Brushes with greatness

“When the Ideal is manifested in the work-a-day world, it does not put to shame the creatures of a day — it brings them nearer to itself. Thus, when Homer causes Pedasus, a mortal thorough-bread, to be put in as an outrigger with the divine horses of Achilles, he is careful to tell us that Pedasus, though he ‘was only an ordinary horse’, kept up with the immortal pair.”

— E. V. Rieu

Hom. Il. 16.151-154:
“In the side traces he set the noble horse Pedasus, whom Achilles had brought away with him when he sacked the city of Eetion, and who, mortal steed though he was, could take his place along with those that were immortal.”