Zeus came to imprisoned Danae as a shower of gold, and so she conceived Perseus.[30]
In due course of time a secret son was born, and Danae named him Perseus. The baby lived with his mother inside their brazen dungeon, but one day Acrisius heard the metallic echoes of the young boy at play, and Danae’s secret was discovered. Acrisius laid ungentle hands on his daughter, demanding to know who the father was. “It was Zeus!” she cried, but Acrisius didn’t believe her. He locked both mother and child in a wooden chest and tossed them into the sea, so that he would be absolved of their deaths. But the frail vessel caught in the net of a fisherman called Dictys, and he took Danae and Perseus to his home on the island of Seriphos and let them stay with him. The years passed and Perseus grew up lithe and sleek; it was clear that he was favored by the gods.
Now, honest Dictys’ brother Polydectes, the king of Seriphos, lusted after fair Danae. But confident in the protection of her son, she always spurned his unwelcome advances. Polydectes therefore decided to get rid of Perseus, and the proud youth foolishly made it easy for him. Polydectes invited him, along with all the important men of the island, to a banquet, supposedly to elicit contributions for the wedding of Pelops and Hippodamia. Every man was to provide a horse, but Perseus was not rich enough to own one. The young man nervously quipped that he could as easily bring Polydectes the head of the Gorgon as a horse. Seizing his opportunity, Polydectes held him to his word: he was to fetch the Gorgon’s head. That would remove Perseus from the scene for a long time—perhaps permanently—and in the meantime Polydectes could have his way with Danae.
Perseus’ quest began in despair. He knew about the Gorgons: there were three of them—Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa—and they had originally been the beautiful daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, children of Earth and Sea. Stheno and Euryale were fully immortal, but Medusa was as a mortal woman, only far more fair. But Medusa fell foul of Athena. She claimed her looks rivaled Athena’s own beauty, and she further angered the chaste goddess by coupling with Poseidon in her holy sanctuary.
For punishment, all three Gorgons were turned into stubby-winged monsters, with drooling and engorged tongues, tusks projecting from their mouths, decaying skin, and poisonous snakes for hair. They were creatures from a nightmare, and Medusa’s once-alluring eyes turned all who looked directly at them into stone, forever.
So Perseus wandered to a lonely part of the island and sat down to think. Gulls wheeled and cried overhead in the salt breeze. And there came to him two mighty gods, Hermes and Athena, telling him to have no fear. “But what can I do?” he said. “I can’t just confront the Gorgons.” The gods agreed, and recommended an oblique course.
“Did you know that the Gorgons have sisters?” they asked. “If anyone knows a sister’s weaknesses, it’s another sister. You should find the Graeae, and compel them to tell you how to defeat the Gorgons.” They told him about the three Graeae, who had been born and lived as crones, hunched with age, as gray and chilling as the foam of the sea from which they came; and forestalled his next nervous question by giving him directions for finding them.
When Perseus reached the distant seashore where the Graeae lived, he asked them at once for help. “But who are you?” demanded Pemphredo, staring in his direction out of eyeless sockets, ghastly to behold.
“It’s a young man,” croaked her sister Deino. “I’ve got the eye, so I can see.”
“Give it here, then,” rasped Pemphredo. There was a soft sucking noise as Deino pried the slick orb out of her socket and handed it to her sister. The eye sank into her head with a squelch, and after taking stock of Perseus she passed the eye over to her other sister, Enyo. “Swap you for the tooth,” she said. “I’ve still got a bit of raw octopus left to chew.”
As Perseus submitted to the scrutiny of the strange creatures, he blushed—but an idea occurred to him. He could see that the Graeae had only the one tooth and the one eye between them, and depended on them utterly. Slowly, carefully, he edged closer to the grizzled women. His moment came when both the eye and the tooth were in transit from one Graea to another: Perseus grabbed them and stepped back. The shrieks of the crones were terrible to hear—at once like a seagull’s harsh scream and the wind keening over storm waves. “Give them back, give them back, give them back!” they cried.
“No!” said Perseus. “Not until you tell me how your sisters can be defeated.” At first the Graeae refused, out of loyalty to their kin. Perseus, calling their bluff, began to walk away with the hostage bits, his feet crunching on the shingle, but he hadn’t gone far when they called him back and agreed to help him. He pressed the eye and the tooth into the unseeing hands of Deino, and the grizzled creatures burst into sing-song voice.
“Far distant is the home of our sisters,” they said, “on the western shores of Ocean, close to the entrance to the underworld. Months will pass in the journey, or even years, unless you have some magical means of transport. And beware! Their senses are very acute: it would be best to be invisible. Furthermore, even if you succeed in decapitating our sister Medusa, what will you do with the head? You can’t leave it uncovered, because it will turn everything that looks at it—including you, perhaps—into stone forever.” Perseus found their advice distinctly unhelpful. His task seemed even more impossible than before. “So I’ve got to be able to fly,” he said, “and be invisible, and safely transport the Gorgon’s lethal head. Unfortunately, I can’t do any of these things.”
Perseus kept the one eye of the three Graeae until they aided him in his quest for Medusa.[31]
“But fortunately,” said the Graeae, “we know how you can acquire these abilities. After the transformation of our sisters, Poseidon entrusted certain items to some of his daughters, the sea nymphs. He was worried in case the Gorgons might run amok and terrify the world, so he had to leave the means of their destruction in safe keeping.” And they told Perseus how to find the nymphs.
Away he sped on his mission, and the nymphs saw in him a true hero and graciously loaned him a cap of darkness, a pair of winged sandals, and a special satchel. Hermes gave him a wickedly sharp sword, and when he drew it from its sheath a cold wind whistled across the blade, and it showed no reflection of the moon’s shining.
Perseus flew with his sky shoes to the edge of the world, near the source of the vast river Ocean that sweeps around the continents of the earth, and found the foul Gorgons asleep. Once he had spotted them from on high, he donned his cap of invisibility and swooped down. Acting on the advice of Athena and Hermes, he used his bronze shield as a mirror, to avoid the direct gaze of Medusa. Even with this handicap, he managed to cut off her head cleanly, with one slice. Immediately, through the Gorgon’s severed neck, leapt her children by Poseidon: the winged horse Pegasus, and the horse’s human twin, Chrysaor, the father of Geryon.
All this turmoil awoke Medusa’s sisters, and the snakes on their heads seemed to have the power to penetrate the aura of invisibility with which he was surrounded. Perseus quickly stuffed the head into the satchel and flew off, while the hideous twins screeched and raved futilely, and their serpent hair writhed and hissed. As he flew over the desert of Africa, drops of blood fell from the satchel and the ground thus inseminated gave birth to all the poisonous snakes that dwell there.
All who gaze at the Gorgon Medusa turn to stone forever.[32]
* * *
When Perseus reached the coast of Palestine, an extraordinary sight greeted his eyes. A young woman was struggling helplessly against chains that bound her to a jagged rock, so close to the water’s edge that salt spray mingled with the tears on her face. The curious hero landed, tucked away his cap of darkness, and made inquiries in the local town. The woman was Andromeda, the daughter of the king, Cepheus. And it was he, her reluctant father, who had ordered her to be bound and left for a savage sea monster to devour, because this, he had been told, was the only way to stop its ruinous raids on his land. The monster had been sent by sea nymphs, because Andromeda’s mother had boasted
that her daughter was more beautiful than them. Sometimes, the sins of the mother are visited upon the daughter.
Perseus was so taken by the girl that he was inclined to agree with her mother’s assessment of her charms, and he began to negotiate with Cepheus: the hand of Andromeda if he could get rid of the monster. The bargain struck, Perseus didn’t hesitate. He returned straight away to the rock and freed fair Andromeda … just in time, for already they could see the creature breasting the foam, forging a furrow in the sea toward them as straight as a plow in soft and stoneless earth.
Perseus rescued Andromeda from a grisly fate as an offering to a sea monster.[33]
Perseus rose into the air on his winged sandals, and drove the creature mad with fury by hovering just out of reach of its snapping jaws. Time and again he returned to earth, each time to collect ever larger boulders, with which he stunned the monster and drove it off. He and Andromeda returned in joy to the palace, already committed to each other, but when Perseus claimed his prize, Cepheus’ brother Phineus objected, for he wanted Andromeda for himself. He lured the young man into an ambush—but nimble Perseus found time to close his eyes and yank the petrifying head out of its satchel. Perseus swept Andromeda into his arms and together they flew back to Seriphos. There they found Danae and Dictys huddled fearfully at an altar, to which they had fled for refuge from Polydectes’ violence. Both, in their different ways, had been abused by the king, and they greeted the returning hero with tears of hope. Perseus strode into Polydectes’ palace, the uninvited guest, the bringer of death. He found the king at banquet, surrounded by his supporters, in his lofty reception hall.
“And did you get me the Gorgon’s head?” the king taunted. Perseus reached in and pulled the ghastly object out of his satchel, while averting his gaze. Polydectes and all the others were instantly turned to stone, the mocking laughter frozen forever on their sneering lips. A quick smile flitted across Perseus’ face.
After he had returned the magical objects to Hermes, Perseus gave the Gorgon’s head to Athena, who set it in the middle of her aegis forever.
She is a terrible goddess, and anyone who sees her as she is freezes in awe and fear. Then the young hero returned with Danae and Andromeda to Argos. Acrisius, hearing of their arrival, fled, but Perseus set out in pursuit. He caught up with his grandfather in Thessaly, and the two were reconciled, but there is no escaping the word of Fate. Perseus agreed to take part in an athletic competition, and the discus that he threw accidentally struck and killed Acrisius. Polluted even by this unintentional murder, Perseus exiled himself from Argos, but took nearby Tiryns as his seat after his great-uncle Proetus’ death. He also founded golden Mycenae, and in both places the Cyclopes built the massive defensive walls for him, which still stand after all this time.
Bellerophon
As Perseus stands to Argos, Theseus to Athens, and Heracles to the Peloponnese as a whole, so Bellerophon stands to Corinth, the greatest of its heroes. His grandfather was Sisyphus, and his mother had been loved by Poseidon, whose child she said he was. But he was compelled to leave the land of his birth after accidentally killing a brother, and he settled in Tiryns, under King Proetus.
The handsome youth attracted the fancy of the queen, Stheneboea. She began by flirting with him in secret, which was tolerable, if uncomfortable, but in the end she demanded an assignation. Bellerophon refused her, but hell truly has no fury like a woman scorned, and Stheneboea told her husband that Bellerophon had tried to rape her. Blinded by his desire for revenge, Proetus sent Bellerophon to his wife’s father Iobates, king of Lycia, with a sealed letter containing Stheneboea’s charges—and the request that Iobates get rid of his young visitor, permanently. In order to encompass his death, Iobates therefore set him to cleanse Lycia of its plagues. By rights, any one of the tasks should kill him. Iobates could only win: either Bellerophon would die, or, if he succeeded, Lycia would at least have been freed from terror.
Bellerophon, however, was beloved of the gods. Poseidon gave him his son Pegasus, the white, winged horse that had sprung from Medusa’s severed neck. But Pegasus was wild and untamed, and nothing Bellerophon could do would make the proud steed obedient to his commands. Keen-eyed Athena, noticing the boy’s trouble, and wanting to help, came down by night from Olympus with a magic bridle, and with this he was able to mount and control the splendid creature. After a bit of practice, he found that he could fire his arrows with deadly accuracy, while gripping the flanks of the winged horse with his knees and thighs, and he soared up to the heavens and swooped toward the earth in delight. As he sped through the air, his dark cape flowed gracefully out behind him, and peasants working in the fields stared up at the sky in awe and amazement.
All his labors met with success. First he shot down the fire-breathing Chimera, dread offshoot of Typhoeus, which was ravaging Iobates’ land—three deadly arrows in quick succession, one for each of the creatures that made up its body. Then he expelled the wild Solymi, the first inhabitants of Lycia, and drove them into the mountain fastnesses where they still live. Finally, he quelled the Amazons, for the warrior women were raiding Iobates’ territory.
Destroying the fire-breathing Chimera—equal parts lion, she-goat, and snake—was Bellerophon’s first task.[34]
Having singlehandedly done all that Iobates wanted, Bellerophon set out in triumph back to the king’s palace. But the treacherous king, true only to Proetus’ request, sent a strong force of his men to conceal themselves and take the young hero unawares. Not one of the ambushers returned alive, and at last Iobates was forced to recognize that Bellerophon was under the special protection of the gods. He realized that his daughter had been lying, and in recompense gave Bellerophon half his kingdom and another daughter’s hand in marriage. When she learned that her shamelessness and lies had been revealed, Stheneboea killed herself rather than live with the humiliation.
But being dear to the gods is not a sufficient shield against arrogance. Men encompass their own destruction. Bellerophon took it into his head one day to ride on Pegasus’ back up to heaven, to remonstrate with the gods about the injustice of life on earth. Who among us has not wished to do such a thing? But the great steed, mindful of his father, refused to have anything to do with such a foolish enterprise, and bucked his rider off to the ground. Bellerophon broke both hips and spent the rest of his life as a wretched cripple. Perhaps in the end he learned wisdom, but the storytellers do not say.
Chapter Five
THEBES IN THE AGE OF HEROES
Cadmus, Europa, and the Foundation of Thebes
Cadmus, son of Agenor, was king of Phoenician Tyre, and grandson of Epaphus. He had a sister called Europa, who was so fair of face and form that her beauty came to the attention of Zeus. The son of Cronus changed himself into a magnificent white bull and drew near her. The maiden was fascinated by this bull: so massive and powerful, and yet so gentle. Quelling her fearful fancies, she approached the majestic creature and stroked its panting muzzle. The bull breathed the scent of saffron, and when it bowed its forelegs to the ground, the girl sat, sideways but secure, on its back.
Immediately, the bull raced for the coast, and Europa clung on in terror. The magnificent creature plunged into the sea and swam forcefully for the island of Crete. When they came ashore, Zeus shed his disguise as a bull and had his way with her. And she bore him Minos, the wise king of Crete who became a judge of the dead, as did his brother Rhadamanthys.
Europa clung on in terror as the bull plunged into the sea.[35]
But Agenor sent his sons to find her, for he had no idea where she had gone, so silent and swift had Zeus’ abduction been. Phoenix he sent north, where he founded the Phoenician race; Cilix futilely searched in the east, and settled at last in the land known since as Cilicia; but Cadmus was sent west.
Arriving in Greece, he made his way to Delphi to ask Apollo’s advice. The golden god told him that Europa’s destiny was not his concern, and enjoined him to follow the first cow he encountered after leavi
ng the Delphic precinct. He was to found a city wherever the cow first took her rest. After a while, he did indeed come across a cow, and she lumbered to her feet as soon as she saw him. She set off east, and Cadmus followed, and founded the great city of Thebes where she took her rest. In proper thanksgiving for the end of his travels, he decided to sacrifice the cow, and he sent his men out to find water. But a formidable dragon, a pet of Ares, guarded the spring, and many of Cadmus’ men were ripped apart by the vicious creature’s fangs, or crushed in its coils, until Cadmus himself came up and slew it in its pride with a rock that broke its skull. The cow was duly sacrificed to Athena. In return the keen-eyed goddess gave Cadmus some advice: to honor Ares and the previous occupants of the land by sowing the serpent’s teeth in the ground. But as soon as he planted the razor-sharp teeth, armed warriors sprang up from the tilled furrows.
Responding out of sheer instinct, Cadmus wrapped his muscular arms around a boulder resting at the edge of the field and lobbed it into their midst. The warriors, more like automata than thinking men, supposed that one of their number had done it, and fell to fighting among themselves.
In the end, only five of the Sown Men remained, and from these five are descended the five noble families of Thebes. But Athena and Ares reserved half the teeth and gave them to King Aeëtes of Colchis, who found a use for them when Hera’s favorite Jason came to his land.
Zeus awarded Cadmus as his wife Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, but first he had to work as Ares’ servant for a year, in recompense for the slaying of the dragon. All the gods and goddesses, including the Muses and the Graces, came to the acropolis of Thebes, to celebrate the wedding. Among the bride-gifts for Harmonia was a marvelous necklace, made for her by no less a craftsman than Hephaestus, to be a priceless heirloom for her descendants. But an heirloom is not only precious: it carries the fortune of the family down from one generation to the next, whether that fortune be good or bad.
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