In Pegasus et Bellerophon: A Latin Novella, Pegasus feels freest when he’s soaring through the sky, but he also feels terribly lonely. He’s desperate for a friend.
Then Minerva unexpectedly shows up and says, “A man is coming, and he is bringing a bridle. If you help him, you will have true friendship.” Pegasus, however, is offended! He’s not some horse who wears a bridle!
And yet he wants a friend. What is he willing to sacrifice for friendship? More importantly, what does it mean to have—and be—a true friend?
Pegasus et Bellerophon is intended for use in Latin I or Latin II. This novella may be appropriate at other levels depending on the students’ years of study and its intended use. The first chapter is available here.
Pegasus et Bellerophon: A Latin Novella is available on Amazon and in bulk discounts on Bombax Press.
About the Plot of Pegasus et Bellerophon: A Latin Novella
Pegasus lives alone in the woods and is desperate for a friend. When Minerva tells him that he will have true friendship if he helps a man who is bringing a bridle, Pegasus is torn. He desperately wants true friendship, but at what cost? He loves his life and his freedom, and yet the man’s bridle is a powerful symbol of confinement.
In this novella, Pegasus meets Bellerophon whose quest is to slay the dangerous fire-breathing chimaera. Pegasus’s character strikes a balance between innocent and hopeful while being intelligent and snarky. Bellerophon, on the other hand, is proud and bombastic… without having many useful ideas of his own.
On their journey together, Pegasus learns what it means to have (and be) a true friend. Pegasus makes sacrifices again and again. He risks his life to help Bellerophon kill the chimaera. What, though, does Bellerophon do? How does Bellerophon treat Pegasus?Friendship is a powerful theme in the novella, and one that is particularly apt for students in secondary school.
To help keep the storyline tight and focused on its primary theme of friendship, some details about Pegasus as well as Bellerophon are omitted. This includes information about Pegasus’ lineage, the reason for Bellerophon’s quest, and some additional challenges beyond the chimaera. The story is told from Pegasus’ perspective. As such, the reader knows as much about Bellerophon as Pegasus does and will have to form independent judgments about his character.
About the Vocabulary and Grammar
The vocabulary is intentionally sheltered to allow for more extensive and independent reading. The novella contains about 4,200 words, and it uses only 139 total unique words. Of those words, some are clear cognates, names, or glosses that were essential to the story but appeared fewer than ten times. When those words are removed from the 139 words that constitute the novella’s 4,200 word length, a student would need a working vocabulary of 105 words to read this text.
In addition, I paid careful attention to the frequency that words appear in Latin literature. When choosing between synonyms, for example, I chose the more common word. I am also careful about what I consider to be a cognate and choose only words that I consider to be especially clear and in most students’ English vocabulary. After all, it doesn’t matter if a word is a clear cognate if it’s not in a typical student’s vocabulary.
Unlike the vocabulary, the grammar in this novella is not sheltered. This story is in the present tense. However, some of the events in the novella are then retold in the past tense, usually the perfect, in later chapters. As such, students will encounter some verbs in the perfect and imperfect tenses. The novella, though, is rich with dialogue, so readers will also encounter some verbs in the future tense. This novella uses the deponent verbs loqui and vehi, so students will see these forms in the present tense, particularly as infinitives.
About the Artwork in Pegasus et Bellerophon
The original cover art for Pegasus et Bellerophon: a Latin Novella is a combined image by DarkWorkX and Oregongal on Pixabay. My neighbor Linda Renaud, whose nature photography and watercolor wax batik artwork are on www.lindarenaudart.com, altered the image with Photoshop to turn the picture into the cover design.
Inside the book, the artwork is all in the public domain in the United States and the country of origin. Many of the pictures inside the novella are in museums. Each image is accompanied with a small caption in Latin, and a bibliography with URLs is available to those who would like to incorporate the images into their lessons.
Pegasus and Bellerophon fighting the chimaera, from the Getty Museum. 
Volāre in caelō Pēgasum dēlectat (Gestel). 
About the Text Features
Pegasus et Bellerophon has a full index of word forms. In the index, the reader can look up all unknown words. The index lists verbs separately. As such, a reader could independently look up both vult and volunt without knowing the dictionary entry of the word. The index provides a general translation of the word. Verbs include a translation that is grammatically appropriate and would fit the context of the sentence. This text also contains a dictionary. This dictionary offers all the principal parts. The dictionary notes how frequently the words appear in Latin Literature according to the Core Latin Vocabulary or Essential Latin vocabulary.
If you would like to review the vocabulary used in Pegasus et Bellerophon: A Latin Novella, the dictionary is available here.
