EXAMPLE 9. Of the Lycian Women.
That which is reported to have fallen out in Lycia,
although it be fabulous, hath yet common fame attesting
it. Amisodarus, as they say, whom the Lycians call Isaras,
came from a colony of the Lycians about Zeleia, bringing
with him pirate ships, which Chimarrhus, a warlike man,
who was also savage and brutish, was commander of. He
sailed in a ship which had a lion carved on her head and a
dragon on her stern. He did much mischief to the Lycians,
so that they could not sail on the sea nor inhabit the towns
nigh the sea-coast.
This man Bellerophon pursued with his Pegasus and
slew him, and also defeated the Amazons, for which he
obtained no due requital, but lobates the king was most
unjust to him; upon which Bellerophon went to the seashore, and made earnest supplication by himself to Neptune that he would render that country barren and
unfruitful; and having said his prayers, he faced about.
Upon which the waves of the sea arose and overwhelmed
the land, and it was a dreadful sight to behold the lofty
billows following Bellerophon and drowning the plain.
And now, when the men by their deprecation, laboring to
put a stop to Bellerophon, availed nothing at all, the
women plucking up their petticoats met him full butt;
upon which confounded with shame he turned back again,
and the flood, as they say, returned with him. But some
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unriddle the fabulous part of this story, by telling us that
it was not by execrations that he brought up the sea; but
the fattest part of the plain lying lower than the sea, and
a certain ridge extending itself all along the shore which
beat off the sea, Bellerophon broke through this, so that
the sea forcibly flowed in and overwhelmed the plain; and
when the men by their humble addresses obtained nothing,
the women assembling about him in multitudes gained respect from him and pacified his wrath. Some tell us that
the celebrated Chimaera was a mountain opposite to the
sun, which caused reflections of the sun's beams, and in
summer ardent and fiery heats, which spread over the
plain and withered the fruits; and Bellerophon, finding out
the reason of the mischief, cut through the smoothest part
of the cliff, which especially caused these reflections. But
on seeing that he was treated ungratefully, his indignation
was excited to take vengeance on the Lycians, but was appeased by the women. The reason which Nymphis (in the
fourth book concerning Heraclea) doth assign is to me not
at all fabulous; for he saith, when Bellerophon slew a certain wild boar, which destroyed the cattle and fruits in the
province of the Xanthians, and received no due reward of
his service, he prayed to Neptune for vengeance, and obtained that all the fields should cast forth a salt dew and
be universally corrupted, the soil becoming bitter; which
continued till he, condescendingly regarding the women suppliants, prayed to Neptune, and removed his wrath from
them. Hence there was a law among the Xanthians, that
they should not for the future derive their names from their
fathers, but from their mothers.
