Shakspeare alludes to Pegasus in “Henry iv.,” where Vernon describes Prince Henry: 

    “I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
     His cuishes on his thighs, gallantly armed,
     Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
     And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
     As if an angel dropped down from the clouds,
     To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
     And witch the world with noble horsemanship”

THE CENTAURS

These monsters were represented as men from the head to the loins, while the remainder of the body was that of a horse.  The ancients were too fond of a horse to consider the union of his nature with man’s as forming a very degraded compound, and accordingly the Centaur is the only one of the fancied monsters of antiquity to which any good traits are assigned.  The Centaurs were admitted to the companionship of man, and at the marriage of Pirithous with Hippodamia they were among the guests.  At the feast Eurytion, one of the Centaurs, becoming intoxicated with the wine, attempted to offer violence to the bride; the other Centaurs followed his example, and a dreadful conflict arose in which several of them were slain.  This is the celebrated battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs, a favorite subject with the sculptors and poets of antiquity.

But not all the Centaurs were like the rude guests of Pirithous.  Chiron was instructed by Apollo and Diana, and was renowned for his skill in hunting, medicine, music, and the art of prophecy.  The most distinguished heroes of Grecian story were his pupils.  Among the rest the infant—­Aesculapius was intrusted to his charge by Apollo, his father.  When the sage returned to his home bearing the infant, his daughter Ocyroe came forth to meet him, and at sight of the child burst forth into a prophetic strain (for she was a prophetess), foretelling the glory that he was to achieve Aesculapius when grown up became a renowned physician, and even in one instance succeeded in restoring the dead to life.  Pluto resented this, and Jupiter, at his request, struck the bold physician with lightning, and killed him, but after his death received him into the number of the gods.

Chiron was the wisest and justest of all the Centaurs, and at his death Jupiter placed him among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius.

THE PYGMIES

The Pygmies were a nation of dwarfs, so called from a Greek word which means the cubit or measure of about thirteen inches, which was said to be the height of these people.  They lived near the sources of the Nile, or according to others, in India.  Homer tells us that the cranes used to migrate every winter to the Pygmies’ country, and their appearance was the signal of bloody warfare to the puny inhabitants, who had to take up arms to defend their cornfields against the rapacious strangers.  The Pygmies and their enemies the Cranes form the subject of several works of art.