Mother and Son
Perseus, Part 1: The birth of a fearless hero
Content warnings: imprisonment, attempted murder, references to murdering a child
King Acrisius of Argos had long been desperate for a son, a male heir to pass his kingdom onto. His wife, Queen Eurydice, had given him a daughter named Danae but still, Acrisius couldn’t find himself contented with his family as it was. Caught between sorrow and frustration in the stark absence of a son, Acrisius undertook the journey to Delphi to consult the wisdom of the Pythia.
He begged the oracle to reveal the gods’ plan for him and whether he would ever be succeeded by his own blood. Duly the Pythia entered her trance and let Apollo channel through her, though the answer to the king’s question was far from anything he’d expected. The oracle told Acrisius that he would indeed have an heir and for a moment his heart soared in his chest, but then she continued on. The heir wouldn’t be his son; instead, he would have a grandson who would succeed him, but she warned that that grandson would kill him.
Now concerned with a risk more dire than his legacy, Acrisius returned to Argos already concocting plans to thwart his eventual end. He built a chamber of smooth bronze underground, leaving only a tiny window for air and light and no handholds to climb the walls. He’d decided that as long as his daughter could never have children, he would be safe from any murderous heir being born in the first place. He locked Danae away in the chamber, confident that nobody would be able to find her, much less enter the chamber to threaten the rule of King Acrisius with any wayward babies.
Danae, distressed and devastated with her new confines, prayed for an end to her imprisonment. Zeus had already heard that Acrisius was doing something strange at his palace, but now the gods were receiving prayers from his daughter begging for her freedom. Intrigued, Zeus descended from Olympus to investigate, especially since he’d heard rumours of Danae’s beauty and would never pass up such a prime opportunity to meddle in mortal affairs.
Finding her trapped in her bronze prison away from the rest of humanity, Zeus transformed himself into a shower of golden rain that fell, dripping, through her small window and into the chamber. He seduced her and they spent hours together, Danae feeling that for the first time in a long while, she wasn’t alone. Soon, however, she realised that she was pregnant and felt a sinking in her stomach; if she was with child, her father’s plan had failed. What would that mean for her if he’d already resorted to locking her away?
Sure enough, Acrisius was astonished to find his daughter pregnant when he visited her after some months. He had been so sure, so certain in his plan, but still the gods had willed that Danae become pregnant. When he heard that Zeus was the father of his grandchild, he became still more panicked. If it had been any old mortal child then he could have taken action, prevented the baby from ever growing up, but since the child was Zeus’ then he could do no such thing for fear of swift and deadly divine retribution. Acrisius nonetheless wanted to be rid of mother and child, so upon Danae’s birth of her son, Perseus, Acrisius put his only possible solution into effect.
He couldn’t keep Danae and Perseus but he also couldn’t kill them, so he left their fate to the will of the gods. He put the pair in a large chest, locked it, then cast it into the depths of the ocean. If they drowned, the gods had allowed their deaths and no responsibility could be put on him. If the gods decreed they live, they would be washed far away enough to no longer be a risk to his life. Satisfied, Acrisius turned his back on the sea and strolled carelessly back inside his palace, his concerns from the oracle finally set aside.
Naturally, Zeus would not allow his lover and their son to die. He summoned Poseidon from his cavernous underwater palace and requested he save them, asking him to set them down on a shore where they would be found and rescued. Poseidon was happy to oblige his brother, directing Danae’s locked chest to float on the water’s surface until it could wash up on the beaches of the island of Seriphos.
A fisherman named Dictys found them, hearing the cries of the baby and mother and hastening to crack the chest open. He helped them out of their imprisonment, bringing them to his home and gently encouraging them back to health after their traumatic trip in the ocean. Danae, Dictys and Perseus became a content little unit in his home, flourishing together and watching Perseus grow up.
Danae and Perseus weren’t Dictys’ only family, however. He had been putting off their introduction to his brother as he knew what kind of man Polydectes was, and he had no wish to expose his new found family to the man his brother had become. At last, after hiding them for some years, Dictys could put off the inevitable no longer. Dictys brought Danae and Perseus, now a strong, athletic young man, to the palace to meet Polydectes, King of Seriphos. As Dictys had known would happen, the moment Polydectes laid eyes on Danae he wanted her as his own, as his wife.
Since her ousting from Argos, Danae had only grown more beautiful in her time living in peace with Dictys and Perseus on the beach. Though King Polydectes was captivated, Danae rejected him outright every time he asked her to marry him, always stressing how little she cared for him. Thankfully, Perseus was now old enough and strong enough to be incredibly capable of protecting his mother from the whims of Polydectes, to the king’s immense frustration. Seeing no immediate way to get Danae all to himself, Polydectes set to scheming instead, biding his time.
One day, out of nowhere, Polydectes announced his engagement to the island but his intended wasn’t Danae; instead, the king was to marry Princess Hippodameia, the daughter of the wealthy King Oenomaus of Pisa. To celebrate the engagement, the whole island was required to bring wedding gifts to the palace. As his near-nephew, Perseus was conscious that he had too little to offer the royal couple but would be expected to gift them something. He went to Polydectes and explained that while he couldn’t afford to buy anything, he would instead offer anything he could go out and find for him.
Even, Perseus joked, the head of the Gorgon, Medusa.
Though Perseus had spoken flippantly, King Polydectes latched onto the idea like a barnacle. Believing that there was no way Perseus would complete this insane task, Polydectes asked him to follow through and behead Medusa, bringing her head back to him as the promised wedding gift. Perseus, desperate for Polydectes to marry another woman and leave his mother alone, agreed. Saying a tender, reassuring goodbye to Dictys and a tearful, fretful Danae, he set sail to find and kill Medusa.
Find the second part of Perseus’ story here:
