Chapter Five - Bellerophon

Bellerophon was the tamer of the flying horse, Pegasus.  He was also known for killing the monster Chimaera, who was known as the "unimaginable horror" in those days.  Bellerophon lived in the city of Corinth, but he was banned.  He was banned because he had murdered someone.  This was against the law in those days, as it is now, although the punishment then was more severe.  There was a way to be forgived of your sins, and Bellerophon decided that he wanted to take the black mark off his permanent record.  To do this, he went to live with King Proetus in the neighboring kingdom of Tiryns.  The king had a wife named Stheneboea.  Stheneboea fell in love with our daring hero, and she decided to tell him of this.  It was illegal to confess your love to another if you were already married, therefore making what the queen did illegal.  Wanting to do the right thing, Bellerophon told the king what the queen had done.  When the king confronted the queen, she denied the charges and put all the blame on Bellerophon.  The king decided that he wanted revenge.  He started planning his revenge that night.  He decided to send Bellerophon on a trip to take a letter to his father-in-law.  He wrote the letter that he was to send to his father-in-law.  Although that was nearly impossibe because there was no such thing as a system of writing yet.  Bellerophon set out the next day on his little "quest" to Iobates. Bellerophon's brains didn't really strive over his brawn. in other word he was, like all of the other heroes, stupid.  Because of this he couldn't read the letter that was the cause of his trip.  When he arrived in Iobates, he was not allowed to deliver the message into the king's hands.  He was a newcomer and looked weird.  He therefore gave the message to a servant who gave it to the king.  The message read,"Kill the man who hands this to you".  The innocent servant was killed on the spot.  A few days later Bellerophon wandered into the king's court looking befuddled and confused.  He was probably drunk.  The king thought that he was an expected nobleman from a faraway kingdom.  He greeted him warmly and asked him to feast for a few days.  The king soon became annoyed by Bellerophons ignorance.  The King of Iobates was planning...revenge.  Bellerophon was then in turn sent to kill the monster Chimaera.  If you just skipped to the last line of the story then you will have no clue how the story ends.  But if you started at the beggining then you have been rewarded for your common sense.

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