The Heroes | Page 6

to him and to his wife, till fifteen years
were past.

PART II--HOW PERSEUS VOWED A
RASH VOW

Fifteen years were past and gone, and the babe was now grown to be a
tall lad and a sailor, and went many voyages after merchandise to the
islands round. His mother called him Perseus; but all the people in
Seriphos said that he was not the son of mortal man, and called him the
son of Zeus, the king of the Immortals. For though he was but fifteen,
he was taller by a head than any man in the island; and he was the most
skilful of all in running and wrestling and boxing, and in throwing the
quoit and the javelin, and in rowing with the oar, and in playing on the
harp, and in all which befits a man. And he was brave and truthful,
gentle and courteous, for good old Dictys had trained him well; and
well it was for Perseus that he had done so. For now Danae and her son
fell into great danger, and Perseus had need of all his wit to defend his
mother and himself.
I said that Dictys' brother was Polydectes, king of the island. He was
not a righteous man, like Dictys; but greedy, and cunning, and cruel.
And when he saw fair Danae, he wanted to marry her. But she would
not; for she did not love him, and cared for no one but her boy, and her
boy's father, whom she never hoped to see again. At last Polydectes
became furious; and while Perseus was away at sea he took poor Danae
away from Dictys, saying, 'If you will not be my wife, you shall be my
slave.' So Danae was made a slave, and had to fetch water from the
well, and grind in the mill, and perhaps was beaten, and wore a heavy
chain, because she would not marry that cruel king. But Perseus was far
away over the seas in the isle of Samos, little thinking how his mother
was languishing in grief.
Now one day at Samos, while the ship was lading, Perseus wandered
into a pleasant wood to get out of the sun, and sat down on the turf and
fell asleep. And as he slept a strange dream came to him- -the strangest
dream which he had ever had in his life.
There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or any
mortal man; but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes, clear and
piercing, but strangely soft and mild. On her head was a helmet, and in

her hand a spear. And over her shoulder, above her long blue robes,
hung a goat-skin, which bore up a mighty shield of brass, polished like
a mirror. She stood and looked at him with her clear gray eyes; and
Perseus saw that her eye-lids never moved, nor her eyeballs, but looked
straight through and through him, and into his very heart, as if she
could see all the secrets of his soul, and knew all that he had ever
thought or longed for since the day that he was born. And Perseus
dropped his eyes, trembling and blushing, as the wonderful lady spoke.
'Perseus, you must do an errand for me.'
'Who are you, lady? And how do you know my name?'
'I am Pallas Athene; and I know the thoughts of all men's hearts, and
discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I
turn away, and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease, like
sheep in the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the
stall. They grow and 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