THE FAITHFUL HORSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE FAITHFUL HORSE.

JRE HIS DAYS NUMBERED?

juxusioirs nr litera

(By A. C. FRASER.)

'■&» our present mechanical, electric 4ge, when high-powered automobiles •nd super-aeroplanes of bullet-like

•peed are lords of locomotion by land and a jr, m«n'« oia, time-honoured , orient?, rae noree, i 3 fading alowly into the background of active affairs, surrendering inch by inch his domain of service and utility. True, there are still two supreme Wrongholds which the horse keeps uneonquered against all comers. So long as hunting and racing continue among the favourite sports of man, and betting remains one of his ruling passions, there is hope for the horee on earth! Unless the electric racehorse comes into fashion, or unless we evolve some kind of diabolical, spring- wheeled motor eyele capable of leaping hedge and ditch 5n its stride the horse is likely to reign unusurp-d on the racecourse and hunting field- The bare thought of laying two t ..-; one each way on a Douglas or an Indian Scout seems to rob betting of all its thrill and romance!

In Picture and Story

There w another important kingdom Su wh ; .''u iho horee i'yuree with distinction. In the wide realm of literature and art, almost from their very beginnings, he has held an honoured, conspicuous place. Probably no other aniunal is more worthily represented in the literary, pictorial and sculptural art of *he world. The pictures of Edwin Xandseer, Rosa Bonheur, A. J. Munuings and other famous artists of our own nation have portrayed the familiar lineaments of the horse with truth and dignity; in such famous masterpieces of sculpture as the Elgin Marbles his form stands for ever in classic perfection and life-like beauty; and in poetry and prose his record can be traced far back to ancient times.

That majestic Hebrew prose-poem, the Book of Job, contains one of the most superb word-pictures of the horse in all literature: J

XUst thou given the horse strength ? Bast/ tXVOM. t\ot\v«HV M« TV«SC\t "WYttv tYvUTV<V<«T t I Eanut ttiou inaVe Mm &tra\<\ as a gTassJ hopper? the glory of his nostras Ist terrible. < Be nawetft In the valley, and rejotceth In I ms wrengtiv; fc« goeth ©u to meet the\ armed men. . . I Re saitn among the trumpets, na hat andl he gmelleth the battle afar off, the thunder ot the captains and the shout-1 *ng. I

Still further back in antiquity, from the mists of Grecian and Roman mythology, the horse emerged into literature. Concealed in a mighty wooden horse, the Greek warriors entered the walls of the ill-fated Troy and.captured the citadel. Pegasus, the celebrated winged horse of Jupiter, which carried his dreaded thunderbolts and lightning, was worshipped by the ancient Greeks, and placed as a deity among the stars. According to mythical belief, Poseidon, god of the Mediterranean Sea, better known by his Roman name Neptunue, created the first horse in obedience to the higher gods, who commanded him to bestow on the world the most useful gift to man. The makers of the Iliad and Odyssey, whether they were few or many, are at least unanimous in admiration of the horse. There •re many glowing verses which describe the famous horses of Ashilles, of Nestor and Diomed and other Greek generals; their strength, beauty, and swiftness, their eager spirit, and their courage in •war; while the description of the Thraoian steeds, the only white horses mentioned in the Iliad, is one of the admired passages of that mighty epic. No horse has achieved more worldwide fame in literature than Rosinante, aged, decrepit, but faithful mare which carried Don Quixote de la Mancha through his gallant, immortal pilgrimage. Never has a horse's personality been identified so inseparably with that of its.master; and never perhaps, save in "The Faerie Queene," have steed and rider wandered together through a richer field of adventure and high romance than in this glorious epic of chivalry, which ranks next to the Bible.

Shakespeare's References. Shakespeare himself has more than one interesting reference to the horse; as the description of Adonis's courser in "Venus and Adonis": Round-boom, snort-Jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide. and the Dauphin's high-flown, boastful eulogy of his horse, before the battle of Agincourt, in "Henry V." Byron was another English poet who put the horse into memorable verse. In "Mazeppa," the old Cossack chieftain looking back to his youth, tells of that terrible ride when he was lashed naked to the back of a fiery Tartar steed by his Polish enemies and dragged in torment for two long days, through the forest and plains of the Ukeraine.

English poetry, and fiction, too, have many famous and thrilling "rides," in 'which the horse plays as heroic a part as its rider. There wa* Roland, the great horse who brought the news, from Ghent to Aix in Browning's rousing poem; that Sim chase over the Indian frontier after imal, the horse-thief, in Kipling's "Ballad of East and West"; Dick Turpin's celebrated ride to York on Black Bess; and the equally renowned ride of Cowper's John Gilpin, who caused such commotion on his headlong career from London to Ware. Jan Ridd, in "Lorna Doone," had a bad quarter of an hour when he first mounted Winnie, the notorious strawberry mare of Tom Fag||us, the highwayman, who had boasted than none could ride her but himself; and if ever a horse gave trouble in literature it was that tall, refractory quadruped—"an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of bone," as Dickens described it—which Pickwick, Tupman, and Snodgraes, ensconed in a chaise behind and escorted by Mr. Winkle en a saddle-horse, attempted so disastrously to drive from Rochester to Dingley Dell to see their old friend Mr. Wardle.

Masefield, of all modern poets, has moat honoured the horse, giving us in "Reynard and Fox" and "Right Royal" the finest narrative poems of English hunting and racing written in our time. In modern fiction we have such classics of horse literature as Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty"—perhaps the only instance where a horse tells the story of its own life—and Surtees' "Mr. Jorrock's Jaunts and Jollities," one of the richest collections of hunting episodes in our language. Nor must we forget Kipling's short story "The Maltese Cat," in "The Day's Work," of the little polo-pony who scored the deciding goal in that epic contest between the Skidars' and Archangels' teams on the Umballa polo ground, winning off his own hoofs the Upper India Cup. - - • * '