's head. In an instant her foe had become a rock, and he cleft the
maiden's chains, brought her back to her father and mother, who gave her
to him in marriage, and made a great feast; but here a former lover of
hers insulted them both so much, that Perseus was forced to show him the
Gorgon's face, and turn him into stone.

Then Perseus, with Andromeda, took his way to Seriphos. Indeed it was
high time that he should come back, for Polydectes, thinking that he must
long ago have been turned into a rock at the sight of Medusa, had tried
to take Danae by force to be his wife, and she had fled into a temple,
where no one dared to touch her, since it was always believed that the
gods punished such as dragged suppliants away from their temples. So
Perseus went to Polydectes, who was in the midst of a feast, and, telling
him that his bidding was done, held up the head of Medusa, and of course
the king and his whole court turned at once into stone. Now that the
work of the Gorgon's head was done, Perseus offered it to Pallas, who
placed it upon her shield, or, as it is always called, her aegis; and he
gave back the sword of light, cap of mist, and winged sandals to Mercury.

After this he returned to Argos, and there, at a game of quoits, he had
the misfortune to throw the quoit the wrong way, and hit his grandfather,
the king, so as to kill him. Perseus reigned afterwards, and, like all
the nobler Greek heroes, kept out the worship of Bacchus and its foul
orgies from his dominions; but he afterwards exchanged kingdoms with
another king, and built the city of Tiryas. He lived happily with
Andromeda, and had a great many children, whose descendants viewed him as
a demi-god, and had shrines to him, where they offered incense and
sacrifice; for they thought that he and all the family were commemorated
in the stars, and named the groups after them. You may find them all in
the North. Andromeda is a great square, as if large stars marked the
rivets of her chains on the rock; Perseus, a long curved cluster of
bright stars, as if climbing up to deliver her; her mother Cassiopeia
like a bright W, in which the Greeks traced a chair, where she sat with
her back to the rest to punish her for her boast. Cepheus is there too,
but he is smaller, and less easy to find. They are all in the North,
round the Great Bear, who was said by the Greeks to be a poor lady whom
Juno had turned into a bear, and who was almost killed unknowingly b