Bellerophon (play)
Encyclopedia
Bellerophon is an ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 written by Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

, based upon the myth of Bellerophon
Bellerophon
Bellerophon or Bellerophontes is a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside of Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a...

. Most of the play was lost by the end of the Antiquity, and only 90 verses, grouped into 29 fragments, currently survive.

Plot

Given the fragmentary state of this tragedy, the plot remains open to conjecture. Most modern critics nevertheless agree on the following storyline.

Bellerophon
Bellerophon
Bellerophon or Bellerophontes is a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside of Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a...

, who seems to have lost everything, lives on an uncultivated land with his father Glaucos and Pegasus
Pegasus
Pegasus is one of the best known fantastical as well as mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, usually white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing...

. Deeply pessimistic about his condition, Bellerophon eventually believes the gods do not exist.

He subsequently decides to reach Mt. Olympus, thanks to Pegasus's flying abilities. The motives of such an ascent have remained unclear. Regardless, Pegasus falls with his rider and the wounded Bellerophon is brought to the stage. Having repented for his blasphemous behaviour, Bellerophon dies.

Translations

  • Euripide, Tragédies, vol. 8, 2e part. Fragments. De Bellérophon à Protésilas; Greek text and French translation by François Jouan and Herman Van Looy; Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2000, 2002, 2003.

Studies

  • N. Wecklein, Tragödien des Euripides: Bellerophontes, 98-109, SBAW, 1888
  • A. Caputi Euripide e le sue tragedie sul mito di Bellerofonte, 509-515, RAL, 1909
  • M. Pohlenz, Die Grichische Tragödie, I pages 290-293 and II 123-124, Göttingen, 1954
  • Z. V. Vykozy, De Euripidis Bellerophonte, pages 137-145, ZJFK, 1963. This Czech essay was translated into German in BCO, 358, 1964.
  • A. Carlini, Due note euripidee, 201-205, SCO, 1965
  • P. Rau, Paratragœdia, 89-91, Munich, 1967
  • Lamberto Di Gregorio, Il Bellerofonte di Euripide. I. Dati per una ricostruzione ; II. Tentativa di ricostruzione, 195-214 and 365-382, CCC, 1983
  • Christoph Riedweg, The "atheistic" fragment from Euripides "Bellerophone", 39-53, ICS, 1990
  • Mariarita Paterlini, Note al Bellerofonte euripideo, 513-523, Sileno, 1990.
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