ACRISIUS, ruler of Argosfn1, having produced no male heir to his kingdom, sought advice from the oracle at Delphi as to how and when he might expect one. The priestess’s reply was disturbing:
King Acrisius will have no sons, but his grandson will kill him.
Acrisius loved his daughter and only child DANAË,fn2 but he loved life more. It was clear from the oracle that he should do everything in his power to prevent any male of breeding age from getting close to her. To this end he ordered the construction of a bronze chamber beneath the palace. Locked up in this gleaming, impregnable prison, Danaë was given as many creature comforts and as much feminine company as she asked for. After all, Acrisius told himself, he was not flint-hearted.fn3
He had sealed the bronze chamber against all invaders, but he had reckoned without the lusts of the all-seeing, all-cunning Zeus, whose eye had fallen on Danaë and who was even now considering how he might penetrate this sealed chamber and take his pleasure. He liked a challenge. In his long, amorous career the King of the Gods had transformed himself into all kinds of exotic entities in his pursuit of desirable females and, from time to time, males. It was clear to him that to conquer Danaë he had to come up with something better than the usual bulls, bears, boars, stallions, eagles, stags and lions. Something a little more outré was required …
A shower of golden rain streamed down through the narrow slit of the skylight one night, poured itself into Danaë’s lap and penetrated her.fn4 It may have been an unorthodox form of coition, but Danaë became pregnant and in due time, with the help of her loyal female attendants, she gave birth to a healthy mortal boy, whom she named PERSEUS.
Along with the mortal healthiness of Perseus came a pair of very serviceable lungs, and try as they might neither Danaë nor her aides could stifle the wails and cries of the baby which made their way through the bronze walls of her prison all the way to the ears of her father two floors above.
His rage when confronted with the sight of his grandson was terrible to behold.
‘Who dared break into your chamber? Tell me his name and I shall have him gelded, tortured and strangled with his own intestines.’
‘Father, I believe it was the King of Heaven himself who came to me.’
‘You are telling me – will someone please shut that baby up! – that it was Zeus?’
‘Father, I cannot lie, it was.’
‘A likely story. It was the brother of one of these damned maidservants of yours, wasn’t it?’
‘No, father, it was as I said. Zeus.’
‘If that brat doesn’t stop screaming I’ll smother him with this cushion.’
‘He’s just hungry,’ said Danaë, putting Perseus to her breast.
Acrisius thought furiously. His threat with the cushion notwithstanding, he knew that there could be no greater crime than a blood killing. The murder of one’s kin would provoke the Furies to rise up from the underworld and pursue him to the ends of the earth, scourging him with their iron whips until the very skin was flayed from his body. They wouldn’t leave off until he was raving mad. Yet the oracle’s prophecy meant that he could not suffer this grandson to live. Perhaps …
The next night, out of sight of gossiping townspeople, Acrisius had Danaë and the infant Perseus shut up in a wooden chest. His soldiers nailed down the lid and hurled the chest over the cliffs and into the sea.
‘There,’ said Acrisius, dusting off his hands as if to clear himself of all responsibility. ‘If they perish, as perish they surely will, none can say that I was the direct cause. It will be the fault of the sea, the rocks and the sharks. It will be the fault of the gods. Nothing to do with me.’
With these weasel words of comfort, King Acrisius watched the chest bob out of sight.
Tossed in the wild waves of the sea, the wooden box bounced and buffeted its way from island to island and coast to coast, neither breaking up on the rocks, nor beaching safely on the soft sands.
Inside the darkness of the chest Danaë suckled her child and waited for the end to come. On the second day of their heaving, pitching voyage she felt a great lurch and then a terrible bang. After a few moments of stillness she heard the lid of the box creak and shift. All at once daylight poured in, accompanied by a strong smell of fish and the cry of gulls.
‘Well, well,’ said a friendly voice. ‘Here’s a catch!’
They had been caught in a fisherman’s nets. The owner of the voice extended a strong hand to help Danaë out of the chest.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said, though in truth he was the one who felt fear. What could all this portend? ‘My name is Dictysfn5 and these are my crewmen. We mean you no harm.’
The other fishermen crowded around, smiling shyly, but Dictys pushed them away. ‘Let the lady breathe. Can’t you see she’s worn out? Some bread and wine.’
Two days later they landed on Dictys’s home island of Seriphos. He took Danaë and Perseus to his small cottage behind the dunes.
‘My wife died giving birth to a boy, so perhaps Poseidon has sent you to take their place – not that I mean …’ he added in hasty confusion, ‘I would not, of course, expect … I make no demands on you as a …’
Danaë laughed. The atmosphere of unaffected kindness and simplicity was just what she needed for rearing her child. Guileless amiability had been in short supply in her life. ‘You are too kind,’ she said. We accept your offer, don’t we, Perseus?’
‘Yes, mother, whatever you say.’
No, this is not the Miracle of the Talking Baby. Seventeen years have now passed on Seriphos. Perseus has grown into a fine, strong young man. He is, thanks to his adopted father Dictys, a confident and skilled fisherman. Standing in a boat in swelling seas he can spear a darting swordfish, and he can flick up a trout from the fast waters of a stream with his fingers. He runs faster, throws further and jumps higher than any other young man on Seriphos. He wrestles, he rides wild asses, he can milk a cow and tame a bull. He is impulsive, perhaps a little boastful sometimes, but his mother Danaë is right to be proud of him and to believe him the best and bravest boy on the island.
The plainness of Dictys’s home seemed all the more remarkable to Danaë when she discovered that this humble fisherman was the brother of Seriphos’s king, POLYDECTES. The island’s ruler was everything that Dictys was not: proud, cruel, dishonest, greedy, lascivious, extravagant and demanding. At first he had paid no particular attention to Dictys’s houseguest. Over the last few years, however, his black heart had become more and more troubled with feelings of attraction for the beautiful mother of that boy, that impertinent boy.
Perseus had an instinctive way of interposing himself between his mother and the king that was most aggravating. Polydectes was in the habit of calling round when he knew that his brother would be out, but every time he did the pestilential Perseus would be there:
‘Mum, mum, have you seen my running sandals?’
‘Mum, mum! Come out to the rock pool and time me while I hold my breath underwater.’
It was too irritating.
At last Polydectes hit on a way of sending Perseus far away. He would exploit the youth’s vanity, pride and bluster.
Messages were sent to all the young men of the island inviting them to the palace for a feast to celebrate Polydectes’ resolution to seek the hand in marriage of hippodamia, daughter of King oenomaus of Pisa.fn6 This was a bold and surprising move. Just as the oracle had prophesied that King Acrisius of Argos would be killed by a grandson, so it had told Oenomaus that he would be killed by a son-in-law. To prevent his daughter ever marrying, the king challenged every applicant for her hand to a chariot race, the loser to forfeit his life. Oenomaus was the finest charioteer in the land: so far, the heads of more than a dozen hopeful young men adorned the wooden stakes that fenced the racing field. Hippodamia was very beautiful, Pisa was very rich and the suitors kept coming.
Danaë was delighted to hear that Polydectes had thrown his hat into the ring. She had long felt uncomfortable in his presence and the surprising news that his heart was elsewhere came as a great relief. How gracious of him to invite her son to a feast and show that there were no hard feelings.
‘It is an honour to be invited,’ she told Perseus. ‘Don’t forget to thank him politely. Don’t drink too much and try not to talk with your mouth full.’
Polydectes sat young Perseus in the seat of honour to his right, filling and refilling his cup with strong wine. He played the young man just as Perseus himself would have played a fish.
‘Yes, this chariot race will certainly be a challenge,’ he said. ‘But the best families of Seriphos have each promised me a horse for my team. May I look to you and your mother to …?’
Perseus flushed. His poverty had always been a source of mortification. The young men with whom he played at sports, wrestled, hunted and chased girls all had servants and stables. He still lived in a stone fisherman’s cottage behind the dunes. His friend Pyrrho had a slave to fan him in his bed when the nights were warm. Perseus slept out on the sand and was more likely to be awoken by a nip from a crab than by a serving girl with a cup of fresh milk.
‘I don’t really have a horse as such,’ said Perseus.
‘A horse as such? I’m not sure I know what “a horse as such” might be.’
‘I don’t really own anything much more than the clothes I wear. Oh, I do have a collection of sea shells that I’ve been told might be quite valuable one day.’
‘Oh dear. Oh dear. I quite understand. Of course I do.’ Polydectes’s sympathetic smile cut Perseus deeper than any sneer. ‘It was too much to expect you to help me.’
‘But I want to help you!’ Perseus said, a little too loudly. ‘Anything I can do for you I will. Name it.’
‘Really? Well, there is one thing but …’
‘What?’
‘No, no, it’s too much to ask.’
‘I’ve always hoped that one day someone would bring me … but I can’t ask you, you’re just a boy.’
Perseus banged the table. ‘Bring you what? Say the word. I’m strong. I’m brave. I’m resourceful, I’m …’
‘… just a little bit drunk.’
‘I know what I’m saying …’ Perseus rose unsteadily to his feet and said in a voice everyone in the hall could hear. ‘Tell me what you want brought to you, my king, and I will bring it. Name it.’
‘Well,’ said Polydectes with a rueful shrug of defeat, as one forced into a corner. ‘Since our young hero insists, there is one thing I’ve always wanted. Could you bring me the head of MEDUSA, I wonder?’
‘No problem,’ said Perseus. ‘The head of Medusa? It’s yours.’
‘Really? You mean that?’
‘I swear it by the beard of Zeus.’
A little while later Perseus stumbled home across the sands to find his mother waiting up for him.
‘You’re late, darling.’
‘Mum, what’s a “Medusa”?’
‘Perseus, have you been drinking?’
‘Maybe. Just a cup or two.’
‘A hiccup or two, by the sound of it.’
‘No, but seriously, what’s a Medusa?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I heard the name and wondered, that’s all.’
‘If you’ll stop pacing around like a caged lion and sit down, I’ll tell you,’ said Danaë. ‘Medusa, so they say, was a beautiful young woman who was taken and ravished by the sea god Poseidon.’fn7
‘Ravished?’
‘Unfortunately for her this took place on the floor of a temple sacred to the goddess Athena. She was so angry at the sacrilege that she punished Medusa.’
‘She didn’t punish Poseidon?’
‘The gods don’t punish each other, at least not very often. They punish us.’
‘And how did Athena punish Medusa?’
‘She transformed her into a Gorgon.’
‘Blimey,’ said Perseus, ‘and what’s a “Gorgon”?’
‘A Gorgon is … Well, a Gorgon is a dreadful creature with boar’s tusks instead of teeth, razor-sharp claws of brass and venomous snakes for hair.’
‘Get away!’
‘That’s the story.’
‘And what does “ravished” mean, exactly?’
‘Behave yourself,’ said Danaë, slapping his arm. ‘There are only two others like her in the world, Stheno and Euryale, but they were born as Gorgons. They are immortal daughters of the ancient divinities of the sea, Phorcys and Ceto.’
‘Is this Medusa immortal as well?’
‘I don’t think so. She was once human, you see …’
‘Right … and if … say, for example … someone was to go hunting for her?’
Danaë laughed. ‘They’d be a fool. The three of them live together on an island somewhere. Medusa has one special weapon worse even than her serpent hair, her tusks and her talons.’
‘One glance from her will turn you to stone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that if you were to meet her eyes for just one second you would be petrified.’
‘Scared?’
‘No, petrified means turned into stone. You’d be frozen for all eternity. Like a statue.’
Perseus scratched his chin. ‘Oh. So that’s Medusa? I’d rather hoped she might turn out to be some sort of giant chicken, or a pig, maybe.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Well, I sort of promised Polydectes that I’d bring him her head.’
‘You what?’
‘He wanted a horse, you see, and somehow this Medusa came up and I found myself saying I’d bring him her head …’
‘You will go round to the palace first thing tomorrow morning and tell him that you will do no such thing.’
‘But …’
‘No buts. I absolutely forbid it. What was he thinking of? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Now, you go and sleep off that wine. In future you’ll have no more than two cups in an evening, is that understood?’
‘Yes, mum.’
Perseus sloped off to bed as commanded, but he awoke in a mutinous mood.
‘I will leave the island and I will search for this Medusa,’ he declared over breakfast and nothing Danaë said to him would make him change his mind. ‘I made a promise in front of others. It’s a matter of honour. I am of an age to travel. To have adventures. You know how swift and strong I am. How cunning and resourceful. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘You speak to him, Dictys,’ said Danaë, despairing.
Dictys and Perseus walked along the beach for most of the morning. Danaë was not pleased when they returned.
‘It’s like he says, Danaë. He’s old enough to make his own decisions. He’ll never find Medusa, of course. If she even exists. Let him go to the mainland and try out life for a while. He’ll be back before long. He’s well able to look after himself.’
The farewell between mother and son was all tears and distress on the one side and hand-patting and reassurance on the other.
‘I’ll be fine, mother. Ever seen anyone who can run faster? What harm can come to me?’
‘I’ll never forgive Polydectes, never.’
That at least, thought Dictys, was something.
He took Perseus by boat to the mainland. ‘Don’t trust anyone who offers you anything for free,’ he warned. ‘There’ll be plenty who’ll want to befriend you. They might be trustworthy, they might not. Don’t gaze around you as if it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a busy port or a city. Look bored and confident. As if you know your way around. And don’t be afraid to seek guidance from the oracles.’
How much of this excellent advice Perseus was likely to heed, Dictys could not tell. He was fond of the boy, and even fonder of his mother, and it grieved him to be complicit in so foolhardy an adventure. But, as he had told Danaë, Perseus was set on it and if they parted with hot words his absence would be all the harder to bear.
When they arrived on the mainland Perseus thought that Dictys’ fishing boat looked very small and shabby beside the great ships moored at the harbour. The man he had called father since he had been able to speak suddenly looked very small and shabby, too. Perseus embraced him with fierce affection and accepted the silver coins slipped into his palm. He promised to try and send word to the island as soon as he had any news worth imparting and was patient enough to stand on the quayside and wave Dictys and his little boat goodbye, even though he was desperate to get going and explore the strange new world of mainland Greece.
Perseus was confounded and confused by the cosmopolitan clamour of the mainland. No one seemed to care who he was, unless it was to try and con him out of his few pieces of silver. It did not take him very long to see that Dictys was right: if he was going to return to Polydectes with the head of Medusa he would need guidance. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was a long way to walk, but at least it was free to all.fn8
He joined the long queue of petitioners and after two long days found himself at last standing before the priestess.fn9
‘What does Perseus wish to know?’
Perseus gave a little gasp. She knew who he was!
‘I, well, I … I want to know how I can find and kill Medusa, the Gorgon.’
‘Perseus must travel to a land where people subsist not on Demeter’s golden corn but on the fruit of the oak tree.’
He stayed there hoping for further information, but not a word more was forthcoming. A priest pulled him away.
‘Come along, come along, the Pythia has spoken. You’re holding up the others.’
‘I don’t suppose you know what she meant?’
‘I’ve got better things to do than listen to every pronouncement that comes from her mouth. You can be sure that it was wise and truthful.’
‘But where do people subsist on the fruit of the oak?’
‘Fruit of the oak? There’s no such thing. Now please, move along.’
‘I know what she meant,’ said an old lady, who was one of the many regulars who came daily to sit on the grass and watch the line of supplicants shuffling along to hear their fortune. ‘It was her way of telling you to visit the oracle at Dodona.’
‘Another oracle?’ Perseus’s heart sank.
‘The people there make flour from acorns that drop from oaks sacred to Zeus. I’ve heard tell the trees can speak. Dodona is a long way north, my love,’ she wheezed. ‘A very long way!’
A long way it was. His small supply of coins had gone and Perseus slept under hedgerows and subsisted on little more than wild figs and nuts as he travelled north. He must have presented a forlorn figure by the time he arrived, for the women of Dodona were kind. They ruffled his hair and served him delicious acorn-flour bread spread thick with sharp goats’ curd and sweetened with honey.
‘Go early in the morning,’ they advised. ‘The oaks are more talkative in the cool hours before the noontide sun.’
A mist hung over the countryside like a veil when Perseus set out for the grove at dawn the next day.
‘Er, hello?’ he called out to the trees, feeling remarkably stupid. The oaks were tall, stately and impressive enough, but they did not have mouths or faces with recognisable expressions.
‘Who calls?’
Perseus started. Unquestionably a voice. Calm, soft, female, but strong and deeply authoritative.
‘Here to help.’
Another voice! This one seemed to contain a hint of scorn.
‘My name is Perseus. I have come …’
‘Oh, we know who you are,’ said a young man stepping forward from the shadows.
He was young, startlingly handsome and most unusually dressed. Aside from the loincloth around his waist, a narrow-brimmed hat that circled his brow and winged sandals at his ankles, he was quite naked.fn10 Perseus noticed that two live snakes writhed about the staff that he was carrying.
A woman holding a shield emerged behind him. She was tall, grave and beautiful. When she raised her shining grey eyes to his, Perseus felt an extraordinary surge of something he could not quite define. He decided the quality was majesty and bowed his head accordingly.
‘Don’t be afraid, Perseus,’ she said. ‘Your father has sent us to help you.’
‘He’s our father too,’ said the young man. ‘The Cloud Gatherer and Bringer of Storms.’
‘The Sky Father and King of Heaven,’ said the shining woman.
‘Z-Z-Zeus?’
‘The same.’
‘You mean it’s really true, then? Zeus is my father?’
Perseus had never believed his mother’s wild story about Zeus coming to her as a shower of golden rain. He had taken it for granted that his real father was some itinerant musician or tinker whose name she had never discovered.
‘Quite true, brother Perseus,’ said the tall woman.
‘Brother?’
‘I am Athena, daughter of Zeus and Metis.’
‘Hermes, son of Zeus and Maia,’ said the young man, bowing.
It was a lot for a youth of sheltered upbringing to take in. The two Olympians now told him that Zeus had been keeping an eye on him since his birth. He had guided the wooden chest into the net of Dictys. He had watched Perseus grow up into young manhood. He had seen him rise to Polydectes’ challenge. He admired his boldness and had sent his two favourite children to assist their half-brother in his quest for the head of Medusa.
‘You’re going to help me?’ said Perseus. This was so much more than he could have hoped for.
‘We can’t slay the Gorgon for you,’ said Hermes, ‘but we can help tilt the odds a little in your favour. You might find these useful.’ He looked down and addressed the sandals at his feet. ‘To my brother Perseus,’ he commanded. The sandals unwrapped themselves from the god’s ankles and flew to Perseus. ‘Take your own off, first.’
Perseus did so and at once the sandals attached themselves to his feet.
‘You’ll have plenty of time to get used to them,’ said Athena, watching in some amusement as Perseus leapt in the air like a dancer.
‘You’re confusing them,’ said Hermes. ‘You don’t have to flap your feet to fly. Just think.’
Perseus closed his eyes and strained.
‘Not like you’re taking a crap. Just picture yourself in the air. That’s it! You’ve got it now.’
Perseus opened his eyes to discover that he had risen up into the air. He dropped down again with a jarring bump.
‘Practice. That’s the key. Now here is a hood from our uncle hades. Wear this and no one will be able to see you.’
Perseus took the hood in his hands.
‘I have something for you too,’ said Athena.
‘Oh,’ said Perseus, putting the hood down and taking the object she was offering to him. ‘A satchel?’
‘You might find it useful.’
After flying sandals and a cap of invisibility, a plain brown leather satchel seemed something of a disappointment, but Perseus tried not to show it. ‘That’s very kind of you, I’m sure it will come in useful.’
‘It will,’ said Athena, ‘but I have more for you. Take this …’
She passed him a short-bladed weapon, curved like a scythe.
‘Be very careful, the blade is very sharp.’
‘You’re not wrong!’ said Perseus, sucking blood from his thumb.
‘It is called a harpe and can cut through anything.’
‘It is forged from adamantine,’ Hermes added. ‘A perfect replica of the great sickle Gaia made for Kronos.’
‘And this shield is like no other,’ said Athena. ‘Its name is AEGIS. You must make sure its surface is always kept to a mirror shine like this.’
Perseus shaded his eyes from the flashing light of the rising sun that was reflecting from the polished bronze.
‘Is the idea to dazzle Medusa with its glare?’
‘You must work out for yourself how best to use it, but believe me, without this shield you will surely fail.’
‘And die,’ said Hermes. ‘Which would be a pity.’
Perseus could hardly contain his excitement. The wings at his heels fluttered and he found himself rising up. He made some swishes with the harpe.
‘This is all just amazing. So what do I do next?’
‘There are limits to how much we can help. If you’re to be a hero you must make your own moves and take your own –’
‘I’m a hero?’
‘You can be.’
Hermes and Athena were so fine. They shone. Everything they did was performed without any seeming effort. They made Perseus feel hot and clumsy.
As if reading his mind, Athena said, ‘You will get used to Aegis, to the scythe, the sandals, the hood and the satchel. They are outwards things. If your mind and spirit are directed to your task, everything else will follow. Relax.’
‘But focus,’ said Hermes. ‘Relaxation without focus leads to failure.’
‘Focus without relaxation leads to failure just as surely,’ said Athena.
‘So concentrate …’ said Perseus.
‘… but calmly?’
‘Concentrate calmly. You have it.’
Perseus stood for a while inhaling and exhaling in a manner that he hoped was relaxed, yet focussed, concentrated, yet calm.
Hermes nodded. ‘I think this young man has an excellent chance of success.’
‘But the one thing these – wonderful – gifts can’t help me with is finding the Gorgons. I have asked all over but no one seems to agree where they live. On an island somewhere, far out to sea, that’s all I have been told. Which island? Which sea?’
‘We cannot tell you that,’ said Hermes, ‘but have you heard of the PHORCIDES?’
‘Never.’
‘They are sometimes called the GRAEAE, or Grey Ones,’ said Athena. ‘Like their sisters, the Gorgons Stheno and Euryale, they are daughters of Phorcys and Ceto.’
‘They’re old,’ said Hermes. ‘So old they have only one eye and one tooth between them.’
‘Seek them out,’ said Athena. ‘They know everything but tell nothing.’
‘If they don’t say anything,’ said Perseus, ‘what use are they? Do I threaten them with the sickle?’
‘Oh no, you’ll have to think of something subtler than that.’
‘Something much craftier,’ said Hermes.
‘But what?’
‘I’m sure it’ll come to you. They can be found in a cave on the wild shores of Kisthene, that much is common knowledge.’
‘We wish you good fortune, brother Perseus,’ said Athena.
‘Relaxed but focussed, that’s the key,’ said Hermes.
‘Goodbye …’
‘Good luck …’
‘Wait, wait!’ cried Perseus, but the figures and forms of the gods had already begun to fade into the bright morning light and soon they had vanished entirely. Perseus stood alone in the grove of sacred oaks.
‘This sickle is real at least,’ said Perseus, looking at the cut on his thumb. ‘This satchel is real, these sandals are real. Aegis is real …’
‘Are you trying to blind me?’
Perseus swung round.
‘Just watch how you flash that shield about,’ came an irritated voice.
It seemed to be coming from the very heart of the oak tree closest to him.
‘So you trees can talk after all,’ said Perseus.
‘Of course we can talk.’
‘We usually choose not to.’
‘There’s so little worth saying.’
Voices came now from all parts of the wood.
‘I understand,’ said Perseus. ‘But perhaps you wouldn’t mind pointing me in the direction of Kisthene?’
‘Kisthene? That’s Aeolia.’
‘More Phrygia, really,’ another voice put in.
‘I’d call it Lydia.’
‘Well, it’s certainly east.’
‘North of Ionia but south of the Propontis.’
‘Ignore them, young man,’ boomed an older oak, rustling his leaves. ‘They don’t know what they’re talking about. Fly over the isle of Lesbos and then up along the coast of Mysia. You can’t miss the cave of the Grey Sisters. It’s under a rock shaped like a weasel.’
‘Like a stoat, you mean,’ squeaked a young sapling.
‘An otter, surely?’
‘I’d’ve said a pine marten.’
‘The rock resembles a polecat and nothing else.’
‘I said weasel and I meant weasel,’ said the old one, quivering all over so that his leaves shook.
‘Thanks,’ said Perseus. ‘I really must be going.’
Throwing his satchel over his shoulder, attaching the scythe to his belt and settling the shield firmly in his grip, Perseus frowned in on himself to awaken the sandals and with a great shout of triumph shot up into the blue of the sky.
‘Good luck,’ cried the oaks.
‘Look out for a rock in the shape of a marmoset …’
By the time Perseus landed neatly, toes down, on the Mysian shore, outside a cave whose outer formation resembled, to his eyes at least, a squashed rat, the day was all but spent. Looking westwards he could see that HELIOS’s sun-chariot was turning from copper to red as it neared the land of the HESPERIDES and the end of its daily round.
As Perseus approached the mouth of the cave he slipped on the cap that Hermes had given him, the Hood of Hades. The moment it was on his head, the long shadow that had been striding along the sand beside him disappeared. Everything was darker and a little misty with the hood over his eyes, but he could see well enough.
‘I won’t be needing these,’ he said to himself, leaving the scythe, satchel and shield on the sand outside the cave.
He followed the murmur of voices and a glimmer of light through a long, winding passageway. The light grew brighter and the voices louder.
‘It’s my turn to have the tooth!’
‘I’ve only just put it in.’
‘Then PEMPHREDO should let me have the eye at least.’
‘Oh, stop moaning, ENYO …’
As Perseus entered the chamber he saw, held in the flickering light of a lamp that hung over them, three fantastically old women. Their ragged clothes, straggling hair and sagging flesh were as grey as the stones of the cave. In the bare lower gum of one of the sisters jutted up a single yellow tooth. In the eye socket of another sister a solitary eyeball darted back and forth and up and down in the most alarming manner. It was just as Hermes had said, one eye and one tooth between them.
A pile of bones lay heaped on the floor. The sister with the tooth was gnawing the side of one, stripping it of its rotten flesh. The sister with the eye had picked up another bone and was inspecting it closely and lovingly. The third sister, with no eye and no tooth, raised her head with a jerk and sniffed the air sharply.
‘I smell a mortal,’ she shrieked, stabbing a finger in the direction of Perseus. ‘Look, Pemphredo. Use the eye!’
Pemphredo, the sister with the eye, cast wild glances in all directions. ‘There’s nothing there, Enyo.’
‘I tell you there is. A mortal. I smell it!’ cried Enyo. ‘Bite it, DINO.fn11 Use your tooth. Bite! Bite it to death!’
Perseus stole silently closer, taking great care not to step on any cast-off bones.
‘Give me the eye, Pemphredo! I swear to you I smell mortal flesh.’
‘Here, take it.’ Pemphredo took the eye from her socket and the one called Enyo stretched out her hand greedily to receive it. Stepping forward Perseus snatched up the eye himself.
‘What was that? Who? What?’
Perseus had brushed Dino, the sister with the tooth. Taking advantage of her open-mouthed astonishment he plucked the tooth from her mouth and stepped back with a loud laugh.
‘Good evening, ladies.’
‘The tooth! The tooth, someone has taken the tooth!’
‘Where is the eye? Who has the eye?’
‘I have your tooth, sisters, and I have your eye too.’
‘Give them back!’
‘You have no right.’
‘All in good time,’ said Perseus. ‘I could return this cloudy old eye and this rotten old tooth. I’ve no use for them. Of course, I could just as easily throw them into the sea …’
‘No! No! We beg of you!’
‘Beg …’
‘It all depends on you,’ said Perseus, walking round and round them. As he passed they shot out their bony arms to try and grab him, but he was always too quick.
‘What do you want?’
‘Information. You are old. You know things.’
‘What would you have us tell you?’
‘How to find your sisters, the Gorgons.’
‘What do you want with them?’
‘I’d like to take Medusa home with me. Part of her at least.’
‘Ha! You’re a fool. She will petrify you.’
‘That’s turn you to stone.’
‘I’m not ignorant. I know what “petrify” means,’ said Perseus. ‘You let me worry about all that, just tell me where to find the island where they live.’
‘You mean our lovely sisters harm.’
‘Tell me or I throw first the eye and then the tooth into the sea.’
‘Libya!’ cried the one called Enyo. ‘The island is off the coast of Libya.’
‘Are you satisfied?’
‘They’ll kill you and feast on your flesh and we shall hear of it and cheer,’ screeched Dino.
‘Now, give us our eye and our tooth.’
‘Certainly,’ said Perseus. These hags might be old, he told himself, but they have sharp claws and they are fierce and vengeful. I had better buy myself some time. ‘Tell you what, let’s make a game of it,’ he said. ‘Close your eyes and count to a hundred … Oh. Of course. No need to close your eyes. Just count to a hundred while I hide the tooth and eye. They’ll be somewhere in this cave, I promise. No cheating. One, two, three, four …’
‘Damn you, child of Prometheus!’
‘May your flesh rot from your bones!’
Perseus moved swiftly round their chamber, counting with them. ‘You should be thanking me … nineteen, twenty … not cursing me,’ he said as they hurled fouler and filthier obscenities at him. ‘Forty-five, forty-six … surely this is the most exciting thing to have happened to you for centuries … sixty-eight, sixty-nine … you will be talking about this day for ages and ages to come. Don’t start looking till you reach a hundred, no cheating, now!’
As Perseus returned along the passageway towards the mouth of the cave and the open beach he heard the voices of the Graeae behind him squabbling, screaming and spitting.
‘Out of the way, out of the way!’
‘I have it, I have it!’
‘That’s just a chip of bone, you old fool.’
‘The eye! I have the eye!’
‘Let go of my tongue!’
Perseus smiled to himself as he buckled on the scythe and shield. He had hidden the tooth and eyeball well. The Grey Ones would be scrabbling for them for days. He felt sure that they would not think to break off their search to summon some bird or sea creature to warn their sisters of his approach. Even if they did, he had his marvellous armoury. The shield, Aegis, though … Why had Athena laid such stress on his keeping its surface polished to a high shine?
He rose above the surface of the sea and pointed himself in the direction of the Libyan coast.
The moon-chariot of SELENE was high in the sky as Perseus skimmed the sea searching for the Gorgon’s home. He came upon it soon enough, more of a series of rocky outcrops than an island and entirely shrouded in fog. He descended low enough to pierce the mist. Scant moonlight penetrated here. He realised as he hovered over the island that what he had taken for rock formations were in fact lifelike statues: seals, seabirds – and men. Even some women and children. How extraordinary to find a sculpture garden in so remote and sombre a place.
Now he could see the Gorgons. The three lay in a circle fast asleep, arms clasped around each other in a tender sisterly embrace. It was not quite as his mother had described to him. All three had tusks for teeth and claws of bronze, just as she had said, but only one had living, writhing serpents for hair of a particularly bizarre beauty. This must be Medusa. She was smaller than the others. In the moonlight her face was smooth. The other two had scaly skin that drooped in pouches. Medusa’s eyes were shut while she slept and Perseus could not resist looking at the closed lids, knowing that they only had to open for a second for his life to be ended. One single glance and –
Oh, fool that he was! The statues standing all around were not art, they were not the work of some gifted sculptor, they were the petrified forms of those who had met Medusa’s gaze.
The sandals silently beat the air as he hovered. He unsheathed the curved blade of the harpe and held out the shield before him. What should he do next? Suddenly he understood why Athena had charged him to keep it polished. He could not look directly into the eyes of Medusa, but her reflection … that was another thing.
He held the shield out and tilted it down so that he could see the sleeping group reflected quite clearly in the surface of the shining bronze.
Anyone who has ever tried to snip a recalcitrant eyebrow in the bathroom mirror will know how difficult it is to perform so delicate a task accurately in the backwards world of reflection without stabbing oneself. Left is right and right is left, near is far and far is near. Perseus adjusted the mirror so that he could see himself swinging the scythe backwards and forwards.
But there was nothing to see! How could the mirror not work?
Of course! Cursing himself for his slowness of wits, he removed the Hood of Hades and tucked it into the satchel. This was no easy task. With a heavy sickle in one hand and the even heavier shield in the other, with his mind half on the danger of waking the Gorgons and half on keeping his sandals hovering at just the right altitude, he was sweating and panting hard by the time he had tucked the hood away and was ready to concentrate on practising his moves. His reflection now clearly visible in the shield, he taught himself how to swing his sword arm in the mirror image.
Without knowing it he had dropped a little lower. The swishing of the blade awoke the vipers on Medusa’s head and they began to spit and rear. Changing the angle of the shield, Perseus saw they were looking directly at him and hissing. At any moment Medusa would wake – and perhaps her indestructible sisters too. He closed in on Medusa’s sleeping form, weapon at the ready. In the shield he saw her stir and her eyelids flutter.
Her eyes opened.
He didn’t know what he had expected, ugliness and horror, perhaps, certainly not beauty. But Medusa’s eyes, for all their blaze and fury, had a quality that made him want to turn from the reflected image and look deep into them for real. He pushed the feeling down and raised his blade higher.
Medusa was staring into the shield. She lifted her head to look at Perseus directly, giving him a clear sight of her throat. The harpe swept through the air and he felt the blade slice through the flesh of her neck. He lunged down to snatch away the head and pushed it into his satchel before the thrashing, dying snakes could fix their fangs into him.
He tried to fly up and away, but something was tugging at his ankles. The other Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, awake and screaming, were pulling him down. With a mighty effort he kicked and kicked, urging the sandals up. The screeches of the outraged sisters rang in his ears as he rocketed through the ceiling of fog and into the clear moonlit air, with never a backward glance.
Perhaps he should have looked back. A most remarkable sight would have met his eyes. Since the day Poseidon violated her in Athena’s temple, Medusa had held in her womb twins from that union. With her head removed, they had at last a place from which they could be born. The first to rise out of the gaping wound was a young man bearing a weapon of shining gold. His name was to be CHRYSAOR, which means ‘Golden Sword’.
Another form now emerged from the open throat of the dead Medusa. Not since the lovely APHRODITE arose from the frothing seed and blood of Ouranos’s severed testicles was something so transcendentally beautiful born of something so appallingly foul. Chrysaor’s twin was a shimmering white, winged horse. It pawed the air and flew up into the sky leaving its brother and the two shrieking sisters behind.
The name of the horse was PEGASUS.
‘I did it! I did it! I did it!’ Perseus shouted to the moon.
Indeed he had. With Medusa’s head safely stored inside the satchel he had originally dismissed as so uninteresting, he flew on in a state of intoxicated excitement. Indeed, so excited was he, so high on the thrill of his achievement, that he took a wrong turn. Instead of turning left he turned right, and soon found himself flying along a strange coastline.
Mile after mile he flew, not tiring, but growing increasingly bewildered by the unfamiliar shore. And suddenly, in the first light of dawn, the most extraordinary sight met his eyes. A beautiful girl, naked and chained to a rock.
He flew up to her.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing? And I’ll thank you to keep your eyes up on my face, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’m sorry … I couldn’t help wondering … is there any way I can help you? … My name is Perseus.’
‘ANDROMEDA, pleased to meet you.’
‘How are you staying up in the air?’
‘It’s a long story, but more to the point, why are you chained to this rock?’
‘Well …’ Andromeda sighed. ‘It was my mother, really. It’s a long story too, but I’ve nothing better to do so I might as well tell you. My parents, CEPHEUS and CASSIOPEIA, are the king and queen.’
‘Where are we exactly?’
‘Ethiopia, where did you think we were?’
‘Sorry, go on …’
‘It was all mother’s fault. She remarked out loud one day that I was more beautiful than all the NEREIDS and OCEANIDS in the world.’fn12
‘Well, you are,’ said Perseus.
‘Oh shush. Poseidon heard this boast and he was so outraged he sent a monstrous sea dragon called CETUS to ravage the shoreline.fn13 No shipping could get through and the people began to starve. We rely on trade, you see. The priests and priestesses were consulted and they told my parents that the only way to appease the god and call off Cetus was to have me chained naked to the rocks. Cetus would devour me, but the kingdom would be saved. Oh no – there he is now – look, look!’
Perseus looked round and saw a great sea beast arching through the waves towards them. Without a moment’s thought he dived into the water to confront it.
Andromeda looked on with feelings of admiration and relief that slowly turned to despair when, as the minutes passed, Perseus failed to surface. She could not know that he held the Seriphos underwater breath-holding record. Nor could she know that he was in possession of a blade so keen it could cut through even Cetus’s hard horny scales. She let out a great cry of relief when Perseus’s cheerful and triumphant face finally burst up through the waves, surrounded by a boiling mess of blubber and blood. He waved shyly before flying up to Andromeda once more.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I just can’t believe it! How did you do that?’
‘Oh, well,’ said Perseus, breaking her shackles with two swift strokes of the harpe. ‘I’ve always been at home in the water. Just swam underneath him with my blade up to slice through his belly. Fancy a lift?’
By the time they landed at the royal palace Andromeda was as hopelessly in love with him as he was with her.
Cassiopeia was overjoyed to see her daughter alive and thrilled to think of the handsome young hero becoming her son-in-law.
Cepheus the king said meekly. ‘Don’t forget, my dear, that Andromeda is already promised to my brother PHINEUS.’
‘Oh poo,’ said Cassiopeia, ‘a loose agreement, no kind of a binding engagement. He’ll understand.’
Phineus did not understand. As a brother of AEGYPTUS and descendant of NILUSfn14, he believed that an alliance with Andromeda would allow him to unite the most powerful kingdoms of the Nile. He was not about to let some puppy with a scythe take that away from him. The rumours of the puppy being able to fly he discounted.
So it was that the music and laughter of the betrothal banquet in the great hall of the Ethiopian palace was silenced by Phineus and a large body of men storming in, armed to the teeth.
‘Where is he?’ roared Phineus. ‘Where is the boy who dares come between me and Andromeda?’
Up on the top table where the royal party was feasting, Cassiopeia and Cepheus looked on in some embarrassment as Perseus rose uncertainly to his feet. ‘I think there may have been some mistake,’ he said.
‘You’re damned right there has,’ said Phineus. ‘And you made it. That girl was promised to me months ago.’
Perseus turned to Andromeda. ‘Is this true?’
‘It is true,’ she said. ‘But I was never consulted. He’s my uncle, for heaven’s sake.’fn15
‘What’s that got to do with it? You’re mine and that’s an end to it. And you,’ snarled Phineus, pointing his sword at Perseus, ‘you have two minutes to leave the palace and the kingdom, unless you want your head to decorate the gatepost.’
Perseus looked down across the hall towards Phineus. There must have been sixty armed men behind him. But talk of heads decorating gateposts gave Perseus an idea that made his head spin. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you two minutes to leave the palace – unless you want you and your men to decorate this hall.’
Phineus blew out his lips in amused contempt. ‘You’ve got a nerve, I’ll give you that. A purse of gold to the first to fire an arrow through this brat’s insolent neck.’
The armed men roared in delight and started to draw their bows.
‘Those with me, get behind me!’ shouted Perseus, opening his satchel and bringing out the head of Medusa.
Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus and the wedding guests on the top table shrieked in astonishment as Phineus and his sixty men instantly froze.
‘Why aren’t they moving?’
‘Oh, my lord – they’re stone!’
Perseus put the head back into the satchel and turned to his parents-in-law to be. ‘I hope you didn’t like him too much.’
‘My hero …’ breathed Andromeda.
‘How did you do that?’ shrieked Cassiopeia. ‘They’re statues. Stone statues! How is this possible?’
‘Oh, you know,’ said Perseus with a modest shrug. ‘I just happened to meet Medusa the Gorgon last night. Came away with her head. Thought it might come in useful.’
Perseus hid the extremity of his relief. He had by no means been certain that the gaze from the Gorgon’s dead eyes would have retained the power to petrify, but an inner voice had told him that it was worth trying. Whether the inner voice was his own inspiration or the whispered advice of Athena, he would never know.
Cepheus put a hand on Perseus’s shoulder. ‘Always hated Phineus. Done me a great service. Don’t know how to thank you.’
‘The hand of your daughter in marriage is all the thanks I need. I hope you will allow me to fly her to my home island of Seriphos to meet my mother? No!’ Perseus slapped Queen Cassiopeia’s hand which had inched forward to lift the flap of the satchel. ‘Not a good idea.’
‘Oh, mother,’ sighed Andromeda. ‘Will you never learn?’
‘It’s not a palace,’ Perseus warned Andromeda as they flashed across the sea towards Seriphos. ‘Just a simple cottage.’
‘If it’s where you grew up, I know I’ll adore it.’
‘I love you.’
‘Of course you do.’
But when they landed on the beach, they found that Dictys’s cottage had been burned to the ground.
‘What can have happened? Where is everyone? What can have happened?’
Perseus found a group of fishermen mending nets not far off. They shook their heads sadly. Danaë and Dictys had been taken prisoner by Polydectes.
‘They say the king is holding a great feast at the palace.’
‘Aye. Even now.’
‘Some announcement to make, they say.’
Perseus grabbed Andromeda’s hand and flew with her to the palace. They arrived at the back of the throne room in time to see Danaë and Dictys, bound with ropes and being dragged before the seated Polydectes.
‘How dare you? How dare you marry each other without my permission?’
‘It was all my doing,’ said Dictys.
‘It was our doing,’ said Danaë.
‘But I offered you my hand. You could have been my queen!’ screamed Polydectes. ‘For this insult, you will both die.’
Perseus stepped forward and walked towards the throne. Polydectes looked over the shoulders of Danaë and Dictys and saw him coming. He smiled broadly.
‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t brave young Perseus. You told me you wouldn’t return without the head of the Medusa.’
‘You told me you were going to challenge Oenomaus to a chariot race for the hand of Hippodamia.’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Why have you arrested my mother?’
‘She and Dictys are due to die. You can be hanged alongside them if you like.’
Danaë and Dictys turned.
‘Run, Perseus, run!’
‘Mother, Dictys, if you love me, turn and look at Polydectes. I beg you! All who love me, look on the king now!’
The smile on Polydectes’ face was a little less certain. ‘What nonsense is this?’
‘You asked for the head of Medusa. Here she is!’
‘Surely you don’t expect me to —’ Polydectes got no further.
‘You can turn and look at me now,’ said Perseus, putting Medusa’s head back in the satchel. ‘It’s safe now.’
The statue of Polydectes on his throne, flanked by stone men-at-arms, became a popular attraction on Seriphos. Visitors paid to see and touch them, and the money was spent on the construction of a temple to Athena and the installation of a hundred herms around the island.fn16
Andromeda and Perseus left King Dictys and Queen Danaë on Seriphos and moved on. Perseus and Andromeda could have stayed and inherited the throne. They could have returned to Andromeda’s homeland and ruled the combined kingdoms of Ethiopia and Egypt. But they were young, spirited and minded to travel, and Perseus was keen to visit the land of his birth. As a baby he had been there for less than a week. His grandfather King Acrisius had done everything to prevent his existence and shorten his life, but he was curious to see what Argos, the famous kingdom of his birth, was like.
When Perseus and Andromeda arrived, they discovered that Acrisius, after casting his daughter and grandson onto the waters in their chest all those years ago, had turned dark, cruel and despotic. Never a popular ruler, he had soon been toppled from his throne. Nobody knew where he was now. The people of Argos, having heard of Perseus’s astonishing feats, invited him to fill the vacant throne. Uncertain what to do or where to settle, the young couple thanked the Argives and asked for time to consider.
They wandered about mainland Greece, Perseus funding their travels with prize money from athletic meetings that he entered and invariably won. They heard news that the King of Larissa was holding the richest games of the year and made their way north to Thessaly to compete. The finest athletes in Greece were taking part and great would be the honours awarded the competitor who won the most events. One by one, Perseus prevailed in every race and every competition. It came at last to the discus. Perseus threw his so far it shot over the longest mark, cleared the stadium and landed amongst the spectators. The great roar of delight that met this astounding feat swiftly turned to a groan of horror. The discus had struck someone in the crowd.
Perseus ran to the place. An old man was lying on the ground, blood streaming from his gashed head. Perseus cradled him in his arms.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘So terribly sorry. I don’t know my own strength. May the gods forgive me.’
To Perseus’s astonishment the old man smiled and even managed to cough out a laugh.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s funny really. I defeated the oracle. How many can say that? It said I would be killed by my grandson, and here I am instead, felled by some clumsy oaf of an athlete.’
The old man’s attendant pushed Perseus away. ‘Give his majesty air.’
‘His majesty?’
‘Don’t you know this is King Acrisius of Argos?’
Accident or not, preordained or not, it was a blood crime. Perseus and Andromeda made a sad pilgrimage to Mount Cyllene in Arcadia and the temple of Hermes that stood near the cave where the god was born. On the altar stone they laid the hood of invisibility and the talaria, the winged sandals. As they left the temple precincts, after a brief prayer to the god, they turned to look back at the altar. The hood and sandals had disappeared.
‘We did the right thing,’ said Andromeda.
Now they made their way to Athens, and in the deepest recesses of the temple of Athena they hid the sickle, the shield and the satchel that held the head of Medusa.
Athena herself appeared before them and blessed them.
‘You did well, Perseus. Our father is pleased with you.’
She raised the shield and they saw that the face of Medusa, startled, dismayed, sad and somehow beautiful stared out, forever trapped within the shining surface of the bronze. From that time on the shield was the Aegis of Athena – her sign, her standard and her warning to the world.
It can be said of Perseus and Andromeda, and of no other great heroes I can think of, that they lived happily ever after. After their wanderings they returned to the Peloponnese – the large southwestern peninsula connected to the mainland of Greece by the land bridge of the Isthmus of Corinthfn17 – and founded Mycenae, a great kingdom that in time, under the name of Argolis or the Argolid, absorbed neighbouring Arcadia and Corinth as well as Perseus’s birth kingdom of Argos to the south.
Through their son Perses, their bloodline founded the Persian nation and people.
After their long lives, Perseus and Andromeda were awarded the greatest prize that Zeus can bestow on mortals. Along with Cassiopeia and Cepheus, they were taken up into the heavens as constellations. Together Perseus and Andromeda look over their unruly shower of meteor children, the PERSEIDS, whom we can still watch showing off in the night sky once a year.