∞《想像中的動物》The Book of Imaginary Beings
為表示不可能或不一致，維吉爾提到了以獅鷲養育馬。四個世紀之後，他的注釋者瑟維烏斯解釋說，獅鷲是一種身體上半部是鷹、下半部是獅的動物。為了增強文章的說服力，他又補充說獅鷲厭惡馬。不久，Jungentur jam grypes equis——「讓獅鷲與馬雜交」漸漸成為一句諺語。 在十六世紀初年，盧多維柯·阿里奧斯託記起了這個，創造了鷹馬。鷹與獅在古人的獅鷲中得到了結合；馬與獅鷲在阿里奧斯託的鷹馬中的結合，則是第二代的怪獸或創造。皮埃特羅·米切利註解說它比插翅馬帕伽索斯更為和諧。
柏勒洛豐Bellerophon捕捉的帕伽索斯Pegasus
Myths Every Child Should Know，1914插圖
關於鷹馬的細緻描寫，簡直就是為一本幻想像動物學手冊所寫的，出現在敘事詩《狂亂的羅蘭》（IV, I8）中：
此馬並非想像，確係真實，因它由獅鷲與母馬共同所生：羽翼、前肢、頭喙無一不像其父。
第一次提到這奇異的野獸多少有點故作偶然（II, 37）：
在羅訥河邊我遇見一人全身披掛，騎在一匹巨大飛馬之上。
其它詩節記敘了這生物飛行的奇蹟，以下片斷非常有名：
E vede I'oste e tutta la famiglia
E chi a finestre e chi fuor ne la via,
Tener levati al ciel gli occhi e le ciglia,
Come 1'Ecclisse o la Cometa sia.
Vede la Donna un'alta maraviglia,
Che di leggier creduta non saria:
Vede passar un gran destriero alato,
Che porta in aria un cavalliero armato.
然後她看見那地主，他的整座房子，有些人在窗邊，有些人在街上，他們都抬頭望天，仿佛天上有日蝕或者彗星正在發生。這小姐看到了那高天上的奇蹟，令人難以置信：她看見一匹巨大的有翼的馬飛過，載著一位武裝的騎士穿雲而去。
阿斯託爾弗（譯註：馬上的騎士），在該詩末尾的某一篇中，卸下馬鞍，解開韁繩，放鷹馬回歸自由。
The Hippogriff
Translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni
To signify impossibility or incongruence, Virgil spoke of breeding horses with griffons. Four centuries later, his commentator Servius explained that the griffon is an animal which in the top half of its body is an eagle and in the bottom half a lion. To strengthen his text he added that they detest horses. In time, the expression Jungentur jam grypes equis (『To cross griffons with horses』) came to be proverbial; at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Ludovico Ariosto, remembering it, invented the Hippogriff. Eagle and lion are united in the griffon of the ancients; horse and griffon in Ariosto’s Hippogriff, which makes it a second generation monster or invention. Pietro Micheli notes that it is more harmonious than the winged horse Pegasus.
A detailed description of the Hippogriff, written as for a handbook of fantastic zoology, is given in Orlando Furioso (IV,18):
The steed is not imagined but real, for it was sired by a Griffon out of a mare: like its father’s were its feathers and wings, its forelegs, head, and beak; in all its other parts it resembled its mother and was called Hippogriff; they come, though rarely, from the Rhiphaean Mountains, far beyond the icebound seas.
The Hippogriff The first mention of the strange beast is deceptively casual (II,37):
And by the Rhone I came upon a man in arms, reining in a great winged horse.
Other stanzas give us the wonder of this creature that flies. The following (IV,4) is well known:
E vede l』oste e tutta la famiglia,
E chi a finestre e chi fuor ne la via,
Tener levati al ciel gli occhi e le ciglia,
Come l』Ecclisse o la Cometa sia.
Vede la Donna un』alta maraviglia,
Che di leggier creduta non saria:
Vede passar un gran destriero alato,
Che porta in aria un cavalliero armato.
[And she saw the landlord and all his house, and some at the windows and some in the street, their eyes and brows lifted to the sky as though it were an Eclipse or Comet. The Lady saw a wonder on high not easily to be believed: she saw pass over a great winged steed, bearing through the air a knight in arms.]
Astolpho, in one of the last cantos, unsaddles and unbridles the Hippogriff and sets it free.
題圖：《瘋狂的奧蘭多》插圖局部，1819
by Auguste Dominique Ingres
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