Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/122

 90 HISTORY OF GREECE. acquired still greater celebrity than her cousins the Proetides An oracle had apprized Akrisios that his daughter would give birth to a son by whose hand he would himself be slain. To guard against this danger, he imprisoned Danae in a chamber of brass under ground. But the god Zeus had become amorous of her, and found means to descend through the roof in the form of a shower of gold : the consequence of his visits was the birth of Perseus. When Akrisios discovered that his daughter had given existence to a son, he enclosed both the mother and the child in a coffer, which he cast into the sea. 1 The coffer was carried to the isle of Seriphos, where Diktys, brother of the king Polydektes, fished it up, and rescued both Danae and Perseus. The exploits of Perseus, when he grew up, against the three Phorkides or daughters of Phorkys, and the three Gorgons, are among the most marvellous and imaginative in all Grecian legend : they bear a stamp almost Oriental. I shall not here repeat the details of those unparalleled hazards which the special favor of Athene en- abled him to overcome, and which ended in his bringing back from Libya the terrific head of the Gorgon Medusa, endued with the property of turning every one who looked upon it into stone. In his return, he rescued Andromeda, daughter of Kepheus, who had been exposed to be devoured by a sea-monster, and brought her back as his wife. Akrisios trembled to see him after this victorious expedition, and retired into Thessaly to avoid him ; but Perseus followed him thither, and having succeeded in calming his apprehensions, became competitor in a gymnic contest where his grandfather was among the spectators. By an incautious swing of his quoit, he unintentionally struck Akrisios, and caused his death : the predictions of the oracle were thus at last fulfilled. Stung with remorse at the catastrophe, and unwilling to return to Argos, which had been the principality of Akrisios, Perseus made an exchange with Megapenthes, son of Proetos king of Tiryns. Megapenthes became king of Argos, and Perseus of Tiryns : moreover, the latter founded, within ten miles of Argos, the far -fame I city of Mykenas. The massive walls of this city, 1 The beautiful fragment of Simonides (Fragm. vii. ed. Gaisford. Poet. Man.), describing Danae and the child thus exposed, is familiar to evcrj classical