Now Perseus, using clouds of turf, heaps up
three altars: each meant for another god.
The altar to the left is Mercury’s;
the altar to the right is yours, Minerva;
great Jove receives the altar at the center.
A cow is slaughtered for the warlike virgin;
and for the winged-foot god, a calf is slain;
for you, the greatest god, he kills a bull.
And then, without delay, the hero claims
Andromeda as wife: he seeks no dowry—
the girl alone rewards his victory.
And Love and Hymen shake the marriage torches,
and fires are fed by incense in abundance,
and garlands wreath the roofs, and lyres and flutes
and songs that echo everywhere bear witness
to glad exuberance. Flung wide, the portals
display the gilded palace—and the banquet
is sumptuous. King Cepheus’ chieftains crowd.
When they have feasted well and drunk their fill
of Bacchus’ gracious gift of wine, young Perseus
inquires about the region’s life and ways.
And one of Cepheus’ lords without delay
details the thoughts and habits of that place
and, having finished his description, says:
“Now, sturdy son of Danae, may I pray
that you retell what force and craft you used
when you subdued the Gorgon’s snake-wreathed head.”
Then Perseus told them how, beneath cold Atlas,
there was a shelter ringed by sturdy walls;
two sisters lived just at the entranceway;
those Graeae, Phorcys’ daughters, shared one eye.
Through subtle wiles and guile, the son of Danae—
while one was passing that eye to the other—
stretched out his hand and intercepted it.
Latin [753–77]
He held it fast as he advanced across
uncharted, lonely tracts, across rough rocks
and horrid gullies, till he reached the house
of fierce Medusa and her sister Gorgons
(another set of daughters born of Phorcys).
Along the fields and paths where he had trekked,
he saw the forms of men and animals
who had been changed to stone because their gaze
had dared to spy upon Medusa’s face.
But Perseus himself had found a way
to see the dread Medusa yet escape
the fate of others, for his left hand held
a shield of bronze reflecting her dread form.
And when deep sleep had overtaken her,
together with the snakes that wreathed her hair,
he cut that Gorgon’s head off from the neck;
and from Medusa’s blood two sons sprang up:
Chrysaor and the winged Pegasus.
And Perseus added to his tale the perils—
not fictive—he had faced in his long journey;
he told them, too, of all the seas and lands
that he had seen beneath him in his flight,
and of the stars he’d touched as his wings beat.
But when his voice fell still, that interval
allowed one of the lords to ask him why
the only one among the Gorgon sisters
whose hair was wreathed with serpents was Medusa.
The guest replied: “What you have asked deserves
retelling: listen now to my true words.
Medusa was astonishingly fair;
she was desired and contended for—
so many jealous suitors hoped to win her.
Her form was graced by many splendors, yet
there was no other beauty she possessed
that could surpass the splendor of her hair—
and this I learned from one who said he’d seen her.
Her beauty led the Ruler of the Sea
Latin [778–98]
to rape her in Minerva’s sanctuary
(so goes the tale). Jove’s daughter turned aside
chaste eyes: the goddess hid her face behind
her aegis—but she made Medusa pay:
she changed that Gorgon’s hair to horrid snakes.
And to this day, Minerva, to dismay
and terrify her foes, wears on her breast
the very snakes that she herself had set—
as punishment—upon Medusa’s head.”
Latin [798–803]