At last Polydectes became furious; and while Perseus was away at
sea he took poor Danae away from Dictys, saying, 'If you will not
be my wife, you shall be my slave.' So Danae was made a slave, and
had to fetch water from the well, and grind in the mill, and
perhaps was beaten, and wore a heavy chain, because she would not
marry that cruel king. But Perseus was far away over the seas in
the isle of Samos, little thinking how his mother was languishing
in grief.
Now one day at Samos, while the ship was lading, Perseus wandered
into a pleasant wood to get out of the sun, and sat down on the
turf and fell asleep. And as he slept a strange dream came to him-
-the strangest dream which he had ever had in his life.
There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or any
mortal man; but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes, clear
and piercing, but strangely soft and mild. On her head was a
helmet, and in her hand a spear. And over her shoulder, above her
long blue robes, hung a goat-skin, which bore up a mighty shield of
brass, polished like a mirror. She stood and looked at him with
her clear gray eyes; and Perseus saw that her eye-lids never moved,
nor her eyeballs, but looked straight through and through him, and
into his very heart, as if she could see all the secrets of his
soul, and knew all that he had ever thought or longed for since the
day that he was born.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28