either because her temple had been profaned, or because her personal
charms had been slighted by Medusa, who had preferred her own beauty
to that of the goddess, turned her fine hair, of which she boasted
greatly, into serpents, and gave to her eyes the power of converting
to stone all at whom she looked. The blood which fell from Medusa's
head when Perseus carried it over Africa in his flight, was supposed
to produce the numerous serpents which infest that country, and also
the winged horse Pegasus.

But to return to Acrisius. Let us see whether the prediction of the
Oracle, that foretold he would be put to death by his daughter's son,
was fulfilled. The fame of his grandson, after his remarkable
adventures, having reached the ears of Acrisius, he went to Larissa to
see him, at the time Teutamis was celebrating funereal games in honour
of his father. To this city Perseus had repaired with the view of
distinguishing himself among the combatants. Here he accidentally
killed, with a quoit, an old man, who was found to be his grandfather
Acrisius, and thus verified the oracular prediction.

Alcithoe and her sisters denied the divinity of Bacchus, and refused
to join in his worship. Whilst the Theban women were employed
celebrating the orgies of that god, the daughters of Minyas (for that
was their father's name) continued at their looms. To enliven their
hours of labour, one of them proposed that each in her turn should
relate some amusing tale, to which, the other sisters agreeing, she
with whom the idea originated was requested to begin. After hesitating
for some time which of her numerous collections would be most
agreeable--whether Babylonian Dercetis changed to a fish or her
daughter to a dove, or Naias, who by magic transformed young men to
fishes, or the tree the berries of which were formerly white, but
turned to purple by being stained with blood--she preferred the last
in consequence of its being little known. She then narrates the simple
but beautiful and affecting fable of Pyramus and Thisbe. Leuconoe
next, after mentioning the exposure of Mars and Venus, relates the
history of Leucothoe, with whom Apollo fell in love, and afterwards
turned into a rod of frankincense. To this she adds the fiction of
Clytie, whom the same god changed into a sunflower. Alcithoe being
then requested by her sisters to tell a story--despising as too common
the fables of Daphnis, a shepherd on Mount Ida, who, for violating his
mar