"Asimov, Isaac - Mythical Beasties" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

CENTAUR

The horse was tamed about 2000 B.C. by the nomads of
the Central Asian steppes, and when it drew a light chariot
bearing a driver and an armed warrior, it proved a fear-
some weapon. The horsemen conquered the entire civilized
world from India to Egypt, and held their rule until the
dominated people learned the use of the horse themselves.

By 800 B.C.. the Medes of western Asia had bred
horses large enough to carry men on their backs, and that
combination was even more fearsome. To farmers who
encountered horsemen for the first time this combination of
men and animals must have seemed monstrous.

The early Greeks were not horsepeople, for their moun-
tainous terrain and narrow valleys were not conducive to
either the breeding or the use of horses. In northern
Greece, however, there was the plain of Thessaly, and
there horses and horsemen made their appearance.

The fearful Greeks must have first seen them as horse-
human combinations, and so was born the myth of the
' 'centaur,'' finally portrayed in Greek art as a creature
with the head and torso of a human being replacing the
head and neck of a horse. For the most part, the Greeks
pictured the centaurs as barbariansЧcrude, wild. lawless,
easily made drunk, and, in that state, prone to be lascivi-
ous. Perhaps' that is how they saw the real Thessalian
horsemen.

At least one centaur, however, named Chiron, was wise,

Edward D. Hoch

noble, and learned. He was the tutor of Hercules and

Achilles, among others.

The centaur of the story that follows falls between these
two extremes.

CENTAUR FIELDER FOR THE
YANKEES

Edward D. Hoch

Let me tell you. there was a time not so long ago when a