brush with destruction, Iobates was certain that Bellerophon was innocent of the alleged seduction; the gods would not have defended the young man were he guilty. Iobates asked Bellerophon to see him, producing the letter and demanding a true account of what happened from his daughter. When it was apparent that Anteia had lied, Iobates offered Bellerophon an apology and the hand of another daughter, Philonoe, in marriage. With that, Bellerophon became the heir to the throne of Lycia.

However, it was pride, not sex, that proved Bellerophon’s undoing.

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