Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/118

 104 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY as it reached the summit. Since at other times Sisy- phus is also characterized as an old sea god, this pun- ishment may be considered a symbol of the waves of the sea ceaselessly rolling the stones to and fro on the shore. 133. His grandson Bellerophontes (or, in a shortened form, Bellerophon) possessed the winged horse Pegasus. With the help of this horse, having been sent to Lycia, he killed the frightful Chimaera ('goat'), a monster composed of a fire-breathing she-goat, a lion, and a ser- pent. Originally this was an imaginative representation of the thundercloud sending forth the ragged, roaring, and serpentine lightning ; but later it probably symbol- ized also the volcanic phenomena of Lycia. Bellerophon fought successfully with the mountainous race of the Solymi, the neighbors of the Ethiopians and Lycians (i.e. of the inhabitants of the land of light), and also with the Amazons. At last he attempted on his thunder- horse to enter heaven itself, but was flung down and perished miserably, a legend no doubt representing the lightning darting down from heaven to earth. In Corinth, as well as in Lycia, he received adoration as a divine being. Bellerophon, as is evidenced by his rela- tion to Pegasus, the embodiment of the thundercloud, and by his killing the monster of the thunderstorm, was a figure closely related to the lightning hero Perseus, who was indigenous to the neighboring Argos. Sisyphus : Homer, II. vi. 153, Od. xi. 593 sq. ; Ovid, Met. iv. 460, Fast. iv. 175 ; Hyginus, Fab. Ix. ; Pope, Ode on St. Cecilia's Day 66 : Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still. Spenser, F. Q. i. v. 35.