nd, seeing them bent to listen, Orpheus told a story about one who had
gone across the Libyan desert, about one who was a hero like unto
Heracles.

THE STORY OF PERSEUS

Beyond where Atlas stands there is a cave where the strange women, the
ancient daughters of Phorcys, live. They have been gray from their
birth. They have but one eye and one tooth between them, and they pass
the eye and the tooth, one to the other, when they would see or eat.
They are called the Graiai, these two sisters.

Up to the cave where they lived a youth once came. He was beardless,
and the garb he wore was torn and travel-stained, but he had
shapeliness and beauty. In his leathern belt there was an exceedingly
bright sword; this sword was not straight like the swords we carry, but
it was hooked like a sickle. The strange youth with the bright, strange
sword came very quickly and very silently up to the cave where the
Graiai lived and looked over a high boulder into it.

One was sitting munching acorns with the single tooth. The other had
the eye in her hand. She was holding it to her forehead and looking
into the back of the cave. These two ancient women, with their gray
hair falling over them like thick fleeces, and with faces that were
only forehead and cheeks and nose and mouth, were strange creatures
truly. Very silently the youth stood looking at them.

"Sister, sister," cried the one who was munching acorns, "sister, turn
your eye this way. I heard the stir of something."

The other turned, and with the eye placed against her forehead looked
out to the opening of the cave. The youth drew back behind the boulder.
"Sister, sister, there is nothing there," said the one with the eye.

Then she said: "Sister, give me the tooth for I would eat my acorns.
Take the eye and keep watch."

The one who was eating held out the tooth, and the one who was watching
held out the eye. The youth darted into the cave. Standing between the
eyeless sisters, he took with one hand the tooth and with the other the
eye.

"Sister, sister, have you taken the eye?"

"I have not taken the eye. Have you taken the tooth?"

"I have not taken the tooth."

"Some one has taken the eye, and some one has taken the tooth."

They stood together, and the youth watched their blinking faces as they
tried to discover who had come into the cave, and who had taken the eye
and the tooth.

Then they said, screaming together: "Who ever has taken the eye and the
to