"In conclusion, I call your attention to the ambiguity of my official mythic history. I was never formally purified of my guilt in the matter of Glaucus and my brother. My behavior in Tiryns was at best questionable. Of the sinking of Chimarrhus and his Carian pirates, no observers save myself survived. To the rout of the Solymians and Amazons, the only possible witnesses were by me respectively stomped to death and raped-and-deported — I've never even bothered to inquire after that Amazon lance corporal in Corinth, a fact which also attests my apparent indifference to the welfare of my mother and my motherland. Not even that chiton is producible, since Philonoë took it off for keeps. Of the Chimera, no trace of either her existence or her demise except my tracing, which any schoolboy could duplicate on any wall. Of Polyeidus, the only other witness to the monstermachy, no further sign except the tedious text of this lecture. My only demonstrated wonder, the rising tide, I've shown to be more stratagem than miracle. Pegasus, unquestionably a marvel, was midwifed by Cousin Perseus, not by me, and merely lent me by Athene; moreover, he's not what he used to be. But the final proof, if any is needed, of my fraudulent nature is that on the eve of my fortieth birthday, when your typical authentic mythic hero finds himself suddenly fallen from the favor of gods and men, I enjoy the devotion of my wife, the respect of my children, the esteem of my subjects, the admiration of my friends, and the fear of my enemies — all which argues the protection of Olympus.
Throw me out."
Q: "That's an answer?"
A: "Pardon?"
Q: "We're pleased to announce, sir, that in recognition of this brilliant lecture series in particular, and in general appreciation of your patronage of the University and your distinguished contributions to the fields of heroical genetics and automythography, a committee of students, faculty, and administrators of the University of Lycia has voted unanimously to name you to the Iobates Memorial Throne of Applied Mythology, the most coveted chair in the University, newly established and funded by Queen Philonoë. Many happy returns, sir."
I fled to the marsh, heaved my breakfast and lecture-scroll into the spartina grass, remembered the handsome Chimera-seal on the latter, waded in to find and retrieve it from the ebbing tide, couldn't, slogged about till sunset, found then in its place, high and dry at low water, Perseid, which I fetched back dismally to Page One, read, "Good night" "Good night," et cetera, next A.M. fetched down the bridle after breakfast, burped to the horse-barns, was by lackeys boosted et cetera, clucked chucked et cetera: Pegasus flapped down on the tanbark like a fallen stork, here we are. In time Queen Philonoë, sitting pityingly by the paddock, read the Perseid and proposed:
"Let's take a trip! To all the places where you did your famous things? We'll start in Corinth: Eurymede won't believe how the kids have grown! Then Tiryns: I'll tease my sister about her old crush on you and that disagreeable trick with the Bellerophontic letters, which you call Bellerophonic. Cyprian Salamis is out, since the Solymians seem to be acting up again, but we can tour the Carian-Pirate Museum at Pharmacusa and make a state visit to the Amazons at Themiscyra. I maintain a friendly interest in the Women's Liberation Movement, though I've no particular desire to be 'emancipated' myself, as my neglect, since marriage, of intellectual activity, formerly a passion with me, unhappily testifies. Finally, what I guess I'd rather do than anything else in the world besides be embraced by you: we'll stand together on the exact spot where you killed the Chimera! It's disgraceful that I've spent my whole life not a hundred kilometers from that mountain and never once gone up to see your celebrated drawing, now a leading Lycian tourist attraction — one more sad bit of testimony to the way we women are apt to let everything else slide in our preoccupation with child-bearing and — rearing, till we find ourselves grown dull and uninteresting people indeed, just at the time when our husbands and marriages may most need a spot of perking up. We'll come home by way of the beach where I flagged you down and you proposed marriage to me and I accepted — the happiest moment of my nearly twoscore years. And so to bed.
"Now it goes without saying that this is merely a suggestion — both the general idea of a sentimental journey and the specific itinerary I've proposed. Possibly it strikes you as too directly imitative of the Perseid? However, it seems to me that surely no harm could come of such a trip, and perhaps some real good might, since, as you once remarked informally to my Senior Mythology Seminar, the archetypal pattern of mythic adventure is as it is and not otherwise: while we may not comprehend it, we cannot deny it, and heroes will-they nill-they follow it. What perhaps doesn't go without saying is that if in fact your adventure with Anteia, to name only one example, was less innocent than the official version maintains, and you feel it necessary to rehearse your past absolutely, you may depend on me as always to understand, even to honor, your decision: I count my own feelings as nothing beside my love for you and the importance of your career as mythic hero, et cetera."
Bellerophon senses, not for the first time, that this picture of his late lamented, distorted for accuracy like a caricature, is being drawn with a jealous pen, and wonders by whom. Why should, for example, Polyeidus the Seer be jealous of Philonoë? But the hero of this story is no longer confident that Polyeidus is its author. Polyeidus reminds him that Polyeidus never pretended authorship: Polyeidus is the story, more or less, in any case its marks and spaces: the author could be Antoninus Liberalis, for example, Hesiod, Homer, Hyginus, Ovid, Pindar, Plutarch, the Scholiast on the Iliad, Tzetzes, Robert Graves, Edith Hamilton, Lord Raglan, Joseph Campbell, the author of the Perseid, someone imitating that author — anyone, in short, who has ever written or will write about the myth of Bellerophon and Chimera. That's not easy to comprehend, or agreeable, and I'm working toward you, viper, toward you, gnat, and will swat you without fail. Could it be Amazonian Melanippe?