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Updated: May 23, 2025
These praiseworthy priests, and the kind-hearted fisherman, who had first shown hospitality to Danaë and little Perseus when he found them afloat in the chest, seem to have been the only persons on the island who cared about doing right. All the rest of the people, as well as King Polydectes himself, were remarkably ill behaved, and deserved no better destiny than that which was now to happen.
Show us the head!" shouted the people; and there was a fierceness in their cry as if they would tear Perseus to pieces, unless he should satisfy them with what he had to show. "Show us the head of Medusa with the snaky locks!" A feeling of sorrow and pity came over the youthful Perseus. "O King Polydectes," cried he, "and ye many people, I am very loath to show you the Gorgon's head!"
The evil counsellors whispered bad advice in the king's ear; the courtiers murmured, with one consent, that Perseus had shown disrespect to their royal lord and master; and the great King Polydectes himself waved his hand, and ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of authority, on his peril, to produce the head. "Show me the Gorgon's head, or I will cut off your own!" And Perseus sighed.
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.
A cruel tyrant named Polydectes wanted Danaë to be his wife, and, as she would not consent, he shut her up in prison, saying that she should never come out till her son Perseus had brought him the head of the Gorgon Medusa, thinking he must be lost by the way. For the Gorgons were three terrible sisters, who lived in the far west beyond the setting sun.
At that height, when the screams of those abominable creatures sounded faintly beneath him, he made a straight course for the island of Seriphus, in order to carry Medusa's head to King Polydectes.
"Perseus," said King Polydectes, smiling craftily upon him, "you are grown up a fine young man. You and your good mother have received a great deal of kindness from myself, as well as from my worthy brother the fisherman, and I suppose you would not be sorry to repay some of it." "Please, Your Majesty," answered Perseus, "I would willingly risk my life to do so."
Polydectes, his brother, was king in Sparta. After the king's death a son was born to the widow. Lycurgus became his guardian and presented him to the magistrates as their future king. He was suspected by the queen's brother of a design to take the crown, and even of a purpose to destroy his infant nephew. Accordingly he went into exile.
Pray, let me see it," quoth King Polydectes. "It must be a very curious spectacle if all that travelers tell it be true!" "Your Majesty is in the right," replied Perseus. "It is really an object that will be pretty certain to fix the regards of all who look at it.
Show us the head!" shouted the people; and there was a fierceness in their cry as if they would tear Perseus to pieces unless he should satisfy them with what he had to show. "Show us the head of Medusa with the snaky locks!" A feeling of sorrow and pity came over the youthful Perseus. "O King Polydectes," cried he, "and ye many people, I am very loath to show you the Gorgon's head!"
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