[Illustration: FIG. 115. THE DANAÏDS] =150. The Danaïds.=[201] Ægyptus and his fifty sons drove Danaüs and his fifty daughters back to Argos, the ancestral home of the race. Finally, a reconciliation was arranged by means of a fiftyfold marriage between the sons of Ægyptus and the Danaïds. But in accordance with a treacherous command of Danaüs, all his daughters save Hypermnestra slew their husbands on the wedding night. For this crime the forty-nine Danaïds were condemned to spend eternity in Tartarus, trying to fill with water a vessel full of holes. From Hypermnestra and her husband, Lynceus, was sprung the royal house of Argos. Their son was Abas, their grandson, Acrisius,--of whom the following narrative is told. [Illustration: FIG. 116. DANAË AND PERSEUS AND THE CHEST] =151. The Doom of King Acrisius.=[202] The daughter of Acrisius was Danaë, of surpassing loveliness. In consequence of an oracle which had prophesied that the son of Danaë would be the means of his grandfather's death, the hapless girl was shut in an underground chamber, that no man might love or wed her. But Jupiter, distilling himself into a shower of gold, flooded the girl's prison, wooed, and won her. Their son was Perseus. King Acrisius, in dismay, ordered mother and child to be boxed up in a chest and set adrift on the sea. The two unfortunates were, however, rescued at Seriphus by a fisherman, who conveyed the mother and infant to Polydectes, king of the country, by whom they were treated at first with kindness, but afterwards with cruelty. =152. Perseus and Medusa.=[203] When Perseus was grown up, Polydectes sent him to attempt the conquest of the Gorgon Medusa,[204] a terrible monster who had laid waste the country. She had once been a maiden whose hair was her chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Minerva, the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her ringlets into hissing serpents. She became a monster of so frightful an aspect that no living thing could behold her without being turned into stone. All around the cavern where she dwelt might be seen the stony figures of men and animals that had chanced to catch a glimpse of her and had been petrified at the sight. Perseus, favored by Minerva and Mercury, set out against the Gorgon, and approached first the cave of the three Grææ: [Illustration: FIG. 117. MEDUSA] There sat the crones that had the single eye, Clad in blue sweeping cloak and snow-white gown; While o'er their backs their straight white hair hung down In long thin locks; dreadful their faces were, Carved all about with wrinkles of despair; And as they sat they crooned a dreary song, Complaining that their lives should last so long, In that sad place that no one came anear, In that wan place desert of hope and fear; And singing, _still they rocked_ their bodies bent, And ever each to each the eye they sent.[205] [Illustration: FIG. 118. MEDUSA]