Chimera (Barth novel) Bellerophon: The Greek mythic hero who first tamed Pegasus and slayed the Chimera, becoming the King of Lycia. Also called "Bell," he's Perseus's younger cousin and he constantly compares himself self-consciously to the older hero. The Narrator: Somewhat a version of Bellerophon, he was "transformed by the seer Polyeidus into a version of Bellerophon's life" in order to tell this story (138). He constantly questions his own adequacy for the task, and his narrative doubts perpetually intrude in the story. Philonoe: Bellerophon's wife. She loves Bellerophon and is comfortable in her life, but she sees every delight in life as
Chimera (mythology) air, safe from her heads and breath. A scholiast to Homer adds that he finished her off by equipping his spear with a lump of lead that melted when exposed to the Chimera's fiery breath and consequently killed her, an image drawn from metalworking. Robert Graves suggests, "The Chimera was, apparently, a calendar-symbol of the tripartite year, of which the seasonal emblems were lion, goat, and serpent." The Chimera was situated in foreign Lycia, but her representation in the arts was wholly Greek. An autonomous tradition, one that did not rely on the written word, was represented in the visual