the giant, and gave his promise. Then he floated to Aegle and Erytheia,
and they all three floated down again to the garden of the golden
apples. Here as they walked on the soft grass, and watched the wind toss
the white and red and purple bells of the wind flowers, they heard a low
laughter close to them, the laughter of Hesperia, but her they saw not.
'Where are you, Hesperia, where are you hiding?' cried Aegle, wondering,
for the wide lawn was open, without bush or tree where the girl might be
lurking.
'Find me if you can,' cried the voice of Hesperia, close beside them,
and handfuls of flowers were lightly tossed to them, yet they saw none
who threw them. 'This place is surely enchanted,' thought Perseus, and
the voice of Hesperia answered:
'Come follow, follow me. I will run before you to the house, and show
you my secret.'
Then they all saw the flowers bending, and the grass waving, as if a
light-footed girl were running through it, and they followed to the
house the path in the trodden grass. At the door, Hesperia met them:
'You could not see me,' she said, 'nor will the Gorgons see Perseus.
Look, on that table lies the Helmet of Hades, which mortal men call the
Cap of Darkness. While I wore it you could not see me, nay, a deathless
god cannot see the wearer of that helmet.' She took up a dark cap of
hard leather, that lay on a table in the hall, and raised it to her
head, and when she had put it on, she was invisible. She took it off,
and placed it on the brows of Perseus. 'We cannot see you, Perseus,'
cried all the girls. 'Look at yourself in your shining shield: can you
see yourself?'
Perseus turned to the shield, which he had hung on a golden nail in the
wall. He saw only the polished bronze, and the faces of the girls who
were looking over his shoulder. He took off the Helmet of Hades and gave
a great sigh. 'Kind are the gods,' he said. 'Methinks that I shall
indeed keep my vow, and bring to Polydectes the Gorgon's head.'
They were merry that night, and Perseus told them his story, how he was
the son of Zeus, and the girls called him 'cousin Perseus.' 'We love you
very much, and we could make you immortal, without old age and death,'
said Hesperia. 'You might live with us here for ever--it is lonely,
sometimes, for three maidens in the garden of the gods. But you must
keep your vow, and punish your enemies, and cherish your mother, and do
not forget your cousins three, when you have married the lady of your
heart's desire, and are King of Argos.'
The tears stood in the eyes of Perseus. 'Cousins dear,' he said, 'never
shall I forget you, not even in the House of Hades. You will come
thither now and again, Hesperia? But I love no woman.'
'I think you will not long be without a lady and a love, Perseus,' said
Erytheia; 'but the night is late, and to-morrow you have much to do.'
So they parted, and next morning they bade Perseus be of good hope. He
burnished and polished the shield, and covered it with the goat's skin,
he put on the Shoes of Swiftness, and belted himself with the Sword of
Sharpness, and placed on his head the Cap of Darkness. Then he soared
high in the air, till he saw the Gorgons' Isle, and the table-shaped
mountain, a speck in the western sea.
The way was long, but the shoes were swift, and, far aloft, in the heat
of the noon-day, Perseus looked down on the top of the table-mountain.
There he could dimly see three bulks of strange shapeless shape, with
monstrous limbs that never stirred, and he knew that the Gorgons were
sleeping their midday sleep. Then he held the shield so that the shapes
were reflected in its polished face, and very slowly he floated down,
and down, till he was within striking distance. There they lay, two of
them uglier than sin, breathing loud in their sleep like drunken men.
But the face of her who lay between the others was as quiet as the face
of a sleeping child; and as beautiful as the face of the goddess of
Love, with long dark eyelashes veiling the eyes, and red lips half
open. Nothing stirred but the serpents in the hair of beautiful Medusa;
they were never still, but coiled and twisted, and Perseus loathed them
as he watched them in the mirror. They coiled and uncoiled, and left
bare her ivory neck, and then Perseus drew the sword Herpe, and struck
once.
In the mirror he saw the fallen head, and he seized it by the hair, and
wrapped it in the goat-skin, and put the goat-skin in his wallet. Then
he towered high in the air, and, looking down, he saw the two sister
Gorgons turning in their sleep; they woke, and saw their sister dead.
They seemed to speak to each other; they looked this way and that, into
the bright empty air, for Perseus in the Cap of Darkness they could not
see. They rose on their mighty wings, hunting low, and high, and with
casts behind their island and in front of it, but Perseus was flying
faster than ever he flew before, stooping and rising to hide his scent.
He dived into the deep sea, and flew under water as long as he could
hold his breath, and then rose and fled swiftly forward. The Gorgons
were puzzled by each double he had made, and, at the place where he
dived they lost the scent, and from far away Perseus heard their loud
yelps, but soon these faded in the distance. He often looked over his
shoulder as he flew straight towards the far-off blue hill of the giant
Atlas, but the sky was empty behind him, and the Gorgons he never saw
again. The mountain turned from blue to clear grey and red and gold,
with pencilled rifts and glens, and soon Perseus stood beside the giant
Atlas. 'You are welcome and blessed,' said the giant. 'Show me the head
that I may be at rest.'
Then Perseus took the bundle from the wallet, and carefully unbound the
goat-skin, and held up the head, looking away from it, and the Giant
was a great grey stone. Down sailed Perseus, and stood in the garden of
the gods, and laid the Cap of Darkness on the grass. The three Nymphs
who were sitting there, weaving garlands of flowers, leaped up, and came
round him, and kissed him, and crowned him with the flowery chaplets.
That night he rested with them, and in the morning they kissed and said
farewell.
'Do not forget us,' said Aegle, 'nor be too sorry for our loneliness.
To-day Hermes has been with us, and to-morrow he comes again with
Dionysus, the god of the vine, and all his merry company. Hermes left a
message for you, that you are to fly eastward, and south, to the place
where your wings shall guide you, and there, he said, you shall find
your happiness. When that is won, you shall turn north and west, to your
own country. We say, all three of us, that our love is with you always,
and we shall hear of your gladness, for Hermes will tell us; then we too
shall be glad. Farewell!'
So the three maidens embraced him with kind faces and smiling eyes, and
Perseus, too, smiled as well as he might, but in his eastward way he
often looked back, and was sad when he could no longer see the kindly
hill above the garden of the gods.
III
PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA
Perseus flew where the wings bore him, over great mountains, and over a
wilderness of sand. Below his feet the wind woke the sand storms, and
beneath him he saw nothing but a soft floor of yellow grey, and when
that cleared he saw islands of green trees round some well in the
waste, and long trains of camels, and brown men riding swift horses, at
which he wondered; for the Greeks in his time drove in chariots, and did
not ride. The red sun behind him fell, and all the land was purple, but,
in a moment, as it seemed, the stars rushed out, and he sped along in
the starlight till the sky was grey again, and rosy, and full of fiery
colours, green and gold and ruby and amethyst. Then the sun rose, and
Perseus looked down on a green land, through which was flowing north a
great river, and he guessed that it was the river Aegyptus, which we now
call the Nile. Beneath him was a town, with many white houses in groves
of palm trees, and with great temples of the gods, built of red stone.
The shoes of swiftness stopped above the wide market-place, and there
Perseus hung poised, till he saw a multitude of men pour out of the door
of a temple.
At their head walked the king, who was like a Greek, and he led a maiden
as white as snow wreathed with flowers and circlets of wool, like the
oxen in Greece, when men sacrifice them to the gods. Behind the king and
the maid came a throng of brown men, first priests and magicians and
players on harps, and women shaking metal rattles that made a wild
mournful noise, while the multitude lamented.
Slowly, while Perseus watched, they passed down to the shore of the
great river, so wide a river as Perseus had never seen. They went to a
steep red rock, like a wall, above the river; at its foot was a flat
shelf of rock--the water just washed over it. Here they stopped, and the
king kissed and embraced the white maiden. They bound her by chains of
bronze to rings of bronze in the rock; they sang a strange hymn; and
then marched back to the town, throwing their mantles over their heads.
There the maiden stood, or rather hung forward supported by the chains.
Perseus floated down, and, the nearer he came, the more beautiful seemed
the white maid, with her soft dark hair falling to her white feet.
Softly he floated down, till his feet were on the ledge of rock. She did
not hear him coming, and when he gently touched her she gave a cry, and
turned on him her large dark eyes, wild and dry, without a tear. 'Is it
a god?' she said, clasping her hands.
'No god, but a mortal man am I, Perseus the slayer of the Gorgon. What
do you here? What cruel men have bound you?'
'I am Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, king of a strange people. The
lot fell on me, of all the maidens in the city, to be offered to the
monster fish that walks on feet, who is their god. Once a year they give
to him a maiden.'
Perseus thereon drew the sword Herpe, and cut the chains of bronze that
bound the girl as if they had been ropes of flax, and she fell at his
feet, covering her eyes with her hands. Then Perseus saw the long reeds
on the further shore of the river waving and stirring and crashing, and
from them came a monstrous fish walking on feet, and slid into the
water. His long sharp black head showed above the stream as he swam, and
the water behind him showed like the water in the wake of a ship.
'Be still and hide your eyes!' whispered Perseus to the maiden.
He took the goat-skin from his wallet, and held up the Gorgon's head,
with the back of it turned towards him, and he waited till the long
black head was lifted from the river's edge, and the forefeet of that
fish were on the wet ledge of rock. Then he held the head before the
eyes of the monster, and from the head downward it slowly stiffened.
The head and forefeet and shoulders were of stone before the tail had
ceased to lash the water. Then the tail stiffened into a long jagged
sharp stone, and Perseus, wrapping up the head in the goat-skin, placed
it in his wallet. He turned his back to Andromeda, while he did this
lest by mischance her eyes should open and see the head of the Gorgon.
But her eyes were closed, and Perseus found that she had fainted, from
fear of the monster, and from the great heat of the sun. Perseus put the
palms of his hands together like a cup, and stooping to the stream he
brought water, and threw it over the face and neck of Andromeda,
wondering at her beauty. Her eyes opened at last, and she tried to rise
to her feet, but she dropped on her knees, and clung with her fingers to
the rock. Seeing her so faint and weak Perseus raised her in his arms,
with her beautiful head pillowed on his shoulder, where she fell asleep
like a tired child. Then he rose in the air and floated over the sheer
wall of red stone above the river, and flew slowly towards the town.
There were no sentinels at the gate; the long street was empty, for all
the people were in their houses, praying and weeping. But a little girl
stole out of a house near the gate. She was too young to understand why
her father and mother and elder brothers were so sad, and would not take
any notice of her. She thought she would go out and play in the street,
and when she looked up from her play, she saw Perseus bearing the king's
daughter in his arms. The child stared, and then ran into her house,
crying aloud, for she could hardly speak, and pulled so hard at her
mother's gown that her mother rose and followed her to the house door.
The mother gave a joyful cry, her husband and her children ran forth,
and they, too, shouted aloud for pleasure. Their cries reached the
ears of people in other houses, and presently all the folk, as glad as
they had been sorrowful, were following Perseus to the palace of the
king. Perseus walked through the empty court, and stood at the door of
the hall, where the servants came to him, both men and women, and with
tears of joy the women bore Andromeda to the chamber of her mother,
Queen Cassiopeia.
[Illustration: THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA.]
Who can tell how happy were the king and queen, and how gladly they
welcomed Perseus! They made a feast for him, and they sent oxen and
sheep to all the people, and wine, that all might rejoice and make
merry. Andromeda, too, came, pale but smiling, into the hall, and sat
down beside her mother's high seat, listening while Perseus told the
whole story of his adventures. Now Perseus could scarcely keep his eyes
from Andromeda's face while he spoke, and she stole glances at him. When
their eyes met, the colour came into her face again, which glowed like
ivory that a Carian woman has lightly tinged with rose colour, making an
ornament for some rich king. Perseus remembered the message of Hermes,
which Aegle had given him, that if he flew to the east and south he would
find his happiness. He knew that he had found it, if this maiden would
be his wife, and he ended his tale by repeating the message of Hermes.
'The gods speak only truth,' he said, 'and to have made you all happy is
the greatest happiness to Perseus of Argos.' Yet he hoped in his heart
to see a yet happier day, when the rites of marriage should be done
between Andromeda and him, and the young men and maidens should sing the
wedding song before their door.
Andromeda was of one mind with him, and, as Perseus must needs go home,
her parents believed that she could not live without him who had saved
her from such a cruel death. So with heavy hearts they made the marriage
feast, and with many tears Andromeda and her father and mother said
farewell. Perseus and his bride sailed down the great river Aegyptus in
the king's own boat; and at every town they were received with feasts,
and songs, and dances. They saw all the wonderful things of Egypt,
palaces and pyramids and temples and tombs of kings, and at last they
found a ship of the Cretans in the mouth of the Nile. This they hired,
for they carried with them great riches, gold, and myrrh, and ivory,
gifts of the princes of Egypt.
IV
HOW PERSEUS AVENGED DANAE
With a steady south wind behind them they sailed to Seriphos, and
landed, and brought their wealth ashore, and went to the house of
Dictys. They found him lonely and sorrowful, for his wife had died, and
his brother, King Polydectes, had taken Danae, and set her to grind corn
in his house, among his slave women. When Perseus heard that word, he
asked, 'Where is King Polydectes?'
'It is his birthday, and he holds his feast among the princes,' said
Dictys.
'Then bring me,' said Perseus, 'the worst of old clothes that any
servant of your house can borrow from a beggar man, if there be a beggar
man in the town.' Such a man there was--he came limping through the door
of the courtyard, and up to the threshold of the house, where he sat
whining, and asking for alms. They gave him food and wine, and Perseus
cried, 'New clothes for old, father, I will give you, and new shoes for
old.' The beggar could not believe his ears, but he was taken to the
baths, and washed, and new clothes were given to him, while Perseus clad
himself in the beggar's rags, and Dictys took charge of the winged shoon
of Hermes and the sword Herpe, and the burnished shield of Athene. Then
Perseus cast dust and wood ashes on his hair, till it looked foul and
grey, and placed the goat-skin covering and the Gorgon's head in his
wallet, and with the beggar's staff in his hand he limped to the palace
of Polydectes. On the threshold he sat down, like a beggar, and
Polydectes saw him and cried to his servants, 'Bring in that man; is it
not the day of my feast? Surely all are welcome.' Perseus was led in,
looking humbly at the ground, and was brought before the king.
'What news, thou beggar man?' said the king.
'Such news as was to be looked for,' whined Perseus. 'Behold, I am he
who brought no present to the king's feast, seven long years agone, and
now I come back, tired and hungry, to ask his grace.'
'By the splendour of Zeus,' cried Polydectes, 'it is none but the beggar
brat who bragged that he would fetch me such a treasure as lies in no
king's chamber! The beggar brat is a beggar man; how time and travel
have tamed him! Ho, one of you, run and fetch his mother who is grinding
at the mill, that she may welcome her son.'
A servant ran from the hall, and the chiefs of Seriphos mocked at
Perseus. 'This is he who called us farmers and dealers in slaves. Verily
he would not fetch the price of an old cow in the slave market.' Then
they threw at him crusts of bread, and bones of swine, but he stood
silent.
Then Danae was led in, clad in vile raiment, but looking like a queen,
and the king cried, 'Go forward, woman: look at that beggar man; dost
thou know thy son?' She walked on, her head high, and Perseus whispered,
'Mother, stand thou beside me, and speak no word!'
'My mother knows me not, or despises me,' said Perseus, 'yet, poor as I
am, I do not come empty-handed. In my wallet is a gift, brought from
very far away, for my lord the king.'
He swung his wallet round in front of him; he took off the covering of
goat-skin, and he held the Gorgon's head on high, by the hair, facing
the king and the chiefs. In one moment they were all grey stones, all
along the hall, and the chairs whereon they sat crashed under the weight
of them, and they rolled on the hard clay floor. Perseus wrapped the
head in the goat-skin, and shut it in the wallet carefully, and cried,
'Mother, look round, and see thy son and thine own revenge.'
Then Danae knew her son, by the sound of his voice, if not by her
eyesight, and she wept for joy. So they two went to the house of Dictys,
and Perseus was cleansed, and clad in rich raiment, and Danae, too, was
apparelled like a free woman, and embraced Andromeda with great joy.
Perseus made the good Dictys king of Seriphos; and he placed the winged
shoes in the temple of Hermes, with the sword Herpe, and the Gorgon's
head, in its goat-skin cover; but the polished shield he laid on the
altar in the temple of Athene. Then he bade all who served in the
temples come forth, both young and old, and he locked the doors, and he
and Dictys watched all night, with the armed Cretans, the crew of his
ship, that none might enter. Next day Perseus alone went into the temple
of Athene. It was as it had been, but the Gorgon's head and the
polished shield were gone, and the winged shoon and the sword Herpe had
vanished from the temple of Hermes.
With Danae and Andromeda Perseus sailed to Greece, where he learned that
the sons of King Proetus had driven King Acrisius out of Argos, and that
he had fled to Phthia in the north, where the ancestor of the great
Achilles was king. Thither Perseus went, to see his grandfather, and he
found the young men holding games and sports in front of the palace.
Perseus thought that his grandfather might love him better if he showed
his strength in the games, which were open to strangers, so he entered
and won the race, and the prize for leaping, and then came the throwing
of the disc of bronze. Perseus threw a great cast, far beyond the rest,
but the disc swerved, and fell among the crowd. Then Perseus was afraid,
and ran like the wind to the place where the disc fell. There lay an old
man, smitten sorely by the disc, and men said that he had killed King
Acrisius.
Thus the word of the prophetess and the will of Fate were fulfilled.
Perseus went weeping to the King of Phthia, and told him all the truth,
and the king, who knew, as all Greece knew, how Acrisius had tried to
drown his daughter and her child, believed the tale, and said that
Perseus was guiltless. He and Danae and Andromeda dwelt for a year in
Phthia, with the king, and then Perseus with an army of Pelasgians and
Myrmidons, marched south to Argos, and took the city, and drove out his
cousins, the sons of Proetus. There in Argos Perseus, with his mother
and beautiful Andromeda, dwelt long and happily, and he left the kingdom
to his son when he died.
* * * * *
_The story of Ulysses is taken mainly from the Iliad, the Odyssey, and
the_ Post Homerica _of Quintus Smyrnaeus. As we have no detailed account of
the stealing of the Palladium by Ulysses, use has been made of Helen's
tale about his entry into Troy in the disguise of a beaten beggar.
The chief source of 'The Fleece of Gold' is tradition, with the
Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the fight between Polydeuces and the
Giant is best reported by Theocritus.
No epic or tragedy concerning the early fortunes of Theseus and the
history of Perseus has reached us: summaries in Plutarch and Apollodorus
provide the outlines of the legends.
The descriptions of costume, arms, and mode of life are derived from
Homer and from the 'Mycenaean' relics discovered in the last thirty years
by Dr. Schliemann, Mr. A. J. Evans, and many other explorers.
'The Fleece of Gold,' first published in an American magazine, has also
appeared in America in a little volume (Henry Altemus & Co.). It is here
reprinted by permission of Messrs. Altemus, with some changes and
corrections._
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without
note.
Some Illustrations have been moved to avoid splitting paragraphs and
make smoother reading.
There are inconsistencies in the use of ligatures in some of the names.
These inconsistencies have been left as in the original text.