ds. First you must seek the Three Grey Women, who dwell
beyond the land that lies at the back of the North Wind. They will tell
you the road to the three Nymphs of the West, who live in an island of
the sea that never knew a sail; for it is beyond the pillars that
Heracles set up when he wearied in his journey to the Well of the
World's End, and turned again. You must go to these nymphs, where never
foot of man has trod, and they will show you the measure of the way to
the Isle of the Gorgons. If you see the faces of the Gorgons, you will
be turned to stone. Yet you have vowed to bring the head of the youngest
of the three, she who was not born a Gorgon but became one of them by
reason of her own wickedness. If you slay her, you must not see even her
dead head, but wrap it round in this goat-skin which hangs beside my
shield; see not the head yourself, and let none see it but your
enemies.'

'This is a great adventure,' said Perseus, 'to slay a woman whom I may
not look upon, lest I be changed into stone.'

'I give you my polished shield,' said Athene. 'Let it never grow dim, if
you would live and see the sunlight.' She took off her shield from her
neck, with the goat-skin cover of the shield, and hung them round the
neck of Perseus. He knelt and thanked her for her grace, and, looking up
through a clear space between the forest boughs, he said, 'I see the
Bear, the stars of the North that are the guide of sailors. I shall walk
towards them even now, by your will, for my heart burns to find the
Three Grey Women, and learn the way.'

Hermes smiled, and said, 'An old man and white-bearded would you be, ere
you measured out that way on foot! Here, take my winged sandals, and
bind them about your feet. They know all the paths of the air, and they
will bring you to the Three Grey Women. Belt yourself, too, with my
sword, for this sword needs no second stroke, but will cleave through
that you set it to smite.'

So Perseus bound on the Shoes of Swiftness, and the Sword of Sharpness,
the name of it was Herpe; and when he rose from binding on the shoon, he
was alone. The gods had departed. He drew the sword, and cut at an oak
tree trunk, and the blade went clean through it, while the tree fell
with a crash like thunder. Then Perseus rose through the clear space in
the wood, and flew under the stars, towards the constellation of the
Bear. North of Greece he flew, above the Thracian mountains, and the
Danube (which was then ca