CHAPTER XVII.

MYTHS OF THE OLDER HEROES.

THE HOUSE OF DANAUS.

§ 132. The Older and the Younger Heroes. We have already narrated the adventures of certain demigods and heroes, such as Prometheus, Deucalion, Cadmus, Amphion, Orpheus. Others of importance were Perseus, Hercules, Minos, Edipus, Theseus, Jason, Meleager, Peleus, Pelops, Castor and Pollux. These and their contemporaries may be called the Older Heroes. They are renowned either for individual exploits or for the part them in one or more of three great expeditions, against Laomedon of Troy,' the Voyage for the Golden Fleece, and the Hunt of the Calydonian Boar.3

played by

the War

The Younger Heroes were of a later generation, which was concerned in four important enterprises, the War of the Seven against Thebes,* the Trojan War, the Wanderings of Ulysses, and the Adventures of Æneas.'

The exploits of the Older Heroes may be arranged in respect of their probable sequence in time, and of their grouping according to families of heroes. If we observe the principle of genealogy, one race, that of Inachus of Argos, attracts our notice in the heroes descended from Pelasgus, Belus, and Agenor. The family of Belus gives us the famous House of Danaüs; the family of Agenor, the Houses of Minos and Labdacus. Another race, that of Deucalion, gives us the heroes of the Hellenic

branch, most notably those descended from Eolus.

With these families most of the Older Heroes are, by blood or by adventure, to some extent connected. Bearing this fact in mind, and at the same time observing the chronological sequence of adventures, we obtain an arrangement of myths as illustrating the races, families, or houses: (1) of Danaüs of Argos, (2) of Æolus of Thessaly, (3) of Etolus, (4) of Minos of Crete, (5) of Cecrops and of Erichthonius of Attica, (6) of Labdacus of Thebes.1

$133. The Genealogy of Danaüs. As the Hellenes, in the north, traced their descent from Deucalion and Pyrrha of Thessaly, so the Pelasgic races of the south from the river-god Inachus, son of Oceanus. The son of Inachus, Phoroneus, lived in the Peloponnesus and founded the town of Argos. This Phoroneus conferred upon the Argives the benefits attributed by other Greeks to Prometheus. He was succeeded by his son Pelasgus, from whom a division of the Greek people derive their name. With the love of Jupiter for the sister of Phoroneus, the fair Io, we are already acquainted. Her son was Epaphus, king of Egypt, from whom were descended (1) Agenor of Phoenicia, father of Europa and Cadmus, and (2) Belus of Egypt, father of Ægyptus and Danaüs. To the family of Agenor we shall return in the history of Minos, son of Europa, and of Edipus, descendant

between the sons of Ægyptus and the Danaïds. But in accordance with a treacherous command of Danaüs, all his daughters,

1 For references to genealogical tables, see Commentary, § 132.

4 Apollod. 2. 1. § 5, etc.; Pausanias; Ovid, Heroides 14; Horace, Odes 3: 11, 23.

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, Acri- of whom the following narrative is told.

sius,

§ 134. The Doom of King Acrisius.'-- 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.

When Perseus was grown up,

$ 135. Perseus and Medusa.2. Polydectes sent him to attempt the conquest of the Gorgon Medusa, 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 :

1 Simonides of Ceos, also Apollodorus, Pausanias, and Hyginus (Fables).

2 Ovid, Metam. 4:608-739; 5:1-249.

8 For Gorgons and Grææ, see § 54.

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.1

Snatching the eye, Perseus compelled the Grææ, as the price of its restoration, to tell him how he might obtain the helmet of Hades that renders its wearer invisible, and the wingèd shoes and pouch that were necessary. With this outfit, to which Minerva added her shield and Mercury his knife, Perseus sped to the hall of the Gorgons. In silence sat two of the sisters,

But a third woman paced about the hall,
And ever turned her head from wall to wall

And moaned aloud, and shrieked in

her despair;

Because the golden tresses of her hair Were moved by writhing snakes from side to side,

That in their writhing oftentimes would

glide

On to her breast, or shuddering shoul

ders white;

Or, falling down, the hideous things
would light

Upon her feet, and crawling thence would twine
Their slimy folds about her ankles fine.1

This was Medusa. Her, while she was praying the gods to end her misery, or, as some say, while she was sleeping, Perseus approached, and guided by her image reflected in the bright shield which he bore, cut off her head, and so ended her miser

1 William Morris, The Doom of King Acrisius, in The Earthly Paradise.