The horse

They don't really say.

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The characters were just reacting to the fact they'd left a man behind I think. They all wanted the horse off the raft, but immediately realized they had cast off one of their own (horse is wearing their colors and whatnot) and that they also could have eaten the horse if things got worse.

So they were reacting to their act of casting off the horse, not anything in particular that happened to it on the river bank.

Well they were shocked that their emperor threw his horse over board.
And on a more human level they realise that they could use that horse for food for couple of weeks.

They don't really say, but it's an interesting image.

The horse watches as they float away; fear of abandonment in the hostile environment greater than the madness of Aguirre?

Perhaps the horse is Aguirre's vision of El Dorado, slowly disappearing behind the jungle?

It is no place for conquistadors; they are all, doomed foreigners, even the horse.

My take on the horse scene is that the horse, being an animal should abandon the ship as not to follow the rest of the maniacs to... hell. Yes, hell.
The film is highly symbolic and allegorical and I feel that the whole concept is based on a trip without return to hell. Aguirre's sick megalomania and vanity leads the also greedy crew to follow him to a symbolic hell, that Herzog portrays through jungle fever and ultimate death. The horse goes ape before the final stage of the trip, when they go full downhill and insane, and is therefore left behind in this beautiful surrealist scene.

I got the impression that the horse survived. Horses can swim, so he/she probably made it on solid ground, unless he/she was killed by the Indians.



Live your life. Forget your age.

I only saw this movie once, many years ago, but the haunting image of the horse's face as the men slowly drift away stays in my mind.