Perseus and Andromeda

The Greek myth, “Perseus and Andromeda,” is one of the rare happy ending tales in the mythology cannon. I like to think that Perseus and Andromeda’s romantic ending, or beginning, is a reward for each having endured harsh circumstances through early life.

Before they finally meet, Perseus and Andromeda both have suffered imprisonment, family betrayal and banishment. Add to this: outrageous encounters with monsters, and between the two protagonists they have racked up enough travesty to earn a happily-ever-after marriage.

Of course, this balance of justice is hardly a guaranteed credo of the ancient Greeks. More often, human beings, and even half-gods, will suffer until they die or are transformed. It is the way of the Greek gods to maintain control over living beings. Yet, the people of the ancient era created the gods in their own image as a way of identifying with the beauty of the human form rather than the mythical beast-deities of the pre-Greek era.

Perseus was the son of the beautiful princess, Danae, and the god, Zeus, who visited Danae in the form of a golden rain and so impregnated her with a child, Perseus. But the mother and child are soon locked up in a great chest and sent out to sea, at the hands of a paranoid king. So, Danae and Perseus, mother and son, brave this outrage together inside the dark, wooden chest as it is heaved about by the wind and the waves:

In that strange boat Danae sat with her little son. The daylight faded and she was alone on the sea.

Zeus must have been watching out for them from afar, because the chest is finally caught by a wave that delivers the mother and son safely to a friendly island. From here, they are looked after by a benevolent, farming couple until Perseus becomes a young man and sets out on his own to meet his destiny of heroic adventures.

Three times he saw the icy Bears, three times
The Crab’s long claws…

As he is part-god and part-human, Perseus meets every challenge with divine assistance. And it is within these ordeals that Ovid used his writerly craft to translate bizarre tropes whilst the ancient story sweeps the reader along, as in a fairy tale.

As if Medusa were not creepy enough, with her mane of writhing snakes, the twin sisters, who live in “A stronghold safe below the mountain mass/ Of icy Atlas,” share one eye, which they pass back and forth to each other in order to see. This is truly brilliant imagery! Anyone who has ever know twins, (or if you are a twin), has noticed the peculiar and uncanny insight that passes between these twofold siblings.

Ovid is filled with many such fantastic passages. But of course, Perseus forges through every episode with the ingenuity and speed of Mercury. By the time Perseus has finally destroyed Medusa and transformed Atlas into a mountain, (see The Hero Perseus), our hero is pumped and ready to rescue Andromeda from the sea monster.

Then Perseus laced
His feet again with plumes on either side,
And girded on his curving sword and clove
With beating ankle-wings the flowing air.

Meanwhile, Andromeda, the beautiful and innocent damsel who is chained to a rock in the sea, suffers a curse placed upon her by the naiads, who were angry with Andromeda’s conceited mother. So, Andromeda is actually suffering the sins of her mother – another incomprehensible but frequent punishment.

In Andromeda’s very compromising position: totally nude, chained to a rock with her hands and ankles tied while being threatened by a grotesque sea monster, as her parents stand on the shore watching, Perseus falls in love at first sight:

Love, before he knew,
Kindled; he gazed entranced; and overcome
By loveliness so exquisite, so rare,
Almost forgot to hover in the air.

Perseus, by trickery and stealth, kills the sea monster. First, however, he makes a long, impassioned speech to Andromeda and the spectators on the shore. There is just enough time for him to finish his long speech before the sea monster attacks Andromeda: this ludicrous scene might be a sign of Ovid’s humor. He was Roman, after-all, and the Romans liked to make speeches.

In the next scene, of surreal poetics, Perseus uses his own shadow on the water to lure the sea monster away from Andromeda. What follows is a pretty brutal killing involving lots of stabbing and blood:

The beast belched purple blood,
Sea spume and blood together.

Then,

Cheers filled the shore and echoed round the halls
Of heaven.

A wedding celebration of lovely adornment and festivities follows, wherein the sea nymphs play with Medusa’s head and set it upon wet seaweed on the sand and watch the seaweed turn to coral. Another supernatural setting, and hence, the Ovidian mythology of coral!

Other tales with happy endings include: Baucis and Philemon, Iphis, Pygmalion, and Ceyx and Alcyone.

Excerpts from The Metamorphoses, book IV, by Ovid, translated by A.D. Melville.

Picture credit: In the above tapestry, Perseus rescues Andromeda from a sea monster. The depiction takes place on the Bay of Jaffa in Palestine: Perseus & Andromeda. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes Tapestry by Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Vatican Museum of Rome. C.1516-1519

The Hero, Perseus

The Goddess Athena Alongside Him

Ovid begins the story of Perseus roaming the “balmy skies,” high among constellations, holding up the severed head of Medusa. The Gorgon’s head is dripping blood so that when each drop falls to earth the blood transforms into snakes, thus populating the land with Medusa’s curse. It isn’t Perseus’s intent to propagate deadly serpents on random islands, but the viperous Gorgon, Medusa, is nearly as dangerous dead as she was alive.

Also, Perseus has his mind on other things. Now that he’s done the job of killing the Gorgon, he must bring her head back to the king, who wanted nothing more than to own Medusa’s head. But actually, the king has sent Perseus on a dangerous mission for the single purpose of getting rid of him.

Ovid’s myth, which he knew from the Greek tales, is told with epic imagery and lots of dramatic landscapes, mindlessly-homicidal monsters and shape-shifting gods. The lines are poetic and flowing – penned in elegiac couplets:

“Thence through the firmament the warring winds propelled him like a rain-cloud back and forth.
From heaven’s height he gazed down on the lands
Far, far below and flew the whole world over.”

Perseus, the son of Zeus, flies with winged shoes and carries an invisible wallet, (not a wallet for holding money but a “wallet” in which to drop Medusa’s cutt off head,) and he wears an invisibility cap and magic sword. All of these magical items, Perseus obtains from the nymphs, those divine creatures that frequent rivers and forests and often favor young men like Perseus. In this case, the god, Hermes, and the goddess, Athena, also favor Perseus, as they assist him in the job of defeating Medusa. Perseus has to sever the head while not looking directly at Medusa, for to do so would turn him into stone. This is how powerful one look from Medusa would be. So the goddess, Athena, lends Perseus her breast-shield to use as a mirror in which to peer instead of looking at the Gorgon directly.

The Greek gods, like Hermes and Athena, are often depicted as being unpredictable, unavailable, or even vengeful, but when the gods are on your side, you cannot lose! As a reward, Perseus obtains Pegasus, the winged horse, finally a non-threatening animal, who springs up from Medusa’s blood.

Once he has the Gorgon’s head in hand, Perseus is on his own, but he is tired and needs a rest. This is when he comes upon, the giant, Atlas, something of a gentle giant, of whom Perseus asks the favor of lodging for the night. Plot-turns such as these seem a bit out of context: why would a hero with the powers to fly around the world as fast as Superman need to ask for a place to sleep? But, this is how the tales were formed, and Ovid was the best at interpreting and enhancing details for the sake of posterity as well as poetry!

The giant, Atlas, refuses Perseus because of something the giant heard about Zeus’s son from an oracle. Perseus tries politely to entreat the giant again, but Atlas still says no, so Perseus makes use of Medusa’s head and, turning his gaze away, transforms Atlas into a mountain with trees, cliffs, stones…

And on his shoulders rested the whole vault
Of heaven with all the innumerable stars.

In Ovid, nature is an intrinsic part of the story. The Greeks were unfathomably close to nature: forests, rivers, seas, the sky and even the winds are beautifully personified. Thus, the ancient narrative has a lingering quality that urges us to read on to the next mythic adventure.

Next post: Perseus and Andromeda

Excerpts: Book 4 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated by A.D. Melville. This includes all 15 “books” and over 100 myths.