A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

was the wrath of her father when he had tidings of the birth. Did the
gods in the high heavens laugh at him? The laugh should yet be on his
side. Down to the seashore he hurried Danaë and her newly-born babe,
the little Perseus, put them in a great chest, and set them adrift to be a
plaything for winds and waves and a prey for the cruel and hungry sea.
"When in the cunningly-wrought chest the raging blast and the stirred
billow and terror fell upon her, with tearful cheeks she cast her arm
around Perseus and spake, 'Alas, my child, what sorrow is mine! But
thou slumberest, in baby-wise sleeping in this woeful ark; midst the
darkness of the brazen rivet thou shinest and in the swart gloom sent
forth; thou heedest not the deep foam of the passing wave above thy
locks nor the voice of the blast as thou liest in thy purple covering, a
sweet face. If terror had terrors for thee, and thou wert giving ear to my
gentle words--I bid thee sleep, my babe, and may the sea sleep and our
measureless woe; and may change of fortune come forth, Father Zeus,
from thee. For that I make my prayer in boldness and beyond right,
forgive me.'"
Simonides of Keos.
For days and nights the mother and child were tossed on the billows,
but yet no harm came near them, and one morning the chest grounded
on the rocky beach of Seriphos, an island in the Ægean Sea. Here a
fisherman came on this strange flotsam and jetsam of the waves and
took the mother and child to Polydectes, the king, and the years that
followed were peaceful years for Danaë and for Perseus. But as Perseus
grew up, growing each day more goodly to look upon, more fearless,
more ready to gaze with serene courage into the eyes of gods and of
men, an evil thing befell his mother. She was but a girl when he was
born, and as the years passed she grew ever more fair. And the crafty
eyes of old Polydectes, the king, ever watched her more eagerly,
always more hotly desired her for his wife. But Danaë, the beloved of
Zeus himself, had no wish to wed the old king of the Cyclades, and
proudly she scorned his suit. Behind her, as she knew well, was the
stout arm of her son Perseus, and while Perseus was there, the king
could do her no harm. But Perseus, unwitting of the danger his mother