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 METAMORPHOSES BOOK IV pay the penalty of her mother's words. As soon as Perseus saw her there bound by the arms to a rough cliff-save that her hair gently stirred in the breeze, and the warm tears were trickling down her cheeks, he would have thought her a marble statue--he took fire unwitting, and stood dumb. Smitten by the sight of her exquisite beauty, he almost forgot to move his wings in the air. Then, when he alighted near the maiden, he said Oh! those are not the chains you deserve to wear, but rather those that link fond lovers together! Tell me, for I would know, your country's name and yours, and why you are chained here." She was silent at first, for, being a maid, she did not dare address a man; she would have hidden her face modestly with her hands but that her hands were bound. Her eyes were free, and these filled with rising tears. As he continued to urge her, she, lest she should seem to be trying to conceal some fault of her own, told him her name and her country, and what sinful boasting her mother had made of her own beauty. While she was yet speaking, there came a loud sound from the sea, and there, advancing over the broad expanse, a monstrous creature loomed up, breasting the wide waves. The ee maiden shrieked. The grieving father and the mother are at hand, both wretched, but she more justly so. They have no help to give, but only wailings and loud beatings of the breast, befitting the occasion, and they hang to the girl's chained form. Then speaks the stranger: "There will be long time for weeping by and by; but time for helping is very short. If I sought this maid as Perseus, son of Jove and that imprisoned one whom Jove filled with his life-giving shower; if as Perseus, victor over Gorgon of the snaky locks, and as he who has dared to ride the 227