Polydectes, the King of the island, was not a good man like his brother Dictys, but he was greedy and cunning and cruel.

And when he saw fair Danae, he wanted to marry her.  But she would not, for she did not love him, and cared for no one but her boy.

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.

But Perseus was far away over the seas, little thinking that his mother was in great grief and sorrow.

Now one day, while the ship was lading, Perseus wandered into a pleasant wood to get out of the sun, and sat down on the turf and fell asleep.  And as he slept a strange dream came to him, the strangest dream he had ever had in his life.

There came a lady to him through the wood, taller than he, or any mortal man, but beautiful exceedingly, with great gray eyes, clear and piercing, but strangely soft and mild.  On her head was a helmet, and in her hand a spear.  And over her shoulder, above her long blue robes, hung a goat-skin, which bore up a mighty shield of brass, polished like a mirror.

She stood and looked at him with her clear gray eyes.  And Perseus dropped his eyes, trembling and blushing, as the wonderful lady spoke.  “Perseus, you must do an errand for me.”

“Who are you, lady?  And how do you know my name?”

Then the strange lady, whose name was Athene, laughed, and held up her brazen shield, and cried, “See here, Perseus, dare you face such a monster as this and slay it, that I may place its head upon this shield?”

And in the mirror of the shield there appeared a face, and as Perseus looked on it his blood ran cold.  It was the face of a beautiful woman, but her cheeks were pale, and her lips were thin.  Instead of hair, vipers wreathed about her temples and shot out their forked tongues, and she had claws of brass.

Perseus looked awhile and then said, “If there is anything so fierce and ugly on earth, it were a noble deed to kill it.  Where can I find the monster?”

Then the strange lady smiled again and said, “You are too young, for this is Medusa the Gorgon.  Return to your home, and when you have done the work that awaits you there, you may be worthy to go in search of the monster.”

Perseus would have spoken, but the strange lady vanished, and he awoke, and behold it was a dream.

So he returned home, and the first thing he heard was that his mother was a slave in the house of Polydectes.

Grinding his teeth with rage, he went out, and away to the King’s palace, and through the men’s rooms and the women’s rooms, and so through all the house, till he found his mother sitting on the floor turning the stone hand-mill, and weeping as she turned it.

And he lifted her up and kissed her, and bade her follow him forth.  But before they could pass out of the room Polydectes came in.