Hippalectryon

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Horsemen on a Hippalectryon. Inside of an Attic - black figure rim bowl of Xenocles , 540-530 BC. Chr., Altes Museum (Berlin)
Riding warrior on a hippalectryon. Terracotta figure from Thebes , now in the Louvre

A Hippalectryon ( Greek  ἱππαλεκτρυών , from ἵππος híppos "horse" and ἀλεκτρυών alektryōn "rooster") is a hybrid of horse and rooster in Greek mythology .

Hippalectryon in literature

The Hippalectryon is not part of a myth and is therefore rarely mentioned in Greek literature. Aeschylus mentioned in his lost tragedy The Myrmidons a hippalectryon as a decoration of a ship. Aristophanes made himself at the end of the 5th century BC. In his comedy The Frogs , he made fun of Aeschylus by having a fictional version of the poet Euripides explain that such figures did not appear in his own plays and that Aeschylus should not torment his audience with such incomprehensible terms that confused even the gods. This suggests that the Hippalectryon did not play an essential role in literature at the time of Aristophanes. There are two other comedies in which Aristophanes, also referring to the portrayal in Aeschylus' tragedy, mockingly mentions a hippalectryon. Both in The Birds and in The Peace a pretentious officer is described who puffs up like a "horse cock". The creature was not invented by Aeschylus, because it can be found in Greek vase painting and small-scale sculpture even before its time . Hesychios and Photios tried to explain the animal mentioned by Aristophanes as a griffin as a horse with a cock's head.

Hippalectryon in art

The Hippalectryon appears in black-figure vase painting around the second quarter of the 6th century BC. BC before. It has the head, torso, and forelegs of a horse and the hind legs, wings, and tail feathers of a rooster. Mostly it is depicted as standing on its hind legs and rearing up. One of the oldest depictions of this being in Greek vase painting - a frieze on a black-figure amphora in the Academic Art Museum in Bonn - shows the hippalectryon among other hybrid creatures such as sirens . In contrast to the other mythical creatures, it wears a bridle, but is shown without a rider. In most of the other depictions, the Hippalectryon carries a rider on his back, mostly a young man who is not further specified, in one case also a bearded man with a trident, who probably represents the god Poseidon .

A hippalectryon on which a warrior with a helmet rides shows a terracotta figure from Thebes in Boeotia , which probably also dates from the late Archaic period .

In contrast to many other hybrid creatures popular at this time such as the siren, the sphinx or the griffin , the Hippalectryon does not seem to go back to Egyptian or Near Eastern models and is possibly a Greek invention. Around the same time, other creatures with parts of a cock's body appeared in Greek art, including hybrid creatures of boar and cock, panther and cock, or bull and cock. Among them, however, only the Hippalectryon can be associated with a name handed down through ancient literature.

Modern reception

In the Mother Goose Rhymes, an English-language collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes (first mentioned in 1697), a "cock horse" is mentioned, which is perhaps identical with the Hippalectryon. Hippalectryen also appear in the youth book " Percy Jackson - The Battle of the Labyrinth " by Rick Riordan . The animals are considered extinct in the fantasy novel, but some still live on Geryon's ranch.

literature

Web links

Commons : Hippalektryon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aristophanes , The Frogs 932. 938.
  2. ↑ Aristophanes, The Birds 800.
  3. ↑ Aristophanes, The Peace 1177.
  4. ↑ Hesych sv γράφονται δὲ οἵ (ον) γρῦπες .
  5. ↑ Photios sv ἱππαλεκτρυών .