Perseus
Perseus, who beheaded Medusa and reigned at Tiryns
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Ancient Greece(Greece)Mycenae(Greece)Family Tree
The Oracle, the Chest and the Impossible Errand
Perseus was born of Zeus and Danae, daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. An oracle had warned Acrisius that he would die at the hands of his daughter's son, so the king shut Danae away to make sure she never had one: Apollodorus puts her in a bronze chamber sunk underground, while later tradition raised her into a tower. The confinement changed nothing. Zeus seeped through the roof as a shower of gold and left her with child. When the boy was born Acrisius would not kill him with his own hands: he put mother and son in a wooden chest and set it adrift. The chest ran aground on Seriphos, where the fisherman Dictys took them in and raised the boy. His brother Polydectes, lord of the island, wanted Danae for himself and saw Perseus as the obstacle. He did not have him killed: he gathered contributions of horses for a wedding, knowing the young man owned none, and Perseus answered with exactly the boast the king was waiting for, that he would bring back the head of Medusa. Polydectes took him at his word on the spot. Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who could die, and that was the whole of the advantage the errand carried.
The Blow He Did Not Watch
Guided by Hermes and Athena, Perseus first seeks out the Graeae, the three sisters born old who take turns with a single eye and a single tooth. He snatches the eye at the very moment it passes from one hand to another and will not give it back until they point him to the nymphs. From them he receives the winged sandals, the kibisis, the wallet in which whatever he brings back is to be carried, and the cap of Hades, which makes its wearer invisible; from Hermes he receives the adamantine sickle with which he will cut. The Gorgons live beyond Ocean, at the world's edge. Perseus finds them asleep and never once looks at them: he keeps his eyes on the polished bronze of the shield and steers the sickle's edge by the reflection, for Medusa's gaze turns flesh to stone whether she is awake or not. The shield is not a weapon that throws the gaze back at her; it is the way of never meeting it. One stroke takes the head off and he drops it into the wallet unseen. From the neck spring Pegasus, the winged horse, and Chrysaor of the golden sword, the two children Medusa had conceived by Poseidon and had been carrying within her. Stheno and Euryale, the other two Gorgons, wake and give chase; they are immortal and no sickle avails against them, so what saves Perseus is the cap that makes him invisible.
Andromeda, the Coral and the Prophecy That Fulfils Itself
On the way back Perseus passes along the coast of Ethiopia and sees Andromeda chained to a rock. Her mother Cassiopeia had boasted of being lovelier than the Nereids, and the kingdom was paying for the offence by handing the girl over to a sea monster. Perseus kills the beast and asks Cepheus for his daughter's hand; at the wedding Phineus, Andromeda's uncle and betrothed, bursts in, and the hero settles the quarrel by drawing the head out of the wallet. It is there, on that shore and nowhere else, that Ovid places the origin of coral: Perseus lays the head on a bed of seaweed while he washes his hands, and the weed hardens at its touch, which is how the ancients explained a plant that is soft under water and stone out of it. Back on Seriphos, Perseus finds his mother taking sanctuary at an altar and Polydectes at his banquet, and there he finishes what the king had begun: he shows the head and the whole court is turned to stone, each in the attitude he happened to be holding. He leaves the island to Dictys, returns the sandals, the wallet and the cap to Hermes, and gives the head to Athena, who sets it in her shield. The prophecy fulfils itself, alone and late: at funeral games in Larissa a discus thrown by Perseus goes astray and strikes Acrisius on the foot, killing him on the spot. Perseus will not inherit the kingdom of the man he has killed and exchanges Argos for Tiryns; he fortifies Midea and Mycenae, whose foundation Pausanias credits to him. By Andromeda he has, among other children, Perses, who stays behind with Cepheus and from whom the Greeks derived the Persians, and Electryon, who will be the grandfather of Heracles.
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Element
Air
Number
1
Color
Golden
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In the Atlas
Travel the beings’ world of origin and the cosmos of their dimensions.
Mythologies
Greek mythology developed in Ancient Greece from the Late Bronze Age and reached its most elaborate form during the archaic and classical periods, between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE. It emerged among the Hellenic peoples who inhabited the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands and the coasts of Asia Minor, and was transmitted mainly through the oral poetry of Homer and Hesiod, as well as local traditions collected in sanctuaries and festivals. Its worldview presents a universe ordered by a hierarchy of divinities that intervene in human and natural affairs, with Olympus as the dwelling of the principal gods and Hades as the destination of the deceased. The central deities include the twelve Olympians, headed by Zeus, god of the sky and sovereign, together with Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Demeter and Dionysus. Before them, the Titans, among whom Cronus and Rhea stand out, ruled the cosmos until they were deposed by the Olympians in the Titanomachy. Other important entities are the Muses, the nymphs, the Cyclopes and the Moirai, who embody cosmic forces and destinies. This tradition exerted a lasting influence on the literature, art and thought of Rome, the European Renaissance and subsequent Western culture, supplying motifs, characters and narrative structures that have endured in philosophy, astronomy and the arts to the present day.
Sources
Metamorphoses
Ovid · 8
Poetic work by Publius Ovidius Naso narrating myths of transformations, including references to Hippolytus and Virbius.
Library
Apollodorus · 100
Mythological compendium attributed to Apollodorus summarizing Greek legends.
Pausanias' Description of Greece
Pausanias · ca. 150 CE
Pausanias’ "Description of Greece" (2nd century), a geographical and religious guide to the Greek world. It tours sanctuaries, monuments and local cults, preserving myths, heroes and divinities that would otherwise have been lost.
Frequently asked questions
What prophecy prompted the confinement of Danae and the subsequent exile of Perseus?
A prophecy from the Delphic oracle warned Acrisius that his grandson would kill him. He therefore imprisoned Danae in a bronze tower. Zeus impregnated her as a shower of gold and Acrisius cast mother and son into the sea in a chest.
Who gave him each of the objects with which he defeated Medusa?
The distribution matters because it is usually told wrong. The nymphs gave him the winged sandals, the kibisis or wallet, and the cap of Hades that made him invisible; Hermes gave him the adamantine sickle; Athena gave him the polished shield. The Graeae gave him nothing at all: he stole their eye so that they would tell him where the nymphs were.
Where does coral come from, and what does it have to do with Perseus?
It is an aetiology from Ovid, and it happens in one very specific place: the coast of Ethiopia, right after the monster is killed and before the wedding. Perseus rests the head on some seaweed while he washes his hands, and the weed petrifies at its touch. It does not happen at Mycenae, and it does not turn stones into coral: it explains why coral is soft under water and hard once it is taken out.
What did Perseus do with the head and with the borrowed objects?
He returned the sandals, the wallet and the cap to Hermes, who was where they had come from and who gave them back to the nymphs: nothing he used was his own, and the whole story of Perseus rests on that loan. The head he handed to Athena, who set it in her shield. Ever since, the gorgoneion has been an amulet against evil, which is why it is the hero's sigil and not a weapon he keeps.
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