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"Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire," invariably announce the coming stroke of fate; and five or seven moons of a night have suddenly arisen to warn some miserable sublunarian that orders had been issued that there should be no moon for him that quarter, or, in military and more precise phrase, that he should have no "quarters" during that moon.
When the three Gorgons saw I was interested, their tears, complaints, and invectives began again with renewed vigor, while I kept silence as much as to say that they were in the right. I awaited the return of the servants with impatience, and at last at one o'clock they came back with looks of despair. "We have looked for her everywhere," said they, "but we can't find her."
But Perseus went on boldly, past many an ugly sight, far away into the heart of the Unshapen Land, beyond the streams of Ocean, to the isles where no ship cruises, where is neither night nor day, where nothing is in its right place, and nothing has a name; till he heard the rustle of the Gorgons' wings and saw the glitter of their brazen talons; and then he knew that it was time to halt, lest Medusa should freeze him into stone.
The room seemed full of lurking goblins,—harpies, gorgons, the Hydra, the Minotaur, every other foul and noxious shape was waiting to spring forth. And, most maddening of all, the chorus of Æschylus, that Song of the Furies Democrates had heard recited at the Isthmus, rang in the miserable man’s ears:—
Up rose the Gorgons, as I tell you, staring horribly about, in hopes of turning somebody to stone. Had Perseus looked them in the face, or had he fallen into their clutches, his poor mother would never have kissed her boy again!
They were taken from a tomb carved in solid rock at Pinara, and include the frieze, upon which warriors are carved leading captives, the walls representing a walled city, and the Gorgons' heads which decorated the extremities of the dentals.
He flew so swiftly that it was not long until he had crossed the mighty ocean which encircles the earth, and had come to the sunless land which lies beyond; and then he knew, from what the Maidens had told him, that the lair of the Gorgons could not be far away. He heard a sound as of some one breathing heavily, and he looked around sharply to see where it came from.
"I really don't think I should have dared to come out at half-past ten if I had to pass the Gorgons in the foyer." She flitted away by a side path, leaving Spencer more convinced than ever that he had blundered egregiously in dragging this sedate and charming girl from the quiet round of existence in London to the artificial life of the Kursaal.
As for the other two, let him have the sharpest sword that ever was forged, and he might have hacked away by the hour together without doing them the least harm. "Be cautious," said the calm voice which had before spoken to him. "One of the Gorgons is stirring in her sleep and is just about to turn over. That is Medusa. Do not look at her! The sight would turn you to stone!
I need not speak of the lotus-eaters, whose food made one forget his native country; of the floating island of Æolus; of the happy fields in which the horses of the sun were grazing; of bulls and dogs of immortal breed; of hydras, gorgons, and chimeras; of the flying man Dædalus, and the brazen chamber in which Danae was kept.
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