I have school in four hours and the light blue sky is making mena bit sleepy…
Like I said, it’s my special interest. I did all the research when I was like… eight?
Danae, the lady who was trapped in a brass tower by her cruel father, because the cruel King Acrisius of Argos received a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi that his grandson would kill him, was the mother; and Zeus, who took pity on Danae, who appeared before her as a shower of golden rain, before revealing a mortal human form for them to perform the special procreation dance with.
One day, Acrisius of Argos looked into his daughter’s cell to find that she was raising a newborn child in there. She said the child’s name was Perseus, which translates roughly as “The Avenger”. Scared by this, Acrisius placed Perseus and Danae in a wooden box in the ocean, a deliberate attempt to get rid of them forever, because he was scared of killing his only remaining family members and thus angering the gods.
I also became interested in Greek mythology back when I was in 5th grade. The book that got me hooked into it at first was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and then I began to do my own digging into the history
Eventually, the box washed ashore on the island of Seriphos, aided in its’ journey by Poseidon, who took pity on the hero and his mother. There, they were rescued from it by the fisherman Dictys, who was the brother of the arrogant king of Seriphos, who, upon seeing Danae, was hell-bent on marrying her. The king took the two in, but sent Perseus to be raised at the Temple of Athena, whereas he desperately attempted to woo Danae.
One day, when Perseus has grown up, having been taught the ways of the great heroes by the priestesses of Athena, he challenged the King to try and prevent his attempted arranged marriage with his mother. Polydectes, the king, was crafty, and he knew Perseus’s fatal flaw- Perseus was desperate to prove himself. As such, he told Perseus to kill the feared Gorgon Medusa, a lady cursed by Athena to have snakes for hair, and to have a visage so horrifying and ugly that to look directly at it would turn anybody to stone, and to bring back her head.
Perseus said “Naturally, I accept!”, and was laughed out of the court. Nobody could kill Medusa, not even with the help of the gods. Which happened to be exactly who Perseus had on his side. As he sailed off to find Medusa’s cave, two gods appeared before him to show the way. Athena and Hermes guided him to an island, where he could find the location of the Hesperides, who would grant him several weapons crafted many years ago by the Elder Cyclopes, which could be used to dispatch the near-invincible Gorgons.
Unfortunately, the only people who knew where the Hesperides were were the vile Grey Sisters. So, the gods told Perseus where to find the Greae, who each had one eye and one tooth. Between them. They needed to share the eye and the tooth. As you can imagine, Perseus was crafty enough to figure out how to extract the information- hold the eye hostage. This was the only thing saving him, of course, because the Greae were near-invincible fighters. Eventually, he learnt where to find his weapons, and to give him time to escape, he threw the eye into a lake.
Escaping, he travelled far off to the garden of the Hesperides, which stood right before a great mountain, where an eternal swirling of dark clouds spiralled down onto a single point. There, chained and struggling, was Atlas, the Titan general cursed to hold up the sky (and thus, his grandfather’s corpse) for eternity. In the garden stood the gods, each of whom gave him a great artifact. Zeus gave Perseus a great Adamantine blade strong enough to cut through Medusa’s neck. The Hesperides themselves gave Perseus a bag thick enough to conceal Medusa’s dread visage from the outside completely. Hades gave Perseus his helmet of invsibility, to allow him to sneak into the lair of the Gorgon. Hermes gave Perseus his winged sandals, so he could travel to the cave of the Gorgon all by himself. And Athena gave him a perfectly crafted shield, with a polished mirrored surface.
With his gifts from the god in hand, Perseus flew to the cave of the Gorgons.
Eventually, just off the coast of Africa, he found a great cave, a dread statuary spilling from the mouth. Weaving between the statues, he wondered what the point of the mirrored shield was beneath his invisible helmet. Then, he realised. Maybe looking at Medusa in a mirror won’t turn me to stone? So, he held out his shield, looking at the way ahead through the mirror only, making sure to not look forward.
The statues began to thin out more and more, and each statue had more impressive weaponry petrified into it, until eventually, at the heart of the cave, he saw something… horrifying… weeping next to two sleeping women. They all had snakes for hair, but the weeping one was so horrifying that Perseus wanted to look at it directly simply to avoid looking at any longer. But he resisted. Creeping behind the creature invisibly, he drew his blade, and with one swipe he cut off the head of Medusa, then he frantically covered his eyes.
Blood splattered all over the insides of the cave, and Perseus grabbed the head he saw in his mirror, and shoved the head inside of it. Meanwhile, the blood, which was a strange gold and ivory liquid, condensed, dripping down onto the floor, until it formed into two individuals: Pegasus, the winged horse, and Chyrasor, the Golden Sword. The winged horse and the warrior fled the cave soon after, however, as Medusa’s sisters stirred. They could not turn you to stone, but they absolutely could kill you with their great mass of deadly snakes in their hair. So Perseus fled the cave as fast as he could.
Panicking, he lost his way, until he encountered a kingdom on the north coast of Africa. On a great pinnacle in that kingdom, however, there was a woman, chained to a rock and lamenting her loss.
“Oh fair Maiden, whoever did this to you?” Perseus asked.
“My name is Andromeda, and my parents did this to me! This kingdom is haunted by a great sea monster, and only giving it constant sacrifices can appease it. My parents hope that my royal blood shall satiate the beast’s appetite. Personally, I doubt it, but if I escaped here the townsfolk would kill me, and then they’d be killed by the hungry monster.” Andromeda explained.
Perseus knew what he had to do. He and Andromeda sat on the rock, making small talk, and slowly began to fall in love. Then, one day, the great leviathan appeared.
“Close your eyes.” Perseus said, and Andromeda acquiesced. When she opened them again, the feared monster was a pile of crumbling dirt being washed away by the great storms that heralded the monster’s arrival. “Andromeda, will you marry me?” Perseus asked.
“Yes, but my parents won’t like that! There are dozens of rich suitors that want me for themselves!” Andromeda said.
“Let me sort out that.” Perseus said.
A great party was thrown in Andromeda’s kingdom that night, and incredibly, her parents were too scared of the man who killed the nigh-invincible sea monster to say no to his request for their daughter’s hand in marriage. But, the suitors were vengeful, and lead by a man called Phineas (insert Phineas and Ferb jokes at this point), they attempted to kill him. This was obviously a mistake, and the following day the statuary market in the kingdom crashed.
Also Ici summarize the rest of it. I am scared we both will get in trouble for this level of fluffing. Basically putting in blocks of texts
Andromeda and Perseus, now happily married, landed back on Perseus’s home of Seriphos, and consulted the kind fisherman Dictys, who was the brother of the king. He frantically explained that without Perseus to quash his advances, Danae was about to marry Polydectes. Frantically rushing into the throne room, now aware that this whole Medusa quest was an attempt to kill him, he said.
“Stop! You cannot marry this woman! Behold, the head of Medusa!” he said, thrusting out the sack.
“Yeah right, that’s the head of medusa!” said the arrogant noblemen of Seriphos.
“Oh come on, let’s at least humour him! Come on, Perseus! Show us the ““head of Medusa””” Polydectes said, with a smirk on his face.
“Okay. Close your eyes, friends!” Perseus shouted. Danae, Dictys, and Andromeda all closed their eyes. When they opened them, the entire nobility of Seriphos were stone.
Dictys was crowned king, but Perseus and Andromeda left him in charge with Danae, because they had to claim Perseus’s birthright- the throne of Argos. This turned out to be incredibly easy, because Acrisius had fled having learnt about Perseus’s legendary exploits. And Perseus and Andromeda had a great many happy children, eventually leaving the seeds that would become the great country of Maceanae.
Of course, there was still that prophecy. Basically, one time, at a pre-olympic festival, Perseus threw a discus, which flew off-target and hit a random beggar in the audience, which had ironically turned out to be his grandfather, bitterly lingering in his former kingdom, as if begging the gods to kill him. No blame was placed on Perseus for this murder, since it was a) an accident, and b) the fulfillment of a well-known prophecy.
And that’s the tale of Perseus, the first great hero.
okay that’s ENOUGH posting about Greek mythology yeah I spent far too much time on that
