384 ST. MARK’S REST

of colour prosaically useful, this horse has a deeper kinship with the air. Many of the ancient histories and vasepaintings tell us that Perseus, when he saved Andromeda, was mounted on Pegasus. Look now here at the mane and tail, swept still back upon the wind, though already the passionate onset has been brought to sudden pause in that crash of encounter. Though the flash of an earthly fire be in his eye, its force in his limbs-though the clothing of his neck be Chthonian thunder-this steed is brother, too, to that one, born by furthest ocean wells, whose wild mane and sweeping wings stretch through the firmament as light is breaking over earth. More: these masses of billowy hair tossed upon the breeze of heaven are set here for a sign that this, though but one of the beasts that perish, has the roots of his strong nature in the power of heavenly life, and is now about His business who is Lord of heaven and Father of men. The horse is thus, as we shall see, opposed to certain other signs, meant for our learning, in the dream of horror round this monster’s den.*

224. St. George, armed to his throat, sits firmly in the saddle. All the skill gained in a chivalric youth, all the might of a soldier’s manhood, he summons for this strange tourney, stooping slightly and gathering his strength as he drives the spear-point straight between his enemy’s jaws. His face is very fair, at once delicate and powerful, wellbred in the fullest bearing of the words; a Plantagenet face in general type, but much refined. The lower lip is pressed upwards, the brow knit, in anger and disgust partly, but more in care-and care not so much concerning the fight’s ending, as that this thrust in it shall now be rightly dealt. His hair flows in bright golden ripples, strong as those of a great spring whose up-welling waters circle through some clear pool, but it breaks at last to float over brow and

* This cloudlike effect is through surface rubbing perhaps more marked now than Carpaccio intended, but must always have been most noticeable. It produces a very striking resemblance to the Pegasus or the Ram of Phrixus on Greek vases.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]