.. GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY. 133 
which nightly grew again to renew his agonies on the following day (pi. 23, 
Jig. 15). There he was to remain for three thousand years; but Heracles 
slew the vulture, broke the fetters; and prevailed upon Zeus to admit Prome- 
theus into Olympos, where his sagacity and shrewdness were of much service 
2. Pxrrsnus, son of Zews and Danaé, was immediately after his birth 
placed in a box together with his mother, and thrown into the sea by her 
father Aerisios, who feared the fulfilment of a prediction, according te 
which he would be killed by his grandson. The box was carried by the 
waves to the island of Seryphos, where both mother and son were kindly 
received by King Polydectes, who was so enchanted by the charms of Danaé 
that he demanded her in marriage. She managed, however, to defer such 
an alliance on the plea that her son should first grow up to be a youth and 
zo forth to procure her an adequate dower. When the time came, the 
intrepid youth boldly offered to bring Polydectes the head of Medusa, one 
of the Gorgons ; and Polydectes, who wished to rid himself of the youth, 
who seemed unfavorable to his attachment for Danaé, and hoped he would 
perish in the bold attempt, accepted the offer of Perseus, who accordingly 
undertook the dangerous expedition. 
_ The Gorgons were three sisters, monsters girt with serpents, and having 
serpents instead of hair. They had also brazen hands and wings, and huge 
boars’ tusks; and so stern was their aspect that every mortal that beheld 
them was converted into stone. They were immortal, with the exception 
of Medusa (pl. 26, fig. 10; pl. 30, jigs. 13a, 6). Their residence was 
beyond the ocean on the frontier of night (west Europe), and the way 
thither was full of dangers and almost unknown. 
_ Perseus obtained for his perilous undertaking the assistance of Hermes 
and Athene. Accompanied by them he went to the Gree, the guardians 
of the only weapons with which Medusa could be slain. They were, 
according to Hesiod, two misshapen spinsters, Pephredo and nyo, who 
had only one eye and one tusk in common, which they used alternately. 
Aischylus states them as three in number, and later writers allude to them 
by the names Pemphildo or Emphildo, Ento, and Yeno ; still others as 
Pephredo, Enyo, and Chersis or Deino. 
Perseus subdued the Gree and took away their tusk and eye, which he 
withheld until they delivered to him the weapons he wanted. They then 
procured for him a pair of winged sandals, the helmet of Ares with the 
power of making the wearer invisible, a silver bag and a diamond sickle, to 
which Athene added a brazen shield of such splendor that he could use it 
as a reflector in which to see the image of the head of Medusa, lest behold- 
ing the head itself he should fall under the doom of other mortals and be 
converted into stone. Thus equipped he began his expedition. PU. 30, jig. 
11, represents him preparing to start. 
His winged sandals carried him speedily to an island, where he found the 
Gorgons asleep. Approaching them with averted face, guided by the reflec- 
tion from his shield, he severed the head of Medusa from her body with 
one blow of his sickle. P7. 30, jig. 12, represents him with the head in 
one hand, the sickle in the oie and the rg hanging at his arm. From 
ICONOGRAPHIC ENCYCLOPADIA. —vol. Iv. 353 
