Tales of Troy and Greece Part 21

'It is his birthday, and he holds his feast among the princes,' said Dictys.

'Then bring me,' said Perseus, 'the worst of old clothes that any servant of your house can borrow from a beggar man, if there be a beggar man in the town.' Such a man there was--he came limping through the door of the courtyard, and up to the threshold of the house, where he sat whining, and asking for alms. They gave him food and wine, and Perseus cried, 'New clothes for old, father, I will give you, and new shoes for old.' The beggar could not believe his ears, but he was taken to the baths, and washed, and new clothes were given to him, while Perseus clad himself in the beggar's rags, and Dictys took charge of the winged shoon of Hermes and the sword Herpe, and the burnished s.h.i.+eld of Athene. Then Perseus cast dust and wood ashes on his hair, till it looked foul and grey, and placed the goat-skin covering and the Gorgon's head in his wallet, and with the beggar's staff in his hand he limped to the palace of Polydectes. On the threshold he sat down, like a beggar, and Polydectes saw him and cried to his servants, 'Bring in that man; is it not the day of my feast? Surely all are welcome.' Perseus was led in, looking humbly at the ground, and was brought before the king.

'What news, thou beggar man?' said the king.

'Such news as was to be looked for,' whined Perseus. 'Behold, I am he who brought no present to the king's feast, seven long years agone, and now I come back, tired and hungry, to ask his grace.'

'By the splendour of Zeus,' cried Polydectes, 'it is none but the beggar brat who bragged that he would fetch me such a treasure as lies in no king's chamber! The beggar brat is a beggar man; how time and travel have tamed him! Ho, one of you, run and fetch his mother who is grinding at the mill, that she may welcome her son.'

A servant ran from the hall, and the chiefs of Seriphos mocked at Perseus. 'This is he who called us farmers and dealers in slaves. Verily he would not fetch the price of an old cow in the slave market.' Then they threw at him crusts of bread, and bones of swine, but he stood silent.

Then Danae was led in, clad in vile raiment, but looking like a queen, and the king cried, 'Go forward, woman: look at that beggar man; dost thou know thy son?' She walked on, her head high, and Perseus whispered, 'Mother, stand thou beside me, and speak no word!'

'My mother knows me not, or despises me,' said Perseus, 'yet, poor as I am, I do not come empty-handed. In my wallet is a gift, brought from very far away, for my lord the king.'

He swung his wallet round in front of him; he took off the covering of goat-skin, and he held the Gorgon's head on high, by the hair, facing the king and the chiefs. In one moment they were all grey stones, all along the hall, and the chairs whereon they sat crashed under the weight of them, and they rolled on the hard clay floor. Perseus wrapped the head in the goat-skin, and shut it in the wallet carefully, and cried, 'Mother, look round, and see thy son and thine own revenge.'

Then Danae knew her son, by the sound of his voice, if not by her eyesight, and she wept for joy. So they two went to the house of Dictys, and Perseus was cleansed, and clad in rich raiment, and Danae, too, was apparelled like a free woman, and embraced Andromeda with great joy.

Perseus made the good Dictys king of Seriphos; and he placed the winged shoes in the temple of Hermes, with the sword Herpe, and the Gorgon's head, in its goat-skin cover; but the polished s.h.i.+eld he laid on the altar in the temple of Athene. Then he bade all who served in the temples come forth, both young and old, and he locked the doors, and he and Dictys watched all night, with the armed Cretans, the crew of his s.h.i.+p, that none might enter. Next day Perseus alone went into the temple of Athene. It was as it had been, but the Gorgon's head and the polished s.h.i.+eld were gone, and the winged shoon and the sword Herpe had vanished from the temple of Hermes.

With Danae and Andromeda Perseus sailed to Greece, where he learned that the sons of King Proetus had driven King Acrisius out of Argos, and that he had fled to Phthia in the north, where the ancestor of the great Achilles was king. Thither Perseus went, to see his grandfather, and he found the young men holding games and sports in front of the palace.

Perseus thought that his grandfather might love him better if he showed his strength in the games, which were open to strangers, so he entered and won the race, and the prize for leaping, and then came the throwing of the disc of bronze. Perseus threw a great cast, far beyond the rest, but the disc swerved, and fell among the crowd. Then Perseus was afraid, and ran like the wind to the place where the disc fell. There lay an old man, smitten sorely by the disc, and men said that he had killed King Acrisius.

Thus the word of the prophetess and the will of Fate were fulfilled.

Perseus went weeping to the King of Phthia, and told him all the truth, and the king, who knew, as all Greece knew, how Acrisius had tried to drown his daughter and her child, believed the tale, and said that Perseus was guiltless. He and Danae and Andromeda dwelt for a year in Phthia, with the king, and then Perseus with an army of Pelasgians and Myrmidons, marched south to Argos, and took the city, and drove out his cousins, the sons of Proetus. There in Argos Perseus, with his mother and beautiful Andromeda, dwelt long and happily, and he left the kingdom to his son when he died.

_The story of Ulysses is taken mainly from the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the_ Post Homerica _of Quintus Smyrnaeus. As we have no detailed account of the stealing of the Palladium by Ulysses, use has been made of Helen's tale about his entry into Troy in the disguise of a beaten beggar.

The chief source of 'The Fleece of Gold' is tradition, with the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the fight between Polydeuces and the Giant is best reported by Theocritus.

No epic or tragedy concerning the early fortunes of Theseus and the history of Perseus has reached us: summaries in Plutarch and Apollodorus provide the outlines of the legends.

The descriptions of costume, arms, and mode of life are derived from Homer and from the 'Mycenaean' relics discovered in the last thirty years by Dr. Schliemann, Mr. A. J. Evans, and many other explorers.

'The Fleece of Gold,' first published in an American magazine, has also appeared in America in a little volume (Henry Altemus & Co.). It is here reprinted by permission of Messrs. Altemus, with some changes and corrections._