borne this earth, and I grow aweary of my burden. When thou hast slain Medusa, let me gaze upon her face, that I may be turned into stone and suffer no more forever."
And Perseus promised, and at the bidding of Atlas one of the nymphs sped down to the land of the Shades, and for seven days Perseus and her sisters awaited her return. Her face was as the face of a white lily and her eyes were dark with sadness when she came, but with her she bore the helmet of Pluto, and when she and her sisters had kissed Perseus and bidden him a sorrowful farewell, he put on the helmet and vanished away.
Soon the gentle light of day had gone, and he found himself in a place where clammy fog blotted out all things, and where the sea was black as the water of that stream that runs through the Cocytus valley. And in that silent land where there is "neither night nor day, nor cloud nor breeze nor storm," he found the cave of horrors in which the Gorgons dwelt.
Two of them, like monstrous swine, lay asleep,
"But a third woman paced about the hall,
"And ever turned her head from wall to wall,
"And moaned aloud and shrieked in her despair,
"Because the golden tresses of her hair
"Were moved by writhing snakes from side to side,
"That in their writhing oftentimes would glide
"On to her breast or shuddering shoulders white;
"Or, falling down, the hideous things would light
"Upon her feet, and, crawling thence, would twine
"Their slimy folds upon her ankles fine."—William Morris.
In the shield of Pallas Athené the picture was mirrored, and as Perseus gazed on it his soul grew heavy for
