Difference between revisions of "Chimera (mythology)" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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==Etymology==
 
==Etymology==
The word '''chimera''' comes from the [[Greek language|Greek]] ''[[:el:Χίμαιρα (μυθολογία)|Χίμαιρα]]'', which translates as "she-goat or monster"<ref name=OED> Oxford University Press, ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (Oxford University Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X)</ref> Through the [[Latin language|Latin]] ''Chimaera'' comes the [[English language|English]] version, which has a second definition, according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', as being "An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere fancy; an un-found conception".<ref name=OED/> Along with these two meanings are a host of variants on the root word: '''Chmieric''' is something that is "fanciful or imaginary"; '''Chimerical''' is something "of the nature of the chimera; vainly or fantastically conceived"; and '''Chimerize''' is the act of indulging "in chimeras, indulge and foster wild and unfounded fancies".<ref name=OED/>
+
The word '''chimera''' comes from the [[Greek language|Greek]] ''[[:el:Χίμαιρα (μυθολογία)|Χίμαιρα]]'', which translates as "she-goat or monster."<ref name=OED> Oxford University Press, ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (Oxford University Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X)</ref> Through the [[Latin language|Latin]] ''Chimaera'' comes the [[English language|English]] version, which has a second definition, according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', as being "An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere fancy; an un-found conception."<ref name=OED/> Along with these two meanings are a host of variants on the root word: '''Chimeric''' is something that is "fanciful or imaginary"; '''Chimerical''' is something "of the nature of the chimera; vainly or fantastically conceived"; and '''Chimerize''' is the act of indulging "in chimeras, indulge and foster wild and unfounded fancies."<ref name=OED/>
  
 
==Description==
 
==Description==
  
The most common description of the chimera comes from [[Homer]]'s ''[[Illiad]]'', in which the creature is said to have the head of a [[lion]], the body of [[goat]] and tail of a [[snake]]. It is also believed to breath fire and be [[female]], despite the mane adorning the lions head.<ref>''Iliad'' VI. 179-182</ref> The chimera was said to be incredibly vicious and powerful, especially since as one single creature it possessed the abilities of three separate animals.
+
The most common description of the chimera comes from [[Homer]]'s ''[[Illiad]]'', in which the creature is said to have the head of a [[lion]], the body of a [[goat]] and tail of a [[snake]]. It is also believed to breath fire and be [[female]], despite the mane adorning the lions head.<ref>''Iliad'' VI. 179-182</ref> The chimera was said to be incredibly vicious and powerful, especially since as one single creature it possessed the abilities of three separate animals.
  
 
==Origin==
 
==Origin==
  
 
[[Image:Chimaera-Yanartas,_SW_Turkey,_8_Aug_2005.JPG|thumb|200px|right|Some say this [[geothermic]]ally active region was the inspiration for the myth]]  
 
[[Image:Chimaera-Yanartas,_SW_Turkey,_8_Aug_2005.JPG|thumb|200px|right|Some say this [[geothermic]]ally active region was the inspiration for the myth]]  
The chimera is only one of several famous [[mythology|mythological]] [[hybrid]]s: [[Pegasus]], [[Gorgon|Medusa]], the [[Minotaur]], and the [[Griffin]] are all examples of creatures that are composites of real animals. The combination of attributes often represented something to the people who created such myths. One possibility is that the chimera could actually be a representation of the land the creature is attributed to as living in [[Lycia]], [[Asia Minor]].<ref>Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'': "Chimaera"  ([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aid%3Dchimaera On-line text] Retrieved June 23, 2007.)</ref>  
+
The chimera is only one of several famous [[mythology|mythological]] [[hybrid]]s: [[Pegasus]], [[Gorgon|Medusa]], the [[Minotaur]], and the [[Griffin]] are all examples of creatures that are composites of real animals. The combination of attributes often represented something to the people who created such myths. One possibility is that the chimera could actually be a representation of the land where the creature was attributed to be living in [[Lycia]], [[Asia Minor]].<ref>Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'': "Chimaera"  ([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aid%3Dchimaera On-line text] Retrieved June 23, 2007.)</ref>  
  
 
[[Ctesias]] identified the Chimaera with an area of permanent gas vents which can still be found today by hikers on the [[Lycian Way]] in southwest [[Turkey]]. Called in Turkish ''Yanartaş'' (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of [[Hephaestus]] about 3 km north of [[Çıralı]], near ancient [[Olympos]], in [[Lycia]]. The vents emit burning [[methane]] thought to be of [[Metamorphic rock|metamorphic]] origin, which in ancient times sailors could navigate by, and which today the custodian uses to brew [[tea]]. The placename is attested by [[Isidore of Seville]] and [[Servius]], the commentator on the ''[[Aeneid]]''. Isidore quotes writers on natural history that Mount Chimaera was on fire here, had lions and goats there, and was full of snakes over there. Servius goes so far as to arrange these with the lions on the peak of the mountain, pastures full of goats in the middle, and serpents all about the base, thus imitating [[Homer]]'s description of the chimera exactly.  
 
[[Ctesias]] identified the Chimaera with an area of permanent gas vents which can still be found today by hikers on the [[Lycian Way]] in southwest [[Turkey]]. Called in Turkish ''Yanartaş'' (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of [[Hephaestus]] about 3 km north of [[Çıralı]], near ancient [[Olympos]], in [[Lycia]]. The vents emit burning [[methane]] thought to be of [[Metamorphic rock|metamorphic]] origin, which in ancient times sailors could navigate by, and which today the custodian uses to brew [[tea]]. The placename is attested by [[Isidore of Seville]] and [[Servius]], the commentator on the ''[[Aeneid]]''. Isidore quotes writers on natural history that Mount Chimaera was on fire here, had lions and goats there, and was full of snakes over there. Servius goes so far as to arrange these with the lions on the peak of the mountain, pastures full of goats in the middle, and serpents all about the base, thus imitating [[Homer]]'s description of the chimera exactly.  
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==Chimera and Bellerophon==
 
==Chimera and Bellerophon==
 
[[Image:Bellerophon Chimaera BM D205.jpg|thumb|left|200 px|Bellerophon and the Chimaera]]
 
[[Image:Bellerophon Chimaera BM D205.jpg|thumb|left|200 px|Bellerophon and the Chimaera]]
The Chimera has a small appearance in [[Greek mythology]]. The hero [[Bellerophon]] had an affair with [[Anteia]], but broke it off suddenly and would have no further contact with her. Enraged, Anteia turned to her husband, [[King Proetus]], telling him that their guest and dishonored her and deserved to die. The King however was unwilling to kill Bellerophon, so he sent him to the King of Lycia in Asia, secretly requesting that he kill Bellerophon. The King of Lycia was just as hesitant, for Bellerophon had been his guest for over a week and [[Zeus]] looked poorly on those who broke the sacred bond between guest and host. In the kingdom lived the chimera, which no one was able to kill, and thus the King of Lycia sent Bellerophon on a mission to kill the beast, knowing full well that he would perish in the act. Bellerophon had an advantage over all others who had faced the chimera, however, [[Pegasus]] the winged horse. With great ease, Bellerophon flew high above the chimera, away from its firy breath, and shot the creature full of arrows until it died.<ref> Edith Hamilton, ''Mythology'' (1942) ISBN 0316341142</ref>
+
The Chimera has a small appearance in [[Greek mythology]]. The hero [[Bellerophon]] had an affair with [[Anteia]], but broke it off suddenly and would have no further contact with her. Enraged, Anteia turned to her husband, [[King Proetus]], telling him that their guest and dishonored her and deserved to die. The King however was unwilling to kill Bellerophon, so he sent him to the King of Lycia in Asia, secretly requesting that he kill Bellerophon. The King of Lycia was just as hesitant, for Bellerophon had been his guest for over a week and [[Zeus]] looked poorly on those who broke the sacred bond between guest and host. In the kingdom lived the chimera, which no one was able to kill, and thus the King of Lycia sent Bellerophon on a mission to kill the beast, knowing full well that he would perish in the act. Bellerophon had an advantage over all others who had faced the chimera, however, [[Pegasus]] the winged horse. With great ease, Bellerophon flew high above the chimera, away from its fiery breath, and shot the creature full of arrows until it died.<ref> Edith Hamilton, ''Mythology'' (1942) ISBN 0316341142</ref>
  
 
==Artistic Representations==
 
==Artistic Representations==
[[Image:Bellerophon Khimaira Louvre A478.jpg|right|thumb|200 px|Bellerophon fighting the Chimera. Side A of an attic black-figured “double-decker” Siana cup, ca. 575–550 BC. Found in Camiros (Rhodes).]]
+
[[Image:Bellerophon Khimaira Louvre A478.jpg|right|thumb|200 px|Bellerophon fighting the Chimera. Side A of an attic black-figured “double-decker” Siana cup, ca. 575–550 B.C.E. Found in Camiros (Rhodes).]]
The Chimera was placed in foreign Lycia in [[mythology]], but its representation in the [[art]]s was wholly Greek.<ref>Anne Roes "The Representation of the Chimaera" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''54'''.1 (1934), pp. 21-25</ref> An autonomous tradition, one that did not rely on the written word, was represented in the visual repertory of the Greek vase-painters. The Chimera first appears at an early stage in the proto-Corinthian [[pottery]]-painters' repertory, providing some of the earliest identifiable mythological scenes that can be recognized in [[Art of Ancient Greece|Greek art]]. The Corinthian type is fixed, after some early hesitation, in the 670s B.C.E. The fascination with the monstrous devolved by the end of the seventh century into a decorative Chimera-motif in Corinth while the motif of Bellerophon on Pegasus took on a separate existence alone. A separate Attic tradition exists, where the goats breathe fire and the animal's rear is serpent-like. Two vase-painters employed the motif so consistently they are given the pseudonyms the Bellerophon Painter and the Chimaera Painter.  
+
The Chimera was placed in foreign Lycia in [[mythology]], but its representation in the [[art]]s was wholly Greek.<ref>Anne Roes "The Representation of the Chimaera" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''54'''.1 (1934), pp. 21-25</ref> The Chimera first appears at an early stage in the proto-Corinthian [[pottery]]-painters' repertory, providing some of the earliest identifiable mythological scenes that can be recognized in [[Art of Ancient Greece|Greek art]]. The Corinthian type is fixed, after some early hesitation, in the 670s B.C.E. The fascination with the monstrous devolved by the end of the seventh century into a decorative Chimera-motif in Corinth while the motif of Bellerophon on Pegasus took on a separate existence alone. A separate Attic tradition exists, where the goats breathe fire and the animal's rear is serpent-like. Two vase-painters employed the motif so consistently they are given the pseudonyms the Bellerophon Painter and the Chimaera Painter.  
 
[[Image:Museo archeologico di Firenze, La chimera d'arezzo 08.JPG|thumb|left|280px|"[[Chimera of Arezzo]]:" an [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan]] bronze]]
 
[[Image:Museo archeologico di Firenze, La chimera d'arezzo 08.JPG|thumb|left|280px|"[[Chimera of Arezzo]]:" an [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscan]] bronze]]
 
In [[Etruscan civilization]], the Chimera appears in the "Orientalizing" period that precedes Etruscan Archaic art; that is to say, very early indeed. The Chimera appears in Etruscan wall-paintings of the fourth century B.C.E.
 
In [[Etruscan civilization]], the Chimera appears in the "Orientalizing" period that precedes Etruscan Archaic art; that is to say, very early indeed. The Chimera appears in Etruscan wall-paintings of the fourth century B.C.E.
  
In [[Medieval]] art, though the chimera of antiquity was forgotten, chimerical figures appear as embodiments of the deceptive, even [[Satan]ic forces of raw nature. Provided with a human face and a scaly tail, as in [[Dante]]'s vision of [[Geryon]] in ''[[Inferno]]'' xvii.7-17, 25-27, hybrid monsters, actually more akin to the [[Manticore]] of [[Pliny]]'s ''Natural History'' (viii.90), provided iconic representations of hypocrisy and [[fraud]] well into the seventeenth century, through an emblematic representation in [[Cesare Ripa]]'s ''Iconologia''.<ref>John F. Moffitt, "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's "Fraude" with Reference to Bronzino's 'Sphinx'" ''Renaissance Quarterly'' '''49'''.2 (Summer  1996), pp. 303-333,</ref>
+
In [[Medieval]] art, though the chimera of antiquity was forgotten, chimerical figures appear as embodiments of the deceptive, even [[Satan]]ic forces of raw nature. Provided with a human face and a scaly tail, as in [[Dante]]'s vision of [[Geryon]] in ''[[Inferno]]'' xvii.7-17, 25-27, hybrid monsters, actually more akin to the [[Manticore]] of [[Pliny]]'s ''Natural History'' (viii.90), provided iconic representations of hypocrisy and [[fraud]] well into the seventeenth century, through an emblematic representation in [[Cesare Ripa]]'s ''Iconologia''.<ref>John F. Moffitt, "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's "Fraude" with Reference to Bronzino's 'Sphinx'" ''Renaissance Quarterly'' '''49'''.2 (Summer  1996), pp. 303-333,</ref>
  
 
==Pop Culture==
 
==Pop Culture==
  
To differing degrees, the chimera appears throughout pop culture. With many of the classical creatures, the chimera shows up in such [[role-playing games]] as the ''Dungeons and Dragons'' series, as well as popular [[video-game]] series ''Final Fantasy'', often as obstacles for the players to overcome. Many of the big names in the Science Fiction world, ''Star Wars'', ''Star Trek'' and ''The X-Files'' employe chimeras, often building upon the scientific usage of the term to describe [[biology|biological]] and [[genetics|genetic]] hybrids, sometimes monstrous creatures or [[virus]]es that science has created.
+
To differing degrees, the chimera appears throughout pop culture. With many of the classical creatures, the chimera shows up in such [[role-playing games]] as the ''Dungeons and Dragons'' series, as well as popular [[video-game]] series ''Final Fantasy'', often as obstacles for the players to overcome. Many of the most successful products in the [[Science Fiction]] genre, ''Star Wars'', ''Star Trek'', and ''The X-Files'' employ chimeras, often building upon the scientific usage of the term to describe [[biology|biological]] and [[genetics|genetic]] hybrids, sometimes monstrous creatures or [[virus]]es that science has created.
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==
Line 46: Line 46:
 
* Hamilton, Edith. 1942. ''Mythology''. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books. ISBN 0316341142
 
* Hamilton, Edith. 1942. ''Mythology''. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books. ISBN 0316341142
 
*Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. ''The Heroes of the Greeks''. (London and New York:Thames and Hudson)
 
*Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. ''The Heroes of the Greeks''. (London and New York:Thames and Hudson)
*Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'': "Chimaera"  ([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aid%3Dchimaera On-line text])
+
*Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'': "Chimaera"  ([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aid%3Dchimaera On-line text] Retrieved June 25, 2007.)
  
 
{{Credits|Chimera_(mythology)|132729169|}}
 
{{Credits|Chimera_(mythology)|132729169|}}

Revision as of 03:18, 25 June 2007


Chimera on a red-figure Apulian plate, ca 350-340 B.C.E. (Musée du Louvre)

In Greek mythology, the Chimera (from the Greek) is a monstrous creature that was composed of several different animals. The chimera is only one of several famous mythological hybrids. In some traditions the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and sister of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. While minor in literature, the chimera was nonetheless exceedingly popular in ancient art, and features in many depictions of epic scale.

In pop culture, a chimera may refers to any creation that is a hybrid, or a single entity composed of two or more distinct entities. It is often used in television shows and role-playing games, usually as an obstacle for players to overcome.

Etymology

The word chimera comes from the Greek Χίμαιρα, which translates as "she-goat or monster."[1] Through the Latin Chimaera comes the English version, which has a second definition, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as being "An unreal creature of the imagination, a mere fancy; an un-found conception."[1] Along with these two meanings are a host of variants on the root word: Chimeric is something that is "fanciful or imaginary"; Chimerical is something "of the nature of the chimera; vainly or fantastically conceived"; and Chimerize is the act of indulging "in chimeras, indulge and foster wild and unfounded fancies."[1]

Description

The most common description of the chimera comes from Homer's Illiad, in which the creature is said to have the head of a lion, the body of a goat and tail of a snake. It is also believed to breath fire and be female, despite the mane adorning the lions head.[2] The chimera was said to be incredibly vicious and powerful, especially since as one single creature it possessed the abilities of three separate animals.

Origin

File:Chimaera-Yanartas, SW Turkey, 8 Aug 2005.JPG
Some say this geothermically active region was the inspiration for the myth

The chimera is only one of several famous mythological hybrids: Pegasus, Medusa, the Minotaur, and the Griffin are all examples of creatures that are composites of real animals. The combination of attributes often represented something to the people who created such myths. One possibility is that the chimera could actually be a representation of the land where the creature was attributed to be living in Lycia, Asia Minor.[3]

Ctesias identified the Chimaera with an area of permanent gas vents which can still be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey. Called in Turkish Yanartaş (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaestus about 3 km north of Çıralı, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia. The vents emit burning methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which in ancient times sailors could navigate by, and which today the custodian uses to brew tea. The placename is attested by Isidore of Seville and Servius, the commentator on the Aeneid. Isidore quotes writers on natural history that Mount Chimaera was on fire here, had lions and goats there, and was full of snakes over there. Servius goes so far as to arrange these with the lions on the peak of the mountain, pastures full of goats in the middle, and serpents all about the base, thus imitating Homer's description of the chimera exactly.

In some traditions the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and sister of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. There are several different genealogies—in one version it mated with its brother Orthrus and mothered the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion.

Chimera and Bellerophon

Bellerophon and the Chimaera

The Chimera has a small appearance in Greek mythology. The hero Bellerophon had an affair with Anteia, but broke it off suddenly and would have no further contact with her. Enraged, Anteia turned to her husband, King Proetus, telling him that their guest and dishonored her and deserved to die. The King however was unwilling to kill Bellerophon, so he sent him to the King of Lycia in Asia, secretly requesting that he kill Bellerophon. The King of Lycia was just as hesitant, for Bellerophon had been his guest for over a week and Zeus looked poorly on those who broke the sacred bond between guest and host. In the kingdom lived the chimera, which no one was able to kill, and thus the King of Lycia sent Bellerophon on a mission to kill the beast, knowing full well that he would perish in the act. Bellerophon had an advantage over all others who had faced the chimera, however, Pegasus the winged horse. With great ease, Bellerophon flew high above the chimera, away from its fiery breath, and shot the creature full of arrows until it died.[4]

Artistic Representations

Bellerophon fighting the Chimera. Side A of an attic black-figured “double-decker” Siana cup, ca. 575–550 B.C.E. Found in Camiros (Rhodes).

The Chimera was placed in foreign Lycia in mythology, but its representation in the arts was wholly Greek.[5] The Chimera first appears at an early stage in the proto-Corinthian pottery-painters' repertory, providing some of the earliest identifiable mythological scenes that can be recognized in Greek art. The Corinthian type is fixed, after some early hesitation, in the 670s B.C.E. The fascination with the monstrous devolved by the end of the seventh century into a decorative Chimera-motif in Corinth while the motif of Bellerophon on Pegasus took on a separate existence alone. A separate Attic tradition exists, where the goats breathe fire and the animal's rear is serpent-like. Two vase-painters employed the motif so consistently they are given the pseudonyms the Bellerophon Painter and the Chimaera Painter.

"Chimera of Arezzo:" an Etruscan bronze

In Etruscan civilization, the Chimera appears in the "Orientalizing" period that precedes Etruscan Archaic art; that is to say, very early indeed. The Chimera appears in Etruscan wall-paintings of the fourth century B.C.E.

In Medieval art, though the chimera of antiquity was forgotten, chimerical figures appear as embodiments of the deceptive, even Satanic forces of raw nature. Provided with a human face and a scaly tail, as in Dante's vision of Geryon in Inferno xvii.7-17, 25-27, hybrid monsters, actually more akin to the Manticore of Pliny's Natural History (viii.90), provided iconic representations of hypocrisy and fraud well into the seventeenth century, through an emblematic representation in Cesare Ripa's Iconologia.[6]

Pop Culture

To differing degrees, the chimera appears throughout pop culture. With many of the classical creatures, the chimera shows up in such role-playing games as the Dungeons and Dragons series, as well as popular video-game series Final Fantasy, often as obstacles for the players to overcome. Many of the most successful products in the Science Fiction genre, Star Wars, Star Trek, and The X-Files employ chimeras, often building upon the scientific usage of the term to describe biological and genetic hybrids, sometimes monstrous creatures or viruses that science has created.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Oxford University Press, Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1971 ISBN 019861117X)
  2. Iliad VI. 179-182
  3. Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities: "Chimaera" (On-line text Retrieved June 23, 2007.)
  4. Edith Hamilton, Mythology (1942) ISBN 0316341142
  5. Anne Roes "The Representation of the Chimaera" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 54.1 (1934), pp. 21-25
  6. John F. Moffitt, "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's "Fraude" with Reference to Bronzino's 'Sphinx'" Renaissance Quarterly 49.2 (Summer 1996), pp. 303-333,

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Graves, Robert, [1955] 1960. The Greek Myths (Baltimore: Penguin), section 75.b, pp 252-56
  • Hamilton, Edith. 1942. Mythology. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books. ISBN 0316341142
  • Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. The Heroes of the Greeks. (London and New York:Thames and Hudson)
  • Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities: "Chimaera" (On-line text Retrieved June 25, 2007.)

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