NEED AN ANSWER FAST, WILL MARK BRAINLIEST!!
How does Bellerophon’s assumption that he will enjoy a feast and court games in Lycia contribute to a theme of the story?
A. It demonstrates that self-confidence is important for one’s success.
B. It shows that excessive pride leads to one’s downfall.
C. It reveals that special people deserve exceptional treatment.
D. It explains that true heroes will eventually get their just rewards.
Story:
A very strange thing happened when Perseus so heroically cut off the head of Medusa, the Gorgon. On the spot where the blood dripped into the earth from Perseus' sword there arose a slender limbed, wonderful horse with wings on his shoulders. This horse was known as Pegasus, and there was never, before or since, so marvellous a creature.
At that time, a young hero, Bellerophon by name, made a journey from his own country to the court of King Iobates of Lycia. He brought two sealed messages in a kind of letter of introduction from the husband of this king's daughter, one of Bellerophon's own countrymen. The first message read,
"The bearer, Bellerophon, is an unconquerable hero. I pray you welcome him with all hospitality."
The second was this,
"I would advise you to put Bellerophon to death."
The truth of the matter was that the son-in-law of King Iobates was jealous of Bellerophon and really desired to have him put out of the way in order to satisfy his own ambitions.
The King of Lycia was at heart a friendly person and he was very much puzzled to know how to act upon the advice in the letter introducing Bellerophon. He was still puzzling over the matter when a dreadful monster, known as the Chimaera, descended upon the kingdom. It was a beast far beyond any of mortal kind in terror. It had a goat's rough body and the tail of a dragon. The head was that of a lion with wide spreading nostrils which breathed flames and a gaping throat that emitted poisonous breath whose touch was death. As the subjects of King Iobates appealed to him for protection from the Chimaera a sudden thought came to him. He decided to send the heroic stranger, Bellerophon, to meet and conquer the beast.
The hero had expected a period of rest at the court of Lycia. He had looked forward to a feast that might possibly be given in his honor and a chance to show his skill in throwing the discus and driving a chariot at the court games. But the day after Bellerophon arrived at the palace of King Iobates, he was sent out to hunt down and kill the Chimaera.
He had not the slightest idea where he was to go, and neither had he any plan for destroying the creature, but he decided that it would be a good plan to spend the night in the temple of Minerva before he met the danger face to face. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom and might give him help in his hopeless adventure.
So Bellerophon journeyed to Athens, the chosen city of Minerva, and tarried for a night in her temple there, so weary that he fell asleep in the midst of his supplications to the goddess. But when he awoke in the morning, he found a golden bridle in his hands, and he heard a voice directing him to hasten with it to a well outside of the city.
"Bellerophon took the golden reins firmly in his hand."
Pegasus, the winged horse, had been pasturing meanwhile in the meadows of the Muses. There were nine of these Muses, all sisters and all presiding over the arts of song and of memory. One took care of poets and another of those who wrote history. There was a Muse of the dance, of comedy, of astronomy, and in fact of whatever made life more worth while in the sight of the gods. They needed a kind of dream horse like Pegasus with wings to carry them on his back to Mount Olympus whenever they wanted to return from the earth.
Bellerophon had never known of the existence even of Pegasus, but when he reached the well to which the oracle had directed him, there stood Pegasus, or, rather, this horse of the Muses poised there, for his wings buoyed him so that his hoofs could scarcely remain upon the earth. When Pegasus saw the golden bridle that the goddess of Wisdom had given Bellerophon, he came directly up to the hero and stood quietly to be harnessed. A dark shadow crossed the sky just then; the dreaded Chimaera hovered over Bellerophon's head, its fiery jaws raining sparks down upon him.
Bellerophon mounted upon Pegasus and took the golden reins firmly in one hand as he brandished his sword in the other. He rose swiftly in the air and met the ravening creature in a fierce battle in the clouds. Not for an instant did the winged horse falter, and Bellerophon killed the Chimaera easily. It was a great relief to the people of Lycia, and indeed to people of all time. You may have heard of a Chimaera. It means nowadays any kind of terror that is not nearly so hard to conquer as it seemed in the beginning when people were afraid of it.