Chapter 1 · Argos · The prophecy
The Shower of Gold
King Acrisius of Argos is told by an oracle that his daughter's son will one day kill him. To prevent it he locks his daughter Danae in a bronze chamber where no man can reach her. But Zeus reaches her, pouring in as a shower of golden light, and Danae bears a son: Perseus.
Horrified, the king dares not kill his own kin outright, so he seals mother and infant in a wooden chest and casts it into the sea, leaving them to the mercy of the waves and the will of the gods. The prophecy is not escaped; it is only set adrift.
Source: Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4
Chapter 2 · The island of Seriphos · The trap
The Impossible Errand
The chest washes ashore on Seriphos, and Perseus grows to manhood there. But the island's king desires his mother Danae and finds the grown son in his way. So he devises a trap disguised as a challenge: he demands, as a gift, the head of the Gorgon Medusa, whose gaze turns any who meet it to stone.
It is meant to be a death sentence. No one sends a man for the Gorgon's head expecting him to return. Perseus, young and proud and cornered, swears to bring it, and sets out on an errand no one has ever survived.
Figures in this chapter
Source: Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4
Chapter 3 · The road to the Gorgons · The arming of the hero
The Gifts of the Gods
Perseus does not go alone. Athena and Hermes take up his cause and arm him for the impossible: winged sandals to fly, a cap of invisibility, a curved blade, and above all a shield polished to a mirror's brightness, so that he need never look at Medusa directly.
From the gray sisters who share one eye between them he forces the way to the Gorgons' lair. Divinely equipped, guided by the goddess of wisdom herself, the cornered boy has become something the monster has never faced: a hero who can strike without meeting her eyes.
KnowledgeWhy does Athena help Perseus?
Athena, goddess of wisdom and disciplined skill, is the patron of the clever hero throughout Greek myth, from Perseus to Odysseus. Her gift to Perseus is not just weapons but a method: the mirror-shield that lets him defeat Medusa by looking indirectly. She arms heroes with cunning as much as with bronze.
Source: Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4
Chapter 4 · The Gorgons' lair · The deed
The Gorgon's Head
Perseus finds the Gorgons sleeping. Watching only her reflection in the polished shield, never her face, he approaches Medusa, the one mortal sister whose gaze turns flesh to stone, and with Athena guiding his hand he strikes off her head in a single blow.
From the severed neck springs the winged horse Pegasus, born of her blood. Perseus thrusts the head into a bag, its power to petrify undimmed even in death, and flees on his winged sandals as her immortal sisters wake to their loss. He has done what no one was meant to survive.
Source: Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4
Chapter 5 · The coast of Ethiopia · The homeward road
The Princess and the Sea Monster
Flying home with the head, Perseus passes a coast where a princess, Andromeda, stands chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster, offered to atone for her mother's boast against the gods. The monster rises from the water to take her.
Perseus strikes from the air and kills the beast, and wins Andromeda as his bride. The Gorgon's head, which brought only death, now serves life: the errand meant to destroy him has made him a hero with a monster slain, a princess saved, and a way home.
Figures in this chapter
Source: Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4
Chapter 6 · Larissa · The return
The Prophecy Fulfilled
Perseus returns to settle his debts. The scheming king who sent him to die he turns to stone with a single glimpse of the Gorgon's head, and sets his mother free. Then he gives the head to Athena, who fixes it on her shield, and lays down the gifts of the gods.
But the first prophecy still waits. At funeral games in a distant city, Perseus throws a discus that veers into the crowd and strikes an old man dead: his grandfather Acrisius, who fled Argos to escape exactly this. The fate the king locked in a bronze chamber and cast into the sea finds him anyway. No cage and no ocean could keep it from being fulfilled.
A question for the traveler
What does Perseus's story finally demonstrate about the prophecy?
Source: Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4
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Perseus: The Gorgon-Slayer
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