Manuel Lage
Mythology
According to Greek mythology, when Perseus cut off Medusa's head, something unexpected and mysterious happened: a white cloud emerged from the blood that flowed from her neck. that turned into a beautiful horse with great wings, who soon began to run and jump as no horse had ever been seen to do. Pegasus, the symbol of speed, had just been born.
Perseus rode Pegasus and undertook the return to Argos, his homeland, making a stop in the domain of Atlas, who received him with hospitality and surprise by the flying horse, to the point of offering Perseus the most beloved of his daughters, Electra, wishing to retain them. he and Pegasus. But one day Perseus heard of the existence of a more beautiful young woman who lived in distant lands and decided to go look for her. Atlas, offended, did not hesitate to kill Perseus, but the young man mounted Pegasus and fled to marry Andromeda. Then both took flight to return to their island, where they lived happily. Pegasus returned to the meadows of Olympus where he became famous, astonishing gods and mortals with his beauty and speed; which led the young Bellerophon, son of Poseidon, to fall in love with him and dream of riding him.
The way to achieve this was told to him by the diviner Heliodorus: he would need some gold bridles that Athena possessed and that he should put on Pegasus to tame him and make him his traveling companion. Athena gave them to her, but warned her that if one day she thought of being a god, Pegasus himself would punish her pride. Bellerophon bridled him and from that moment rider and winged horse were identified in such a way that mortals took him for a centaur.
A new set came to Bellerophon when he rejected Athena, wife of Proteus, under whose reign he was living. The piqued Athena accused him of seduction and Proteus sent him to the Lycian kingdom with a letter asking him to put the messenger to death. Instead of executing the request, the Lycian king sent him to fight the Chimera, a terrifying creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a snake; Bellerophon felt invincible over Pegasus and accepted the challenge.
He took his bow and arrows and let Pegasus fly until he planted himself on the Chimera, for the way to defeat this flame-breathing monster would be to shoot his arrows at him from above, out of range of his fire. The Chimera fell dead and Bellerophon lived happily in Argos with his wife and his faithful Pegasus.
But the day came when, prey to pride, he attempted to climb Olympus on the back of Pegasus; then Zeus enraged sent a horsefly that stung Pegasus under the tail, which made him rear and threw Bellerophon, who would be condemned to wander aimlessly for life, thus fulfilling Athena's warning.
Pegasus returned to his solo flight, now in the service of Zeus, father of all the gods, who made him his lightning-bearing messenger until at the end of his life he transformed him into a brilliant constellation that remains in the sky.
It is interesting to observe how the Pegasus myth remained alive in the Hispanic mind as literary and poetic inspiration. Rubén Darío sang it in one of his verses, writing:
“Alexander is inconceivable without Bucephalus;
the Cid without Babieca;
nor can there be Santiago standing,
Don Quixote without Rocinante
nor poet without Pegasus»
In one of his verses, Manuel Machado exclaims: "Pegasos, cute Pegasos rocking horses."
But long before, Don Quixote had flown on a horse, whose name:
“It is not like Bellerophon's horse, which was called Pegasus, nor like Alexander the Great's, called Bucephalus; nor like that of the furious Orlando whose name was Brilladoro, nor less Bayarte, who was Reinaldos de Montalban.»
...
Because his name is Clavileño El Alígero, whose name is in keeping with being made of wood and with the peg that he wears on his forehead and with the lightness with which he walks”
Francisco de Goya painted an etching entitled “Flying nonsense”; a man with a woman, apparently kidnapped, in full flight on the back of a winged horse.
Allegory
Returning to contemporary reality, we are going to see a series of allegories present on postage stamps, which show the strength and vividness of the Pegasus myth in Spain. In 1.905, when postage stamps usually carried effigies of monarchs, coats of arms or commemorative engravings, the first urgent correspondence stamp appeared with a Pegasus in the foreground, a symbol of speed.
In 1.925 a new stamp for urgent correspondence is issued and again the allegory of Pegasus in a frontal drawing of great expressive force. In 1930 another stamp with the engraving “Flying nonsense” of Goya.
On the occasion of the Centenary of the Foundation of Montserrat in 1.931, a new stamp also appears for urgent correspondence and once again we have to our Pegasus rearing up in the sky.
In 1934 a new urgency stamp shows a group of horses and wings, an allegory of speed and speed.
In 1.936 within the series of the XL Anniversary of the Press Association, we find another allegory of the flying horse, but in this case it is not Pegaso but Clavileño, flying over the city of Madrid. In 1937, in the middle of the civil war, we found a new image of Pegasus in a new format and color stamp, printed in the national zone. In 1.939 the rate rises from 20 to 25 cts. and another stamp appears with another new graphic interpretation of Pegasus. This stamp, renewed in 1.942 in pink, will be the last philatelic Pegasus.
The Clavileños appear again on the 1.947 stamps on the occasion of the IV Centenary of the birth of Cervantes and on those of 1.966 on the occasion of the XVII Congress of the International Astronautical Federation.
Realidad
In the first decade of the XNUMXth century, several realities appeared in Spain with reference to the mythological and flying horse: At the beginning of the century, the first gasoline car of Emilio de la Cuadra was baptized by its creator as Centauro, a truly premonitory term for the car that would be the ultimate ancestor of the Pegasus. Later, one of the first fuel brands in our country was The Clavileno, gasoline for automobiles, which it proclaimed in its advertising of 1.909 "Does not dirty the valves."
In 1930 Jesús Batlló from Barcelona participated in speedboat competitions with his, which displayed the name Pegaso on its side.
In the 40s, a Navy coastguard built by EN Bazán in Cartagena was baptized with the name Pegaso.
In 1.947, a few months after the creation of ENASA, we attended to the materialization of the beautiful myth of Pegasus and to the incarnation of the allegory, now under the sign of power. The name of Pegaso had just been registered as a brand for the trucks that were going to be part of the history of Spain for half a century.
