Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/80

 tears" in ancient legends because Saint Lawrence was burned at the stake upon the 10th of August in the "sad old days" of religious intolerance. Every year, like ghosts, his tears return and rain down from the sky in drops of fire. They fall at the rate of about one a minute. Miss Proctor, in "Half Hours with the Summer Stars," mentions a quaint old oriental legend in which the meteors are supposed to be darts which are thrown by the angels at the evil ones who are barred from heaven and eavesdrop at its gates.

The myth which is woven about the hero Perseus is a very beautiful one and a few words as to why the Greeks so loved this gallant lad might be well appreciated by those who are not familiar with the story.

Acrisius, King of Argos, was so selfish and quarrelsome that finally Jupiter, who watched over the affairs of mankind, determined to give him something real to worry about, so Acrisius was informed through an oracle that he would lose his crown and die by the hand of his own grandson. Soon after this Perseus was born, and the King was indeed terrified. His fear increased daily, finally bringing him to such a state of madness that he placed the Princess Danae, his own daughter, and her little son in a large chest and threw it into the sea.

The gods, however, watched the chest and held it steady among the roughest waves, finally stranding it in the sea-weed on the little Island of Seriphus where the wanderers were rescued and given a home.

Years passed, and the King of Seriphus grew to love Danae, but he feared Perseus who looked like a golden-haired god. One day this king planned a great feast and informed his guests that each must bring a gift as proof of his loyalty, and the gift must be either costly or rare. Since Perseus had no wealth, the king suggested that he bring to court the head of the Gorgon Medusa who lived across the sea in the wilds of a strange and distant land.