Heroes Every Child Should Know | Page 9

spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like
the gourd, they give no shade to the traveller, and when they are ripe
death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name
vanishes out of the land.
"But to the souls of fire I give more fire, and to those who are manful I

give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the
Immortals who are blest, but not like the souls of clay. For I drive them
forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the Titans and the
monsters, the enemies of gods and men. Through doubt and need,
danger and battle, I drive them; and some of them are slain in the
flower of youth, no man knows when or where; and some of them win
noble names, and a fair and green old age; but what will be their latter
end I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of gods and men. Tell
me now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more
blest?"
Then Perseus answered boldly: "Better to die in the flower of youth, on
the chance of winning a noble name, than to live at ease like the sheep,
and die unloved and unrenowned."
Then that strange lady laughed, and held up her brazen shield, and cried:
"See here, Perseus; dare you face such a monster as this, and slay it,
that I may place its head upon this shield?"
And in the mirror of the shield there appeared a face and as Perseus
looked on it his blood ran cold. It was the face of a beautiful woman;
but her cheeks were pale as death, and her brows were knit with
everlasting pain, and her lips were thin and bitter like a snake's; and,
instead of hair, vipers wreathed about her temples, and shot out their
forked tongues; while round her head were folded wings like an eagle's,
and upon her bosom claws of brass.
And Perseus looked awhile, and then said: "If there is anything so
fierce and foul on earth, it were a noble deed to kill it. Where can I find
the monster?"
Then the strange lady smiled again, and said: "Not yet; you are too
young, and too unskilled; for this is Medusa the Gorgon, the mother of
a monstrous brood."
And Perseus said, "Try me; for since you spoke to me a new soul has
come into my breast, and I should be ashamed not to dare anything
which I can do. Show me, then, how I can do this!"

"Perseus," said Athene, "think well before you attempt; for this deed
requires a seven years' journey, in which you cannot repent or turn back
nor escape; but if your heart fails you, you must die in the Unshapen
Land, where no man will ever find your bones."
"Better so than live despised," said Perseus. "Tell me, then, oh tell me,
fair and wise Goddess, how I can do but this one thing, and then, if
need be, die!"
Then Athene smiled and said:
"Be patient, and listen; for if you forget my words, you will indeed die.
You must go northward to the country of the Hyperboreans, who live
beyond the pole, at the sources of the cold north wind, till you find the
three Grey Sisters, who have but one eye and one tooth between them.
You must ask them the way to the Nymphs, the daughters of the
Evening Star, who dance about the golden tree, in the Atlantic island of
the west. They will tell you the way to the Gorgon, that you may slay
her, my enemy, the mother of monstrous beasts. Once she was a
maiden as beautiful as morn, till in her pride she sinned a sin at which
the sun hid his face; and from that day her hair was turned to vipers,
and her hands to eagle's claws; and her heart was filled with shame and
rage, and her lips with bitter venom; and her eyes became so terrible
that whosover looks on them is turned to stone; and her children are the
winged horse and the giant of the golden sword; and her grandchildren
are Echidna the witch-adder, and Geryon the three-headed tyrant, who
feeds his herds beside the herds of hell. So she became the sister of the
Gorgons, the daughters of the Queen of the Sea. Touch them not, for
they are immortal; but bring me only Medusa's head."
"And I will bring it!" said Perseus; "but how am I to escape her eyes?
Will she not freeze me too into stone?"
"You shall take this polished shield," said Athene, "and when you come
near her look not at her yourself, but