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But there came a prophet to Acrisius and prophesied against him, and said, "Because you have risen up against your own blood, your own blood shall rise up against you; because you have sinned against your kindred, by your kindred you shall be punished. Your daughter Danae shall have a son, and by that son's hands you shall die. So the gods have ordained, and it will surely come to pass."
But the will of the gods was accomplished towards Acrisius, his grandfather, for he died from the falling of a quoit which Perseus had thrown in a game. Perseus and Andromeda had four sons and three daughters, and died in a good old age. And when they died, the ancients say, Athene took them up into the sky, with Cepheus and Cassiopoeia.
He saw Danae, loved her, and changing his form to a shower of gold, he shone into the apartment of the captive girl. Perseus was the child of Jupiter and Danae. Acrisius, finding that his precautions had come to nought, and yet hardly daring to kill his own daughter and her young child, placed them both in a chest and sent the chest floating on the sea.
And Proetus and his Cyclopes built around Tiryns great walls of unhewn stone, which are standing to this day. But there came a prophet to that hard-hearted Acrisius and prophesied against him, and said, 'Because you have risen up against your own blood, your own blood shall rise up against you; because you have sinned against your kindred, by your kindred you shall be punished.
Then Perseus returned to Seriphus to King Polydectes and to his mother Danae and the fisherman Dicte. He marched up the tyrant's hall, where Polydectes and his guests were feasting. "Have you the head of Medusa?" exclaimed Polydectes. "Here it is," answered Perseus, and showed it to the king and to his guests. The ancient prophecy which Acrisius had so much feared at last came to pass.
When wealth became so irresistible and oppressive that upholstered chairs and a centre table were brought down from San Antone in the wagons, she bowed her smooth, dark head, and shared the fate of the Danaë . Because of a prophecy that Danaë's child would kill him, Acrisius had Danaë, who was childless, shut up in a bronze tower to prevent her from ever becoming pregnant.
Zeus became enamored of Danaë and appeared to her as a shower of gold through the ceiling, impregnating her. When she gave birth to a son, Perseus, Acrisius had Danaë and Perseus locked in a wooden chest and set adrift in the ocean. They reached land and safety. Perseus grew up to be one of the great heroes of Greek mythology; slaying the gorgon Medusa was one of his many adventures.
And at that Acrisius was very much afraid; but he did not mend his ways. He had been cruel to his own family, and, instead of repenting and being kind to them, he went on to be more cruel than ever: for he shut up his fair daughter Danae in a cavern underground, lined with brass, that no one might come near her.
The nymph stood looking at him pitifully, and the youth, with the bronze shield laid beside his knees and the strange hooked sword lying across it, told her his story. "I am Perseus," he said, "and my grandfather, men say, is king in Argos. His name is Acrisius. Before I was born a prophecy was made to him that the son of Danae, his daughter, would slay him.
Never yet have I been so overpowered by passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as I am at this moment for yourself not even when I was in love with the wife of Ixion who bore me Pirithous, peer of gods in counsel, nor yet with Danae the daintily-ancled daughter of Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero Perseus.
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