THERE was a man of Thessaly,
And he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a thorn bush
And scratched out both his eyes.
And when he saw his eyes were out,
He danced with might and main,
Then jumped into another bush
And scratched them in again.
Thessaly (Thessalia) is the central section of mainland Greece. Surrounded by high mountain ranges encircling a low plain, it borders Macedonia to the north, Sterea Ellada to the south and Epirus to the west, while its eastern shoreline is on the Aegean. The district was the legendary home of the ancient Greek gods and of the Centaurs.
According to Greek legend, a mortal, Bellerophon (a man of Thessaly), was given the task of slaying the fire-breathing monster Chimera – a fearsome beast indeed, with its lion’s head, goat’s body and serpent’s tail. For this he used the services of an untamed flying horse called Pegasus and his first job was to subdue the winged steed. Before long, Pegasus was saddled and harnessed and Bellerophon was off to slay the monster.
Assisted by his flying horse, the Greek won many more battles from the saddle, but as his fame grew, so did his arrogance. With so many victories notched up, he felt he deserved a place on Mount Olympus, home of the gods, and this presumption infuriated Zeus, the leader of the gods. As a lesson to the young pretender, Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, who threw Bellerophon from the saddle and into a thorn bush where he was blinded (he scratched out both his eyes). Destitute and crippled, Bellerophon spent the rest of his life stumbling around and seeking a way to reverse his cruel fate. Unlike the hero of the nursery rhyme – who comically scratched his eyes in again – he never did.