Grandson of Sisyphus and son of Glaucus of Ephyra, a hero to whom the gods granted beauty and lovely manliness. Falsely accused by the wife of Proetus, he was sent to Lycia bearing a sealed token meant to compass his death, and there slew the fire-breathing Chimera and overcame every trial set against him.1
In the heart of Argos, in horse-rearing Ephyra, dwelt Sisyphus, craftiest of men, son of Aeolus; and he begat Glaucus, and Glaucus begat peerless Bellerophon. To him the gods granted beauty and lovely manliness — the third generation of the Corinthian Aeolids. Apollodorus gives the line in full and names Glaucus' wife Eurymede, adding that before his exile the young man had accidentally killed his own brother — Deliades, or as some say Piren, or others Alcimenes — and so came to Proetus to be purified.2
At the court of Proetus the king's wife lusted madly for the upright guest and could in no wise prevail upon him; so she made a tale of lies, telling Proetus to slay Bellerophon or die himself. Wrath seized the king, yet awe of murdering a suppliant stayed his hand: he sent the hero to Lycia bearing baneful tokens, graving in a folded tablet many deadly signs, and bade him show them to his own wife's father, that he might be slain. Whom the wife was, the sources dispute — Homer names her Anteia, while Apollodorus and Hyginus call her Stheneboea; and in Hyginus' telling she, out of love and shame at her rebuff, later takes her own life.3
Bellerophon came to Lycia and the stream of Xanthus, where for nine days the king feasted him before reading the murderous tablet from his daughter's husband. Then the trials began: first he was bidden slay the Chimera, a creature of three beasts in one — the forepart a lion, the middle a fire-breathing goat, the tail a dragon. This he killed, trusting in signs of the gods; thereafter he warred upon the glorious Solymi, fought the Amazons, and cut down an ambush of the bravest Lycians laid to destroy him.4
Whether a winged horse bore him to the deed, the sources part ways. Homer's hero kills the Chimera on foot, trusting in the signs of the gods, with no mention of Pegasus. But Hesiod sings that Pegasus and noble Bellerophon together slew her; Apollodorus has him mount the winged steed, offspring of Medusa and Poseidon, and shoot the monster down from on high before facing the Solymi and the Amazons; and at Corinth Pausanias tells how Athena the Bridler herself broke and bridled Pegasus and delivered him into the hero's hands.5
When the Lycian king saw that his guest was the valiant offspring of a god, he kept him, gave him his daughter — Philonoe, Apollodorus names her — and the half of all his kingly honour, and dying bequeathed his realm. She bore three children: Isander, Hippolochus and Laodameia. With Laodameia lay Zeus the counsellor, and she bore godlike Sarpedon. Yet glory soured: hated at last of all the gods, Bellerophon wandered alone over the Aleian plain, devouring his own soul and shunning the paths of men, while Ares slew Isander among the Solymi and golden-reined Artemis struck down his daughter in wrath.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
