Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/91

 was not given credit for having opened these springs, however, until the days of the Alexandrian poets. In lovely fancies, these "Spring-inspired" poets not only extolled the wondrous strength in the hoof of Pegasus as he cleft a chasm in the earth, but they also sang of so light a foot that he no more than shook the sweetness from the flowers.

For a long time Pegasus flew about Mount Helicon, adored by the Muses and admired by the gods, but finally one day, while drinking at a spring, he was captured by a Grecian youth named Bellerophon. After making him fast with a golden bridle loaned to him by Minerva, Bellerophon mounted the broad back, slipped his feet between the wings and soared to the sky. As might have been expected, Bellerophon henceforth spent a good part of his time along the dizzying heights above and around the clouds and one day accomplished the praiseworthy deed of swooping down and slaying a triple-headed monster which had been terrorizing all the surrounding land.

After this famous ride, Bellerophon seized what he considered a good opportunity and tried to ascend to the top of the broad summit of Mount Olympus which towered almost twice as high as the summit of Mount Helicon. But Mount Olympus was the abode of the gods and this presumptuous act so angered Jupiter that he sent an insect to torment the steed which reared backward and threw its rider to the earth. Being now quite accustomed to a rider, Pegasus was presented to Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn, whose duty it was to lift the curtain of night with her rosy tinted fingers and open the eastern gates for Apollo, the Sun-god. In art Aurora is often pictured as a spirited maiden in dazzling robes riding swiftly on the winged Pegasus, although she is also represented as rising out of the ocean in the east in a car drawn by four white horses. Perhaps she decided to employ the latter exclusively to usher in the dawn, for Pegasus was later transposed to