Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE

[From: Kyriazis, Constantine D. Eternal Greece. Translated by Harry T. Hionides. A Chat Publication.]

Demigods and Heros - Achilles - Aegisthus - Agamemnon - Ajax the Locrian - Ajax the Telamonian - Alcestis - Amphiaraos - Amphitrite - Antigone - Atalanta - Belerophon - Cadmus - Clytemnestra - Daedalus - Danae - Dioscuri - Electra - Europa - Eurydice - Ganymede - Hector - Hecuba - Helen - Heracles - Hippolytus - Icarus - Io - Iphigenia - Jason - Leda - Menelaus - Minos - Nestor - Niobe - Odysseus - Oedipus - Orestes - Medea - Orpheus - Paris - Pasiphae - Pelops - Penelope - Perseus - Phaedra - Phaethon - Phrixus - Priam - Telemachus - Theseus - Triptolemus

Perseus


The son of Zeus and Danae. When Perseus was but three years of age his grandfather Acrisius, king of Argos, discovered his existence which Danae had kept secret until then, and put him with his daughter in a wooden box which he pushed out to sea. The floating box came to rest in Seriphos where Polydeuces reigned. Polydeuctes fell in love with Danae, and finding Perseus who was now a young man an obstacle to his designs on Danae, persuaded him to undertake a dangerous adventure, the obtaining of the head of Medusa. With the help of Hermes he succeeded in locating the two Graiae. Having only one tooth and eye between them which they passed form one to the other, Perseus found it easy to rob them of their tooth and forced them to tell him where the Gorgons could be found. He was lent a helmet by Pluto that would make him invisible. Hermes lent him wings for his feet, and the sack within which to place the head. Then Hermes gave him a sword and Perseus flew to the Medusa who was fast asleep. Led by the hand of Athena, and with the resplendent shield with which he would not have to look directly upon the head and thus be turned to stone. Perseus cut off the MedusaÍs head, placed it in the sack, and set out on his return journey. On his way back he passed through Ethiopia, slew the dragon that was to devour Andromeda, daughter of the king, and took her to wife. There in Ethiopia they had a son by name Perses who according to one version of the legend became the ancestor of the Persian race. Later, before returning to Seriphos, he went by way of Africa where he met Atlas whom he turned into a mountain with the head of the Medusa because Atlas had received him inhospitably in his travels. Thence he returned to Seriphos with Andromeda and turned Polydeuctes to stone because he still had designs on his mother Danae. Afterwards he arrived at Argos with his mother and wife. But Acrisius who feared that he would die at the hands of his grandson in accordance with the prophecy, fled to Larissa. Perseus met him there and persuaded him to return. At some funeral games, however, in which Perseus took part, he accidentally killed his grandfather with a discus that he was throwing, thus fulfilling the prophecy. Perseus refused to ascend the throne of Argos, to which by this calamity he became heir, and so he took Tiryns in exchange for Argos and founded Mycenae. Perseus was subsequently worshipped as a demigod and after his death was placed in the heavens among the constellations. [p. 75]

[Kyriazis, Constantine D. Eternal Greece. Translated by Harry T. Hionides. A Chat Publication.]




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