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Pegasus or Pegasos, the offspring of Medusa and Poseidon, was the symbol of poetic inspiration. Its association with Perseus and Bellerophon, with the fountain of Peirene and the heights, of Olympus, may all be found duly set forth in classic' story and engraved or sculptured on the gems and marbles of antiquity. It is also introduced in medieval heraldry, but there seems to be no reference in any book of this period to lead us to suppose that it was then regarded as a living verity. Shakespeare refers to it from time to time, but in one case it is only as an inn-sign, and in another the very terms employed indicate that the reference to it must be taken in a poetic rather than a literal sense. The first of the two to which we allude will be found in the " Taming of the Shrew," and runs as follows:
" Signior Baptista may remember me, Near twenty years ago, in Genoa, Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus." Henry IV. ;" it will probably be very familiar to many of our readers : " I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship." The arms of the Barrister Templars of the present day consist of the Pegasus on an azure shield. The original devices of the Templars were the Agnus Dei, a device that may still be seen carved on the Temple buildings in London, and two knights riding one behind the other on the same horse. This badge or device was originally chosen to denote the poverty of the order in its earlier days, but at a later day, when the symbol was misunderstood, these two rude figures of knights were taken for wings, and hence we get the modern device of the winged steed or Pegasus. |