and were cast on the isle of Seriphos,
where a fisherman named Dictys took care of them. A cruel tyrant named
Polydectes wanted Danae to be his wife, and, as she would not consent, he
shut her up in prison, saying that she should never come out till her son
Perseus had brought him the head of the Gorgon Medusa, thinking he must
be lost by the way. For the Gorgons were three terrible sisters, who
lived in the far west beyond the setting sun. Two of them were immortal,
and had dragon's wings and brazen claws and serpent hair, but their
sister Medusa was mortal, and so beautiful in the face that she had
boasted of being fairer than Pallas. To punish her presumption, her hair
was turned to serpents, and whosoever looked on her face, sad and lovely
as it was, would instantly be turned into stone.

But, for his mother's sake, young Perseus was resolved to dare this
terrible adventure, and his bravery brought help from the gods. The last
night before he was to set out Pallas came and showed him the images of
the three Gorgons, and bade him not concern himself about the two he
could not kill; but she gave him a mirror of polished brass, and told him
only to look at Medusa's reflection on it, for he would become a stone if
he beheld her real self. Then Mercury came and gave Perseus a sword of
light that would cleave all on whom it might fall, lent him his own
winged sandals, and told him to go first to the nymphs of the Graiae, the
Gorgons' sisters, and make them tell him the way.

So the young hero went by land and sea, still westwards, to the very
borders of the world, where stands the giant of the west, Atlas, holding
up the great vault of the skies on his broad shoulders. Beyond lay the
dreary land of twilight, on the shores of the great ocean that goes round
the world, and on the rocks on the shores sat the three old, old nymphs,
the Graiae, who had been born with grey hair, and had but one eye and one
tooth among them, which they passed to one another in turn. When the
first had seen the noble-looking youth speeding to them, she handed her
eye on, that the next sister might look at him; but Perseus was too
quick--he caught the one eye out of her hand, and then told the three
poor old nymphs that he did not want to hurt them, but that he must keep
their eye till they had told him the way to Medusa the Gorgon.

They told him the way, and, moreover, they gave him a mist-cap helmet
from Tartarus, which would make him