Assignment #5 The Hero's Journey

A Classical Greek Hero: Perseus Perseus was one of the best known classical heroes. His exploits have been celebrated by artists and recounted by poets for centuries. He embodied all of the qualities that the Greek and Roman cultures found most admirable. He was clever, enterprising, brave and noble. He rescued fair maidens and was loyal to his family. He was even a friend of the gods! The Birth His myth is told in many sources; they say that this grandfather, Acrisius, the king of Argos, had received an oracle which predicted that a son born to his daughter, Danae, would group to kill Acrisius. The fearful king had a bronze tower built, and he sealed his daughter in it to keep her from all men. The tower had only a small opening through which food and drink could be passed but through which no human being could pass. Acrisius, however, had not reckoned on the powers of a god. When Zeus saw the lovely, lonely Danae pining away in her tower, he decided to comfort her. He turned

himself into a shower of golden rain and poured through the small opening into Danae’s lap. Naturally, she conceived a child – the future hero, Perseus. The Call When Acrisius discovered that despite his precautions Danae had born a son, he put his daughter and her child into a great chest and set them afloat on the sea. They were rescued by an honest fisherman, Dictys,

whose brother, Polydectes, was the king of the island of Seriphos. There Danae and her son were given sanctuary in the royal household. As Perseus grew to noble manhood, the king grew to love Danae. She did not return his love, however, and persistently refused his offers of marriage. Since Danae seemed to prefer to remain with her son, the king decided to get rid of Perseus. When he heard the young man boast that he could just as easily bring the king the Gorgon’s head as any other gift, he ordered Perseus to bring him the head of the Gorgon, Medusa, whose very glance could turn a man to stone. Supernatural Aid For days Perseus wandered disconsolately, not knowing where to begin. Suddenly, the gods Athena and Hermes appeared to him and promised to help him. The first thing to do, the gods advised, was to consult the graiae1. They could tell him how to find the

1 The Graiae or gray ladies are three old sisters who guard the ends of the earth. They have only one

eye and one tooth among them.

Stygian Nymphs, who, in turn, would lend him the things he needed to success in his mission. In his book Chimera, the author John Barth cleverly retells the Perseus legend. Perseus, having died, finds himself in heaven in a chamber decorated with scenes from his past life. The hero recounts the story of each scene to the nubile nymph, Calyxa. Perseus explains that his mother did not want to marry the king and that the king promised he would marry someone else if Perseus would bring to him the head of Medusa.

So, banking on Dictys to safekeep her, I’d set out for Samos on a tip from half-sister Athene, to learn about life from art; for represented in her temple murals there (and so reditto’d here in mine) were all three Gorgons – snake haired, swinetoothed, buzzard-winged, brassclawed – whereof as Semisis was pointing out, only the middle one, Medusa, was mortal, decapitable, and petrifacient. Already holding the adamantine sickle Hermes had lent me and Athene’s polished shield, I stood listening, a

handsome auditor I was then, to her hard instructions. Sword and shield, she said, would not suffice; one thing depended on another; just as Medusa was prerequisite to Mother’s rescue, so to kill Medusa required not only the Athenian strategy of indirection but other gear: namely, Herme’s winged sandals to take me to Gorgonsville in far-off

Hyperborea, Hade’s helmet of invisibility to escape from the snake-girl sisters, and the magic kibesis to stow her head in lest she petrify all posthumously. But these accessories were in the care of Stygian nymphs whose location was known not even to my canny sister; only the grim gray Graeae could tell it, and they wouldn’t.

The Tests My first task, then, clear-cut in the fourth panel, had been to hide me from Samos to Mount Atlas, where sat the crony trio on their thrones, facing outward back to back and shoulder to shoulder in a mean triangle. Some way off from its near vertex (which happens to be between terrible Dino and Pemphredo the stinger), I hid behind a shrub of briar to reconnoiter and soon induced, concerning the single eye and tooth they shared, their normal mode of circulation. Right to left things went around, eye before tooth before nothing, in a kind of rhythm, as follows: Pemphredo, say, blind and mute, sat hands in lap while Dino, on her right, wore the eye just long enough to scan her

sector and Enyo, on her left, the tooth just long enough to say “Nothing,” then passed it on to Pemphredo, who passed the eye around to Enyo, put in the tooth, and said “Nothing.” Thus did report follow observation and meditation report, except that (as I learned some moments later) at the least alarm any gray lady could summon by a shoulder-tap what either other bore. For having grasped the cycle, I moved closer in a cautious gyre, keeping ever abaft the eye, at the vertex between speaker and mediator; but when I rustled a pebble underfoot, then blank Enyo, her right hand out for the eye from Pemphredo, whacked Dino into reverse and fetched a the tooth as well! Lunged to her right, Pemphredoward, just as she clapped the organ in; by the time she was toothed to cry “Something!” Pemphredo had heard me at her feet and tapped Enyo for the eye, at the same time reaching right for the her-turn tooth. Dino, unable to reply that she’d returned the tooth to Enyo, swatted back both ways; twice-tapped Enyo got her hands crossed, giving Pemphredo the eye and Dino the tooth; I dived through thrones to the center; all clapped all; eye and tooth flipped round in countercicles but could be by none installed before doubly summoned. By deftly interposing at a certain moment my right hand between Dino’s dittor and Enyo’s left I short-stopped eye; no problem then, as Pemphredo made to gum home their grim incisor, simply to over-shoulder her and excise it. The panel showed me holding both triumphantly aloft while the grieving Graeae thwacked and flopped and croaked in vain, like crippled herons. More Supernatural Aid Having the Graeeae thus at his mercy, Perseus holds the eye hostage and returns the tooth so they can tell him the location of the Stygian Nymphs. Once they give him the directions he needs, he then returns the eye and leaves to find the Nymphs. Perseus was given three gifts by the Stygian Nymphs: the cap of Darkness which would make him invisible, a pair of winged sandals which would enable him to fly, and a pouch called a kibesis in which to carry the head of the Gorgon. With the adamantine sickle, a gift from Hermes, and the mirror-like shield lent him by Athena, Perseus was ready to begin his task. The Final Test and Boon He found the Gorgons far away at the ends of the earth. They were asleep. With Athena’s help he sneaked up on them, and, looking at their reflection in Athena’s shield to avoid the petrifying glance, he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa. Perseus placed the snaky-haired head into the kibesis and flew off, escaping from pursuing Gorgon sisters. More Tests and the Sacred Marriage On his way back to Seriphos to deliver his gift to the king, Perseus flew over the land of the Ethiopians. There he saw, chained to a rock, a lovely maiden, Andromeda. It seems that this maiden’s mother, Cassiopeia, had boasted that Andromeda was lovelier

than the Nereids, the sea nymphs. As a punishment, the god of the sea, Poseidon, flooded the land and sent Cetus, the sea monsters, to torment the people. The priests of Ammon told the king and the queen that the monster could only be appeased by the sacrifice of their daughter, Andromeda. The maiden had already been chained to the rock as an offering when Perseus flew over. He fell instantly in love with Andromeda so he flew down to bargain with her parents. He promised that he would rid them of the monstrous beast if they would give him Andromeda as his wife. They quickly agreed and even offered to give Perseus half of their kingdom if only he would rescue their daughter. The Roman poet, Ovid, in the Metamorphoses (Book IV) tells the story of the battle between Perseus and the sea-monster.

Lo! Just as a swift ship plows through the waves with its sharp beak driven forward by the sweat and strain of its rowers, so the monster came, rolling back the waters as he surged forward. When he approached the cliffs where the maiden was bound, a youth sprang suddenly from the earth high into the clouds. The monster saw the shadow of the hero on the waters and savagely he attacked the shadow. Then, like an eagle, Perseus plunged headlong in a swift dive through the air and attacked the screaming serpent from above, burying his sword (to its hilt) in the monster’s shoulder. The creature reared out of the water, smarting from his wound, then plunged below the waves snorting and roaring like a wild boar. Perseus eluded the fearsome fangs with the help of his winged feet,

and then struck again into the barnacled back of the sea-serpent. The beast belched forth waters mixed with blood…but Perseus’ wings grew heavy with the water spray and he landed on a rock projecting from the waters. Holding onto the rock with one hand, he plunged his sharp sword again and again into the monster’s body. The people watching from the cliffs cried out and cheered as the monster slipped into a watery grave. The king and queen called him a savior, and the maiden, freed from her chains, came forth to greet him as his prize and bride. He washed his hands

in the waters, and, so that the Gorgon’s head might not be bruised by the rocky shore, he spread out seaweed and laid upon it Medusa’s head. The seaweed, once alive, turned into stone when it absorbed the power of the Gorgon- even to this day it has remained as coral. What was a pliant plant below the sea is turned to stone above. Perseus then built an altar to the gods who had aided him and claimed Andromeda as his bride. Their wedding was joyfully celebrated by all except Phineus, the king’s brother, who had expected to marry Andromeda. He and his followers created a riot in the banquet hall, which Ovid described blow by blow in the beginning of Book V, of the Metamorphoses. The battle was ended only by the removal of the head of the Gorgon from its pouch. To look upon the snaky-locked Medusa was to be turned to stone instantly; the two hundred men with Phineus became two hundred stone statues! Perseus and his bride, Andromeda, returned to the island of Serphos to rescue the hero’s mother. Polydectes refused to free Danae until Perseus presented him with the head of the Gorgon as he had been ordered. When Perseus took the head of Medusa out of the pouch, Polydectes and all his men were turned to stone. Perseus then returned with his bride and his mother to the kingdom of Argos. When the king, Acrisius, heard that Danae and her son had survived and were returning, he fled to Thessaly. Perseus followed him. There the king of Larisa was celebrating funeral games in honor of his dead father. Perseus joined the athletes, and in the discus throw his shot accidentally went astray and hit Acrisius. The oracle that had foretold the death of the king by the hand of his own grandson was fulfilled. Since he had been polluted by the killing of his own kin, Perseus could not rule over Argos. But the king of Tiryns, his cousin, exchanged kingdoms with him and Perseus founded near Tiryns the beautiful city of Mycenae which remains there still.