Bellerophon
bel-ler-o-fon, a legendary hero of Greece. Iobartes, king of Lycia, was greatly troubled by a terrible monster, the Chimaera, which wrought havoc throughout his kingdom. While Iobartes was looking for a hero to destroy the Chimaera, Bellerophon appeared. He brought letters from the king's son-in-law, recommending him as a brave and unconquerable warrior, but closing with a request that the king put Bellerophon to death. Iobartes, wishing to please his son-in-law, but hesitating to violate the laws of hospitality, decided to send Bellerophon to slay the Chimaera. Some good would thus be accomplished, for if the warrior failed to kill the Chimaera, the Chimaera would certainly kill the warrior. Bellerophon was aided by the gods. Minerva gave him a golden bridle and guided the beautiful, winged steed, Pegasus, to his hand. Mounted on Pegasus, Bellerophon easily overcame the Chimaera. He performed many other valiant deeds. King Iobartes, seeing that his guest was a favorite of the gods, gave him his daughter in marriage and made him his successor to the throne. Bellerophon was made arrogant by his good fortune. Mounting his winged steed one day, he attempted to fly to heaven. Zeus, angered at such presumption, sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, and the horse threw his rider. Lamed and blinded, Bellerophon wandered lonely for a time, and then died. The expression, "Bellerophontic letters," is used to designate communications which are designed to be in some way detrimental to the bearer. See Pegasus; Chimaera
Unconscious bears, Bellerophon, like thee
His own indictment; he condemns himself.
Who reads his bosom reads immortal life,
Or nature there, imposing on her sons,
Has written fables; man was made a lie.
-Young.
Bellflower (Latin campanula, a little bell), a genus of some three hundred species. Our common species has long, narrow leaves and a slender stem about knee high carrying a half dozen delicate, swinging, bright blue bells. It is the true "bluebell" of Scotland, the identical "harebell" of Scott's Lady of the Lake:
Elastic from her fairy tread.
There are other species. The marsh bellflower is found amid wiregrass in wet, boggy places. The stem is weak and three-sided; the angles are roughened backward. The bells are nearly white. Still another species is found in the woods of Virginia and southward. The tall bellflower is an upright annual, as tall as a man. It grows like a weed in rich soil from the Great Lakes to Georgia and Arkansas. It bears a spike of sessile, blue flowers. The blossoms are rotate instead of bellshaped; the leaves are broad; the stock coarse. The plant lacks the unsurpassed delicacy of the harebell.