his own son, and checked him if he was fierce and quarrelsome, as so
strong a boy was apt to be. He was trained in all the exercises of young
men, the use of spear and sword, shield and bow; and in running,
leaping, hunting, rowing, and the art of sailing a boat. There were no
books in Seriphos, nobody could read or write; but Perseus was told the
stories of old times, and of old warriors who slew monsters by sea and
land. Most of the monsters had been killed, as Perseus was sorry to
hear, for he desired to try his own luck with them when he came to be a
man. But the most terrible of all, the Gorgons, who were hated by men
and gods, lived still, in an island near the Land of the Dead; but the
way to that island was unknown. These Gorgons were two sisters, and a
third woman; the two were hideous to look on, with hair and wings and
claws of bronze, and with teeth like the white tusks of swine. Swinish
they were, ugly and loathsome, feeding fearfully on the bodies of
unburied men. But the third Gorgon was beautiful save for the living
serpents that coiled in her hair. She alone of the three Gorgons was
mortal, and could be slain, but who could slay her? So terrible were her
eyes that men who had gone up against her were changed into pillars of
stone.
This was one of the stories that Perseus heard when he was a boy; and
there was a proverb that this or that hard task was 'as difficult to do
as to slay the Gorgon.' Perseus, then, ever since he was a little boy,
was wondering how he could slay the Gorgon and become as famous as the
strong man Heracles, or the good knight Bellerophon, who slew the
Chimaera. Perseus was always thinking of such famous men as these, and
especially loved the story of Bellerophon, which is this:
In the city of Ephyre, now called Corinth, was a king named Glaucus, who
had a son, Bellerophon. He was brought up far from home, in Argos, by
King Proetus (the great-uncle of Perseus), who was his foster-father,
and loved him well. Proetus was an old man, but his wife, Anteia, was
young and beautiful, and Bellerophon also was beautiful and young, and,
by little and little, Anteia fell in love with him, and could not be
happy without him, but no such love was in Bellerophon's heart for her,
who was his foster-mother. At last Anteia, forgetting all shame, told
Bellerophon that she loved him, and hated her husband; and she asked him
to fly with her to the seashore, where she had a ship lying ready, and
they two would sail to some island far away, and be happy together.
Bellerophon knew not what to say; he could not wrong King Proetus, his
foster-father. He stood speechless, his face was red with shame, but the
face of Anteia grew white with rage.
'Dastard!' she said, 'thou shalt not live long in Argos to boast of my
love and your own virtue!' She ran from him, straight to King Proetus,
and flung herself at his feet. 'What shall be done, oh king,' she cried,
'to the man who speaks words of love dishonourable to the Queen of
Argos?'
'By the splendour of Zeus,' cried Proetus, 'if he were my own foster-son
he shall die!'
'Thou hast named him!' said Anteia, and she ran to her own upper
chamber, and locked the door, and flung herself on the bed, weeping for
rage as if her heart would break. Proetus followed her, but she would
not unlock her door, only he heard her bitter weeping, and he went
apart, alone, and took thought how he should be revenged on Bellerophon.
He had no desire to slay him openly, for then the King of Ephyre would
make war against him. He could not bring him to trial before the judges,
for there was no witness against him except Anteia; and he did not
desire to make his subjects talk about the queen, for it was the glory
of a woman, in those days, not to be spoken of in the conversation of
men.
Therefore Proetus, for a day or two, seemed to favour Bellerophon more
kindly than ever. Next he called him into his chamber, alone, and said
that it was well for young men to see the world, to cross the sea and
visit foreign cities, and win renown. The eyes of Bellerophon brightened
at these words, not only because he desired to travel, but because he
was miserable in Argos, where he saw every day the angry eyes of Anteia.
Then Proetus said that the King of Lycia, in Asia far across the sea,
was his father-in-law, and his great friend. To him he would send
Bellerophon, and Proetus gave him a folded tablet, in which he had
written many deadly signs. Bellerophon took the folded tablet, not
looking, of course, at what was written in it, and away he sailed to
Lycia. The king of that country received him well, and on the tenth day
after his arrival asked him if he brought any token from King Proetus.
Bellerophon gave him the tablet, which he opened and read. The writing
said that Bellerophon must die. Now at that time Lycia was haunted by a
monster of no human birth; her front was the front of a lion, in the
middle of her body she was a goat, she tapered away to a strong swift
serpent, and she breathed flame from her nostrils. The King of Lycia,
wishing to get rid of Bellerophon, had but to name this curse to his
guest, who vowed that he would meet her if he might find her. So he was
led to the cavern where she dwelt, and there he watched for her all
night till the day dawned.
He was cunning as well as brave, and men asked him why he took with him
no weapon but his sword, and two spears with heavy heads, not of bronze,
but of soft lead. Bellerophon told his companions that he had his own
way of fighting, and bade them go home, and leave him alone, while his
charioteer stood by the horses and chariot in a hollow way, out of
sight. Bellerophon himself watched, lying on his face, hidden behind a
rock in the mouth of the cavern. The moment that the rising sun touched
with a red ray the dark mouth of the cave, forth came the Chimaera, and,
setting her fore paws on the rock, looked over the valley. The moment
that she opened her mouth, breathing flame, Bellerophon plunged his
leaden spears deep down her throat, and sprang aside. On came the
Chimaera, her serpent tail lashing the stones, but Bellerophon ever kept
on the further side of a great tall rock. The Chimaera ceased to pursue
him, she rolled on the earth, uttering screams of pain, for the lead was
melting in the fire that was within her, and at last the molten lead
burned through her, and she died. Bellerophon hacked off her head, and
several feet of her tail, stowed them in his chariot, and drove back to
the palace of the King of Lycia, while the people followed him with
songs of praise.
The king set him three other terrible tasks, but he achieved each of the
adventures gloriously, and the king gave him his daughter to be his
bride, and half of all the honours of his kingdom. This is the story of
Bellerophon (there were other ways of telling it), and Perseus was
determined to do as great deeds as he. But Perseus was still a boy, and
he did not know, and no man could tell him, the way to the island of the
Gorgons.
When Perseus was about sixteen years old, the King of Seriphos,
Polydectes, saw Danae, fell in love with her, and wanted to take her
into his palace, but he did not want Perseus. He was a bad and cruel
man, but Perseus was so much beloved by the people that he dared not
kill him openly. He therefore made friends with the lad, and watched him
carefully to see how he could take advantage of him. The king saw that
he was of a rash, daring and haughty spirit, though Dictys had taught
him to keep himself well in hand, and that he was eager to win glory.
The king fell on this plan: he gave a great feast on his birthday, and
invited all the chief men and the richest on the island; Perseus, too,
he asked to the banquet. As the custom was, all the guests brought
gifts, the best that they had, cattle, women-slaves, golden cups, wedges
of gold, great vessels of bronze, and other splendid things, and the
king met the guests at the door of his hall, and thanked them
graciously.
Last came Perseus: he had no gift to give, for he had nothing of his
own. The others began to sneer at him, saying, 'Here is a birthday guest
without a birthday gift!' 'How should No Man's son have a present fit
for a king.' 'This lad is lazy, tied to his mother; he should long ago
have taken service with the captain of a merchant ship.' 'He might at
least watch the town's cows on the town's fields,' said another. Thus
they insulted Perseus, and the king, watching him with a cruel smile,
saw his face grow red, and his blue eyes blaze, as he turned from one to
another of the mockers, who pointed their fingers at him and jeered.
At last Perseus spoke: 'Ye farmers and fishers, ye ship-captains and
slave dealers of a little isle, I shall bring to your master such a
present as none of you dare to seek. Farewell. Ye shall see me once
again and no more. I go to slay the Gorgon, and bring such a gift as no
king possesses--the Head of the Gorgon.'
They laughed and hooted, but Perseus turned away, his hand on his sword
hilt, and left them to their festival, while the king rejoiced in his
heart. Perseus dared not see his mother again, but he spoke to Dictys,
saying that he knew himself now to be of an age when he must seek his
fortune in other lands; and he bade Dictys guard his mother from wrong,
as well as he might. Dictys promised that he would find a way of
protecting Danae, and he gave Perseus three weighed wedges of gold
(which were called 'talents,' and served as money), and lent him a ship,
to take him to the mainland of Greece, there to seek his fortune.
In the dawn Perseus secretly sailed away, landed at Malea, and thence
walked and wandered everywhere, seeking to learn the way to the island
of the Gorgons. He was poorly clad, and he slept at night by the fires
of smithies, where beggars and wanderers lay: listening to the stories
they told, and asking old people, when he met them, if they knew any one
who knew the way to the island of the Gorgons. They all shook their
heads. 'Yet I should be near knowing,' said one old man, 'if that isle
be close to the Land of the Dead, for I am on its borders. Yet I know
nothing. Perchance the dead may know; or the maid that prophesies at
Pytho, or the Selloi, the priests with unwashen feet, who sleep on the
ground below the sacred oaks of Zeus in the grove of Dodona far away.'
Perseus could learn no more than this, and he wandered on and on. He
went to the cave that leads down to the Land of the Dead, where the
ghosts answer questions in their thin voices, like the twittering of
bats. But the ghosts could not tell him what he desired to know. He went
to Pytho, where the maid, in her song, bade him seek the land of men who
eat acorns instead of the yellow grain of Demeter, the goddess of
harvest. Thence he wandered to Epirus, and to the Selloi who dwell in
the oak forest of Zeus, and live on the flour ground from acorns. One of
them lay on the ground in the wood, with his head covered up in his
mantle, and listened to what the wind says, when it whispers to the
forest leaves. The leaves said, 'We bid the young man be of good hope,
for the gods are with him.'
This answer did not tell Perseus where the isle of the Gorgons lay, but
the words put hope in his heart, weary and footsore as he was. He ate of
the bread made of the acorns, and of the flesh of the swine that the
Selloi gave him, and he went alone, and, far in the forest, he laid his
head down on the broad mossy root of an old oak tree. He did not sleep,
but watched the stars through the boughs, and he heard the cries of the
night-wandering beasts in the woodland.
'If the gods be with me, I shall yet do well,' he said, and, as he
spoke, he saw a white clear light moving through the darkness. That
clear white light shone from a golden lamp in the hand of a tall and
beautiful woman, clad in armour, and wearing, hung by a belt from her
neck, a great shield of polished bronze. With her there came a young
man, with winged shoon of gold on his feet, and belted with a strange
short curved sword: in his hand was a golden wand, with wings on it, and
with golden serpents twisted round it.
Perseus knew that these beautiful folk were the Goddess Athene, and
Hermes, who brings all fortunate things. He fell upon his face before
them, but Athene spoke in a sweet grave voice, saying, 'Arise, Perseus,
and speak to us face to face, for we are of your kindred, we also are
children of Zeus, the Father of gods and men.'
Then Perseus arose and looked straight into their eyes.
'We have watched you long, Perseus, to learn whether you have the heart
of a hero, that can achieve great adventures; or whether you are an idle
dreaming boy. We have seen that your heart is steadfast, and that you
have sought through hunger, and long travel to know the way wherein you
must find death or win glory. That way is not to be found without the
help of the gods. First you must seek the Three Grey Women, who dwell
beyond the land that lies at the back of the North Wind. They will tell
you the road to the three Nymphs of the West, who live in an island of
the sea that never knew a sail; for it is beyond the pillars that
Heracles set up when he wearied in his journey to the Well of the
World's End, and turned again. You must go to these nymphs, where never
foot of man has trod, and they will show you the measure of the way to
the Isle of the Gorgons. If you see the faces of the Gorgons, you will
be turned to stone. Yet you have vowed to bring the head of the youngest
of the three, she who was not born a Gorgon but became one of them by
reason of her own wickedness. If you slay her, you must not see even her
dead head, but wrap it round in this goat-skin which hangs beside my
shield; see not the head yourself, and let none see it but your
enemies.'
'This is a great adventure,' said Perseus, 'to slay a woman whom I may
not look upon, lest I be changed into stone.'
'I give you my polished shield,' said Athene. 'Let it never grow dim, if
you would live and see the sunlight.' She took off her shield from her
neck, with the goat-skin cover of the shield, and hung them round the
neck of Perseus. He knelt and thanked her for her grace, and, looking up
through a clear space between the forest boughs, he said, 'I see the
Bear, the stars of the North that are the guide of sailors. I shall walk
towards them even now, by your will, for my heart burns to find the
Three Grey Women, and learn the way.'
Hermes smiled, and said, 'An old man and white-bearded would you be, ere
you measured out that way on foot! Here, take my winged sandals, and
bind them about your feet. They know all the paths of the air, and they
will bring you to the Three Grey Women. Belt yourself, too, with my
sword, for this sword needs no second stroke, but will cleave through
that you set it to smite.'
So Perseus bound on the Shoes of Swiftness, and the Sword of Sharpness,
the name of it was Herpe; and when he rose from binding on the shoon, he
was alone. The gods had departed. He drew the sword, and cut at an oak
tree trunk, and the blade went clean through it, while the tree fell
with a crash like thunder. Then Perseus rose through the clear space in
the wood, and flew under the stars, towards the constellation of the
Bear. North of Greece he flew, above the Thracian mountains, and the
Danube (which was then called the Ister) lay beneath him like a long
thread of silver. The air grew cold as he crossed lands then unknown to
the Greeks, lands where wild men dwelt, clad in the skins of beasts, and
using axe-heads and spear-heads made of sharpened stones. He passed to
the land at the back of the North Wind, a sunny warm land, where the
people sacrifice wild asses to the God Apollo. Beyond this he came to a
burning desert of sand, but far away he saw trees that love the water,
poplars and willows, and thither he flew.
He came to a lake among the trees, and round and round the lake were
flying three huge grey swans, with the heads of women, and their long
grey hair flowed down below their bodies, and floated on the wind. They
sang to each other as they flew, in a voice like the cry of the swan.
They had but one eye among them, and but one tooth, which they passed to
each other in turn, for they had arms and hands under their wings.
Perseus dropped down in his flight, and watched them. When one was
passing the eye to the other, none of them could see him, so he waited
for his chance and took it, and seized the eye.
'Where is our eye? Have _you_ got it?' said the Grey Woman from whose
hand Perseus took it. 'I have it not.'
'I have it not!' cried each of the others, and they all wailed like
swans.
'I have it,' said Perseus, and hearing his voice they all flew to the
sound of it but he easily kept out of their way. 'The eye will I keep,'
said Perseus, 'till you tell me what none knows but you, the way to the
Isle of the Gorgons.'
'We know it not,' cried the poor Grey Women. 'None knows it but the
Nymphs of the Isle of the West: give us our eye!'
'Then tell me the way to the Nymphs of the Isle of the West,' said
Perseus.
'Turn your back, and hold your course past the isle of Albion, with the
white cliffs, and so keep with the land on your left hand, and the
unsailed sea on your right hand, till you mark the pillars of Heracles
on your left, then take your course west by south, and a curse on you!
Give us our eye!'
Perseus gave them their eye, and she who took it flew at him, but he
laughed, and rose high above them and flew as he was told. Over many and
many a league of sea and land he went, till he turned to his right from
the Pillars of Heracles (at Gibraltar), and sailed along, west by south,
through warm air, over the lonely endless Atlantic waters. At last he
saw a great blue mountain, with snow feathering its crests, in a far-off
island, and on that island he alighted. It was a country of beautiful
flowers, and pine forests high on the hill, but below the pines all was
like a garden, and in that garden was a tree bearing apples of gold, and
round the tree were dancing three fair maidens, clothed in green, and
white, and red.
'These must be the Nymphs of the Isle of the West,' said Perseus, and he
floated down into the garden, and drew near them.
As soon as they saw him they left off dancing, and catching each other
by the hands they ran to Perseus laughing, and crying, 'Hermes, our
playfellow Hermes has come!' The arms of all of them went round Perseus
at once, with much laughing and kissing. 'Why have you brought a great
shield, Hermes?' they cried, 'here there is no unfriendly god or man to
fight against you.'
Perseus saw that they had mistaken him for the god whose sword and
winged shoon he wore, but he did not dislike the mistake of the merry
maidens.
'I am not Hermes,' he said, 'but a mortal man, to whom the god has
graciously lent his sword and shoon, and the shield was lent to me by
Pallas Athene. My name is Perseus.'
The girls leaped back from him, blushing and looking shy. The eldest
girl answered, 'We are the daughters of Hesperus, the God of the Evening
Star. I am Aegle, this is my sister Erytheia, and this is Hesperia. We
are the keepers of this island, which is the garden of the gods, and
they often visit us; our cousins, Dionysus, the young god of wine and
mirth, and Hermes of the Golden Wand come often; and bright Apollo, and
his sister Artemis the huntress. But a mortal man we have never seen,
and wherefore have the gods sent you hither?'
'The two gods sent me, maidens, to ask you the way to the Isle of the
Gorgons, that I may slay Medusa of the snaky hair, whom gods and men
detest.'
'Alas!' answered the nymphs, 'how shall you slay her, even if we knew
the way to that island, which we know not?'
Perseus sighed: he had gone so far, and endured so much, and had come to
the Nymphs of the Isle of the West, and even they could not tell how to
reach the Gorgons' island.
[Illustration: PERSEUS IN THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES.]
'Do not fear,' said the girl, 'for if we know not the way we know one
that knows it: Atlas is his name--the Giant of the Mountain. He dwells
on the highest peak of the snow-crested hill, and it is he who holds up
the heavens, and keeps heaven and earth asunder. He looks over all the
world, and over the wide western sea: him we must ask to answer your
question. Take off your shield, which is so heavy, and sit down with us
among the flowers, and let us think how you may slay the Gorgon.'
Perseus gladly unslung his heavy shield, and sat down among the white
and purple wind flowers. Aegle, too, sat down; but young Erytheia held
the shield upright, while beautiful Hesperia admired herself, laughing,
in the polished surface.
Perseus smiled as he watched them, and a plan came into his mind. In all
his wanderings he had been trying hard to think how, if he found the
Gorgon, he might cut off her head, without seeing the face which turned
men into stone. Now his puzzle was ended. He could hold up the shield
above the Gorgon, and see the reflection of her face, as in a mirror,
just as now he saw the fair reflected face of Hesperia. He turned to
Aegle, who sat silently beside him: 'Maiden,' he said, 'I have found out
the secret that has perplexed me long, how I may strike at the Gorgon
without seeing her face that turns men to stone. I will hang above her
in the air, and see her face reflected in the mirror of the shield, and
so know where to strike.' The two other girls had left the shield on the
grass, and they clapped their hands when Perseus said this, but Aegle
still looked grave.
'It is much that you should have found this cunning plan; but the
Gorgons will see you, and two of them are deathless and cannot be slain,
even with the sword Herpe. These Gorgons have wings almost as swift as
the winged shoon of Hermes, and they have claws of bronze that cannot
be broken.'
Hesperia clapped her hands. 'Yet I know a way,' she said, 'so that this
friend of ours may approach the Gorgons, yet not be seen by them. You
must be told,' she said, turning to Perseus, 'that we three sisters were
of the company of the Fairy Queen, Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the
Goddess of the Harvest. We were gathering flowers with her, in the plain
of Enna, in a spring morning, when there sprang up a new flower,
fragrant and beautiful, the white narcissus. No sooner had Persephone
plucked that flower than the earth opened beside her, and up came the
chariot and horses of Hades, the King of the Dead, who caught Persephone
into his chariot, and bore her down with him to the House of Hades. We
wept and were in great fear, but Zeus granted to Persephone to return to
earth with the first snowdrop, and remain with her mother, Demeter, till
the last rose had faded. Now I was the favourite of Persephone, and she
carried me with her to see her husband, who is kind to me for her sake,
and can refuse me nothing, and he has what will serve your turn. To him
I will go, for often I go to see my playmate, when it is winter in your
world: it is always summer in our isle. To him I will go, and return
again, when I will so work that you may be seen of none, neither by god,
or man, or monster. Meanwhile my sisters will take care of you, and
to-morrow they will lead you to the mountain top, to speak with the
Giant.'
'It is well spoken,' said tall, grave Aegle, and she led Perseus to their
house, and gave him food and wine, and at night he slept full of hope,
in a chamber in the courtyard.
Next morning, early, Perseus and Aegle and Erytheia floated up to the
crest of the mountain, for Hesperia had departed in the night, to visit
Queen Persephone. Perseus took a hand of each of the Nymphs, and they
had no weary climbing; they all soared up together, so great was the
power of the winged shoon of Hermes. They found the good giant Atlas,
kneeling on a black rock above the snow, holding up the vault of heaven
with either hand. When Aegle had spoken to him, he bade his girls go
apart, and said to Perseus, 'Yonder, far away to the west, you see an
island with a mountain that rises to a flat top, like a table. There
dwell the Gorgons.'
Perseus thanked him eagerly, but Atlas sighed and said, 'Mine is a weary
life. Here have I knelt and done my task, since the Giants fought
against the gods, and were defeated. Then, for my punishment, I was set
here by Zeus to keep sky and earth asunder. But he told me that after
hundreds of years I should have rest, and be changed to a stone. Now I
see that the day of rest appointed is come, for you shall show me the
head of the Gorgon when you have slain her, and my body shall be stone,
but my spirit shall be with the ever living gods.'