The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (14 page)

²
So Bellerophon climbed on to his winged horse, Pegasos,
*
the offspring of Medusa and Poseidon, and soaring high into the air, killed the Chimaera by shooting arrows at it from above. After his battle with the Chimaera, Iobates told him to fight against the Solymoi,
*
and when he had fulfilled that task also, ordered him to attack the Amazons. When he had killed these also, Iobates picked out the Lycians who were thought to excel at the time in youthful vigour,
*
and told them to mount an ambush and kill him. But when Bellerophon had killed all of these in addition, Iobates, marvelling at his strength, showed him the letter and urged him to remain at his court; and he gave him his daughter, Philonoe, in marriage, and left him the kingdom when he died.

¹
When Acrisios consulted the oracle about the birth of male

4

children, the god replied that his daughter would give birth to
a son who would kill him. For fear of this, Acrisios built a bronze chamber beneath the ground and kept Danae guarded within it. She was seduced none the less, some say by Proitos
*
(so giving rise to the quarrel between the brothers), while according to others, Zeus had intercourse with her by transforming himself into a shower of gold and pouring through the roof into Danae’s lap. Later, when Acrisios learned
*
that a child, Perseus, had been born to her, he refused to believe that she had been seduced by Zeus, and put his daughter into a chest along with her child, and threw it into the sea. The chest was cast ashore at Seriphos, where Dictys recovered it, and raised the child.

²
Polydectes, the brother of Dictys,
*
who was king of Seriphos at the time, fell in love with Danae; and when he was unable to achieve his desire now that Perseus was a grown man, he summoned his friends together, with Perseus amongst them, and claimed that he was gathering contributions for a marriage-offering
*
to enable him to marry Hippodameia, the daughter of Oinomaos. When Perseus declared that he would not deny him even the Gorgon’s head, Polydectes demanded horses from all the others, but did not take the horses of Perseus
*
and ordered him to fetch the Gorgon’s head.

Guided by Hermes and Athene, he went to see the daughters of Phorcos:
*
Enyo, Pephredo, and Deino. Daughters of Phorcos by Ceto, they were sisters of the Gorgons, and had been old women from the time of their birth. The three of them had only a single eye and a single tooth, which they exchanged in turn between themselves. Perseus gained possession of the eye and tooth, and when they asked him to give them back, he said that he would surrender them if they showed him the way to the nymphs. These nymphs had in their possession some winged sandals,
*
and the
kihisis
, which is said to have been a kind of wallet, † They also had the cap [of Hades
*
]. When the daughters of Phorcos had told him the way, he returned the eye and tooth to them, and visited the nymphs and obtained what he desired. He slung the
kihisis
around his neck, tied the sandals to his ankles, and placed the cap on his head; as long as he wore it, he could see whomever he wished while remaining invisible to others. After he had received in addition an adamantine sickle from Hermes, he flew to the Ocean, and when he arrived there, he caught the Gorgons asleep.

Their names were Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. Only Medusa was mortal, and for that reason it was her head that Perseus was sent to fetch. The Gorgons had heads with scaly serpents coiled around them, and large tusks like those of swine, and hands of bronze, and wings of gold which gave them the power of flight; and they turned all who beheld them to stone. So Perseus stood over them as they slept, and while Athene guided his hand, he turned aside, and looking into a bronze shield in which he could see the reflection of the Gorgon, he cut off her head. As her head was severed, Pegasos, the winged horse, and Chrysaor, the father of Geryon, sprang from the Gorgon’s body. (She had conceived them previously by Poseidon.
*
)
³
So Perseus placed Medusa’s head in the wallet, and as he was making his way back, the Gorgons started from their sleep and tried to pursue him, but they were unable to see him because of the cap, which hid him from their view.

Arriving in Ethiopia, which was ruled by Cepheus, he found the king’s daughter Andromeda exposed as prey to a sea monster; for Cassiepeia,
*
the wife of Cepheus, had claimed to rival the Nereids in beauty, boasting that she surpassed them all. The Nereids were enraged by this, and Poseidon, who shared their anger, sent a sea-flood and a monster against the land. Now Ammon
*
had prophesied deliverance from this calamity if Cepheus’ daughter Andromeda were offered as prey to the monster, and compelled by the Ethiopians, Cepheus had done so and tied his daughter to a rock. As soon as Perseus saw her, he fell in love, and promised Cepheus that he would destroy the monster if he would give him the rescued girl as a wife. When oaths had been sworn to this effect, Perseus confronted
the monster and killed it, and set Andromeda free. Phineus, however, who was a brother of Cepheus and had been promised Andromeda beforehand, plotted against Perseus; but when Perseus learned of the conspiracy, he showed the Gorgon to Phineus and his fellow plotters, turning them to stone on the spot.

When he arrived back at Seriphos, he found that his mother and Dictys had sought refuge at the altars to escape the violence of Polydectes. So he went into the palace, where Polydectes had assembled his friends, and turning his head aside, he displayed the Gorgon’s head. All who beheld it were turned to stone, each in the position he happened to have assumed at the time. And then, after making Dictys king of Seriphos, he restored the sandals, wallet, and cap to Hermes, and gave the Gorgon’s head to Athene. Hermes returned the aforesaid objects to the nymphs and Athene fixed the Gorgon’s head to the centre of her shield. But there are some who say that Medusa lost her head because of Athene—for they say that the Gorgon had claimed to rival the goddess in beauty.
*

⁴
Perseus, accompanied by Danae and Andromeda, hurried off to Argos to see Acrisios. But when Acrisios learned of this, he feared what the oracle had predicted,
*
and left Argos and travelled to the land of the Pelasgians. Now Teutamides, king of Larissa,
*
was holding an athletic contest in honour of his dead father, and Perseus came to take part. While competing in the pentathlon, he threw his discus and struck Acrisios on the foot, killing him
*
instantly. Realizing that the oracle had been fulfilled, he buried Acrisios outside the city, and then, because he was ashamed to go to Argos to claim the inheritance of one who had died at his own hand, he went to Megapenthes, son of Proitos, and arranged an exchange of kingdoms with him, placing Argos in his hands. So in this way Megapenthes became king of the Argives, and Perseus king of Tiryns; and Perseus fortified Midea and Mycenae
*
in addition.

⁵
By Andromeda, Perseus had the following sons, first, before their arrival in Greece, Perses, whom he left behind with Cepheus (and from whom, they say, the kings of Persia are descended), and later, in Mycenae, Alcaios, Sthenelos, Heleios, Mestor, and Electryon; he also had a daughter, Gorgophone, who became the wife of Perieres.

Alcaios had a son, Amphitryon, and a daughter, Anaxo, by Astydameia, daughter of Pelops (or according to some, by Laonome, daughter of Gouneus, or according to others, by Hipponome, daughter of Menoiceus); and Mestor and Lysidice, daughter of Pelops, had a daughter, Hippothoe. Hippothoe was carried off by Poseidon, who took her to the Echinadian Islands, where he had intercourse with her, fathering Taphios, who colonized Taphos and called his people the
Teleboans
because he had
gone far
*
from the land of his birth. To Taphios a son, Pterelaos, was born, whom Poseidon made immortal by planting a golden hair in his head; and Pterelaos had six sons, Chromios, Tyrannos, Antiochos, Chersidamas, Mestor, and Everes.

Electryon married Anaxo, the daughter of Alcaios, and fathered a daughter, Alcmene, and nine sons, [Stratobates,] Gorgophonos, Phylonomos, Celaineus, Amphimachos, Lysinomos, Cheirimachos, Anactor, and Archelaos; and after these, he also had an illegitimate son, Licymnios, by a Phrygian woman, Mideia.

Sthenelos had Alcyone and Medusa, by Nicippe, daughter of Pelops, and afterwards he had a son, Eurystheus, who also ruled in Mycenae. For when Heracles was due to be born, Zeus declared before the gods that the descendant of Perseus who was then about to be born
*
would become king of Mycenae, and Hera, out of jealousy, persuaded the Eileithuiai
*
to delay Alcmene’s delivery, and arranged that Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelos, should be born at seven months.

⁶
While Electryon was ruling at Mycenae, the sons of Pterelaos came there with Taphios and claimed back the kingdom of [their
maternal grandfather]
*
Mestor; and when Electryon disregarded their claim, they drove his cattle away. The sons of Electryon tried to rescue them, and they challenged and killed one another. Of the sons of Electryon, only Licymnios survived, because he was still a child, and of the sons of Pterelaos only Everes, who was guarding the ships. Those of the Taphians who escaped sailed away taking the stolen cattle, which they left in the care of Polyxenos, king of the Eleans; but Amphitryon ransomed them from Polyxenos and brought them back to Mycenae. Wanting to avenge the death of his sons, Electryon planned an expedition against the Teleboans. He entrusted the kingdom to Amphitryon, together with his daughter Alcmene, making him swear an oath that he would respect her virginity until his return. As he was receiving his cows back, however, one of them rushed forward, and Amphitryon let fly at her with the club that he had in his hands, but it rebounded from her horns to hit Electryon on the head, striking him dead.
*
Sthenelos grasped this as a pretext to banish Amphitryon from the whole of Argos and seize power for himself in Mycenae and Tiryns; as for Midea, he summoned Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of Pelops, and entrusted the city to them.

5.
Heracles, and the Heraclids

Amphitryon went to Thebes with Alcmene and Licymnios and was purified by Creon, and he gave his sister, Perimede, to Licymnios as a wife. And since Alcmene said that she would marry him
*
when he had avenged the death of her brothers, he promised to do so, and, inviting Creon’s assistance, he prepared to march against the Teleboans. Creon said that he would join the expedition if Amphitryon would first rid the Cadmeia of the vixen
*
(for the Cadmeia was being devastated by a savage vixen). But even if somebody engaged to do so, it was fated that nobody could catch her.
⁷
Such harm was being caused to the country that each month the Thebans exposed a son of
one of their citizens to her, for she would otherwise have carried off a great number of them. So Amphitryon visited Cephalos, son of Deioneus,
*
in Athens, and in return for a share of the plunder from the Teleboans, he persuaded him to bring to the hunt the dog
*
that Procris had been given by Minos and brought over from Crete; for it was fated that this dog would catch whatever it chased. So it came about that as the vixen was being pursued by the dog, Zeus turned both of them to stone.
*

With the help of his allies, Cephalos from Thoricos in Attica, Panopeus from Phocis, Heleios, son of Perseus, from Helos in the Argolid, and Creon from Thebes, Amphitryon sacked the islands of the Teleboans. Now as long as Pterelaos was still alive, Amphitryon was unable to capture Taphos; but when Comaitho, the daughter of Pterelaos, who had fallen in love with Amphitryon, plucked the golden hair from her father’s head, he died, and Amphitryon gained control of all the islands. He then put Comaitho to death
*
and sailed to Thebes with the plunder, giving the islands to Heleios and Cephalos, who founded cities that bear their name and settled in them.

⁸
Before Amphitryon arrived back in Thebes, Zeus came to the city by night, and tripling the length of that single night, he assumed the likeness of Amphitryon and went to bed with Alcmene, telling her all that had happened in the war with the Teleboans. When Amphitryon arrived and saw that his wife was welcoming him with no great ardour, he asked her the reason; and when she replied that he had come the previous night and slept with her, he found out from Teiresias about her intercourse with Zeus.

Alcmene gave birth to two sons, Heracles,
*
who was the son of Zeus and the elder by a night, and Iphicles, whom she bore to Amphitryon.

When Heracles was eight months old, Hera, wanting to destroy the child, sent two huge serpents to his bed. Alcmene cried out for Amphitryon, but Heracles leapt up and killed the serpents
*
by strangling them, one in each hand. According to
Pherecydes, however, it was Amphitryon who placed the serpents in the bed, because he wanted to find out which of the children was his own; and seeing that Iphicles fled while Heracles stood his ground, he realized that Iphicles was his child.

⁹
Heracles was taught chariot-driving by Amphitryon, wrestling by Autolycos, archery by Eurytos, fencing by Castor, and lyre-playing by Linos. This Linos was a brother of Orpheus, who had arrived in Thebes and become a Theban citizen, but was killed by Heracles with a blow from his lyre (for Linos had struck him,
*
and Heracles lost his temper and killed him). When a charge of murder was brought against Heracles, he cited a law of Rhadamanthys
*
saying that if a person defends himself against another who has initiated the violence, he should suffer no penalty. So Heracles was acquitted. And Amphitryon, fearing that he might do something similar again, sent him to his herds; and there he grew up, surpassing all others in size and strength. The mere sight of him was enough to show that he was a son of Zeus: for his body measured four cubits, a fiery gleam shone from his eyes, and he never missed his mark with his arrows or javelins.