The Flying Horse
Breaking from his iron chain,
And unfolding far his pinions,
To those stars he soared again.
Longfellow's "Pegasus in Pound."
Only a part of the figure of a horse appears in this very ancient constellation, and, strangely enough, the horse is always represented reversed, with the forefeet pawing the sky. Pegasus is therefore often referred to as "The Demi-Horse," or "the Half Horse," the steed of the mighty Nimrod.
In mythology this is the celebrated horse that sprang from the blood of the Medusa, which dropped into the ocean after Perseus had severed her head.
According to Hesiod he received his name from his being born near the sources of the ocean, the name being derived from the Greek words πηγαι, meaning the "springs of the ocean," or πηγος, meaning "strong."
Ovid claims Mount Helicon as the home of Pegasus. It was here that, by striking the ground sharply with his hoof, he caused the waters to gush forth, the fabled spring of "Hippocrene."
- ↑ Longfellow calls poetic inspiration "a maddening draught of Hippocrene."
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