It came rolling in from the open sea, a shapeless and unsightly thing.
With the shoes of flight upon his feet Perseus rose above it. The monster
saw his shadow upon the water, and savagely it went to attack the shadow.
Perseus swooped down as an eagle swoops down; with his sickle-sword he
attacked it, and he struck the hook through the monster’s shoulder.
Terribly it reared up from the sea. Perseus rose over it, escaping its
wide-opened mouth with its treble rows of fangs. Again he swooped and
struck at it. Its hide was covered all over with hard scales and with the
shells of sea things, but Perseus’s sword struck through it. It reared up
again, spouting water mixed with blood. On a rock near the rock that
Andromeda was chained to Perseus alighted. The monster, seeing him,
bellowed and rushed swiftly through the water to overwhelm him. As it
reared up he plunged the sword again and again into its body. Down into
the water the monster sank, and water mixed with blood was spouted up from
the depths into which it sank.
Then was Andromeda loosed from her chains. Perseus, the conqueror,
lifted up the fainting maiden and carried her back to the king’s palace.
And Cepheus there renewed his promise to give her in marriage to her
deliverer.
Perseus went on his way. He came to the hidden valley where the nymphs
had their dwelling place, and he restored to them the three magic
treasures that they had given him—the cap of darkness, the shoes of
flight, and the magic pouch. And these treasures are still there, and the
hero who can win his way to the nymphs may have them as Perseus had them.
Again he returned to the place where he had found Andromeda chained.
With face averted he drew forth the Gorgon’s head from where he had hidden
it between the rocks. He made a bag for it out of the horny skin of the
monster he had slain. Then, carrying his tremendous trophy, he went to the
palace of King Cepheus to claim his bride.
Now before her father had thought of sacrificing her to the sea monster
he had offered Andromeda in marriage to a prince of Ethopia—to a prince
whose name was Phineus. Phineus did not strive to save Andromeda. But,
hearing that she had been delivered from the monster, he came to take her
for his wife; he came to Cepheus’s palace, and he brought with him a
thousand armed men.
The palace of Cepheus was filled with armed men when Perseus entered it.
He saw Andromeda on a raised place in the hall. She was pale as when she
was chained to the rock, and when she saw him in the palace she uttered a
cry of gladness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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