84 On the Theogony. 



as any mythological menagerie can well present. They very appropriately 

 form the subject of a chapter in the treatise of Palaephetus, the Greek 

 mythologist, on " Incredible Histories" In the first generation, the 

 daughters of Phorcys were the two Graise, Pephredo and Enyo, (the same 

 with Bellona,) and the three Gorgons, Stheino, Euryale, and Medusa. The 

 latter became pregnant by Neptune ; and some mythologists inform us, that 

 Minerva, whose temple was then violated, being incensed, changed her 

 before beautiful locks into twisted serpents : the mingled beauty and terror 

 with which her head is represented in some ancient gems, is well known. 

 The Gorgons inhabited the same isles of the extreme west with the 

 Hesperides. When Medusa's head had been cut off by Perseus,* her post- 

 humous offspring sprung forth — Chrysaor, and his steed Pegasus, mounted 

 on which, and waving a golden sword in his hand, he flew, bearing thunder 

 and lightning, to the palace of Jupiter, where he now dwells. Chrysaor 



* Herodotus II. 91, informs us that the story of Perseus is of Egj'ptian origin, and 

 imported into Greece by Danaus. In the city of Chemmis, in theThebaid, he noticed 

 a statue of Perseus, and says that the natives gave the same account as the Greeks, 

 of his going to Africa to cut oflF the Gorgon's head. Homer mentions the Gorgon's 

 head as an ornament carved on the iEgis of Jove and Minerva, and on the shield of 

 Agamemnon ; the scholiast on Homer, however, maintains that he only uses these 

 terms as a personification of TeiTor, and that he was unacquainted with the fables of 

 Perseus and the Gorgons. Pindar, however, alludes to it in the X. and XII. Pythian ; 

 and jEschylus, Prom. Vinet. 791, gives us the full vulgar tale, which represents the 

 Graiae as possessing between them only a single eye and tooth, which they borrowed 

 from one another in turns ; he calls them swan-formed. He adds that none could 

 look on the serpent locks of their sisters, the Gorgons, and live. The well-known 

 petrifying quality of Medusa's head is well adapted to a mythical personification of 

 Terror, the probable origin of these fictions. One of the lost dramas of j^schylus, 

 the Phorcides, entirely turned on this fable. Pherecydes, a mythological writer of 

 the age of Pericles, related the whole adventures of Perseus ; but he is only known 

 as cited by later scholiasts. Apollodorus, apparently following these early authorities* 

 has given us a complete Arabian tale on the subject ; he makes Perseus, by stealing 

 the single eye of the Graiae, oblige them to direct him to the nymphs, from whom he 

 obtains three wonderful gifts, the winged sandals, the helmet, which (like the 

 northern cap of darkness) has the power of rendering the wearer invisible, and a 

 magical satchel. Thus p. ovided, he comes on the Gorgons while sleeping ; and not 

 daring to look directly on their petrifying faces, he guides his blows by the reflected 

 image in his polished shield, and so cuts off Medusa's head, which, having first 

 employed to petrify all his foes, he finally bestows on Minerva his great protectress. 

 It is sufficiently amusing to observe the labours of some of the later mythologists, to 

 turn these good stories into grave allegories. Hesiod, in the shield of Hercules, if that 

 poem be really his, has described (1. 216) Perseus as sculptured in exact agreement 

 with this story, the winged sandals on his feet, flying, like thought, with the terrible 

 Gorgon's head enclosed in the satchel on his back, and the dread helm of Hades, in- 

 vested with the gloom of night, pressing on his brows. 



Diodorus Siculus, (1. Ill,) turns the Gorgons into a nation of female warriors, 

 like their neighbours, the Amazons, and says that Perseus subdued them in the 

 reign of queen Medusa. 



i 



