Chimera (Chimaera)

The Chimera or Chimaera is a monstrous fire-breathing, err...monster, composed of the parts of multiple creatures. It is formed up of a typically a lion, a goat, and a snake. But it can also be the following combinations; lion + goat + dragon, tiger + snake + goat, tiger + dragon + goat, and the dragon/snake part of the chimera can be of any species of dragon/snake. It, normally, has the body of a lion with a tail that ended in a serpent's head, and the head of a goat protrudes from the back, at the center of spine. The Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus, dioskilos, and the Lernaean Hydra. The term "chimera" has also come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy, hard to believe. And the chimera was originally depicted as a female, but the species consists of both genders.

Homer's brief description of the original chimera is the earliest surviving literary reference: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire". Elsewhere in the Iliad, Homer attributes the rearing of Chimaera to Amisodorus. Hesiod's Theogony follows the Homeric description: he makes the Chimera the issue of Echidna "She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion: in her hinderpart, a dragon: and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay" The author of the Bibliotheca concurs: descriptions agree that she breathed fire. Sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters (particularly volcanos), but those most likely were the happenings if the first chimera (Echidna's child) was seen. So this is not necessarily true for the chimera species as a whole.

The Chimera, referring to the offspring of Typhon & Echidna, finally was defeated by Bellerophon, with the help of Pegasus, at the command of King Iobates of Lycia. Since Pegasus could fly, Bellerophon shot the Chimera from the air, some stories with a spear, some with an arrow, some with a thrown sword or shield, and sometimes with just a rock. But what ever thrown, it hit The Chimera, safe from her heads and breath.

Sometimes in some places, 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. Hybrid monsters, more alikeness towards the Manticore provided several representations of hypocrisy and fraud into more modern ages. But those who remember the original likenesses, and can depict them from the new, should be honored, or at least respected, in a small manor.

More forms of chimera besides previously described:

The chimera can be known and recognized by many culture, many ways. On is that the body is that of a lion/tiger, as well as a lion/tiger's head. With this, the head is in between a dragon of any species on either side, and a goat on the other, with draconic wings protruding from the back. Then, this same body is described elsewhere, but the back or the "hind legs" are that of goat hooves (summarizing; the back half, mid torso and below, is that of a goat. Sometimes with, and sometimes without a goat's tail instead of a feline's and vice-versa). Thirdly, this form can be described as mention earlier in this paragraph, but with a dragon's tail in the back instead of a lion, goat, or tiger's. Or a lower or back half of a dragon.

--Skitch6 03:29, May 6, 2011 (UTC)