It
has been a choice of difficulties, which has been forced on me by
our strange habit of introducing boys to the Greek myths, not in
their original shape, but in a Roman disguise.]
STORY I.--PERSEUS
PART I--HOW PERSEUS AND HIS MOTHER CAME TO SERIPHOS
Once upon a time there were two princes who were twins. Their
names were Acrisius and Proetus, and they lived in the pleasant
vale of Argos, far away in Hellas. They had fruitful meadows and
vineyards, sheep and oxen, great herds of horses feeding down in
Lerna Fen, and all that men could need to make them blest: and yet
they were wretched, because they were jealous of each other. From
the moment they were born they began to quarrel; and when they grew
up each tried to take away the other's share of the kingdom, and
keep all for himself. So first Acrisius drove out Proetus; and he
went across the seas, and brought home a foreign princess for his
wife, and foreign warriors to help him, who were called Cyclopes;
and drove out Acrisius in his turn; and then they fought a long
while up and down the land, till the quarrel was settled, and
Acrisius took Argos and one half the land, and Proetus took Tiryns
and the other half. And Proetus and his Cyclopes built around
Tiryns great walls of unhewn stone, which are standing to this day.
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