‘Who dared break into your chamber? Tell me his name and I shall have him gelded, tortured and strangled with his own intestines.’
‘Father, I believe it was the King of Heaven himself who came to me.’
‘You are telling me – will someone please shut that baby up! – that it was Zeus?’
‘Father, I cannot lie, it was.’
‘A likely story. It was the brother of one of these damned maidservants of yours, wasn’t it?’
‘No, father, it was as I said. Zeus.’
‘If that brat doesn’t stop screaming I’ll smother him with this cushion.’
‘He’s just hungry,’ said Danaë, putting Perseus to her breast.
Acrisius thought furiously. His threat with the cushion notwithstanding, he knew that there could be no greater crime than a blood killing. The murder of one’s kin would provoke the Furies to rise up from the underworld and pursue him to the ends of the earth, scourging him with their iron whips until the very skin was flayed from his body. They wouldn’t leave off until he was raving mad. Yet the oracle’s prophecy meant that he could not suffer this grandson to live. Perhaps …
The next night, out of sight of gossiping townspeople, Acrisius had Danaë and the infant Perseus shut up in a wooden chest. His soldiers nailed down the lid and hurled the chest over the cliffs and into the sea.
‘There,’ said Acrisius, dusting off his hands as if to clear himself of all responsibility. ‘If they perish, as perish they surely will, none can say that I was the direct cause. It will be the fault of the sea, the rocks and the sharks. It will be the fault of the gods. Nothing to do with me.’
With these weasel words of comfort, King Acrisius watched the chest bob out of sight.
THE WOODEN CHEST
Tossed in the wild waves of the sea, the wooden box bounced and buffeted its way from island to island and coast to coast, neither breaking up on the rocks, nor beaching safely on the soft sands.
Inside the darkness of the chest Danaë suckled her child and waited for the end to come. On the second day of their heaving, pitching voyage she felt a great lurch and then a terrible bang. After a few moments of stillness she heard the lid of the box creak and shift. All at once daylight poured in, accompanied by a strong smell of fish and the cry of gulls.
‘Well, well,’ said a friendly voice. ‘Here’s a catch!’
They had been caught in a fisherman’s nets. The owner of the voice extended a strong hand to help Danaë out of the chest.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said, though in truth he was the one who felt fear. What could all this portend? ‘My name is Dictysfn5 and these are my crewmen. We mean you no harm.’
The other fishermen crowded around, smiling shyly, but Dictys pushed them away. ‘Let the lady breathe. Can’t you see she’s worn out? Some bread and wine.’
Two days later they landed on Dictys’s home island of Seriphos. He took Danaë and Perseus to his small cottage behind the dunes.
‘My wife died giving birth to a boy, so perhaps Poseidon has sent you to take their place – not that I mean …’ he added in hasty confusion, ‘I would not, of course, expect … I make no demands on you as a …’
Danaë laughed. The atmosphere of unaffected kindness and simplicity was just what she needed for rearing her child. Guileless amiability had been in short supply in her life. ‘You are too kind,’ she said. We accept your offer, don’t we, Perseus?’
‘Yes, mother, whatever you say.’
No, this is not the Miracle of the Talking Baby. Seventeen years have now passed on Seriphos. Perseus has grown into a fine, strong young man. He is, thanks to his adopted father Dictys, a confident and skilled fisherman. Standing in a boat in swelling seas he can spear a darting swordfish, and he can flick up a trout from the fast waters of a stream with his fingers. He runs faster, throws further and jumps higher than any other young man on Seriphos. He wrestles, he rides wild asses, he can milk a cow and tame a bull. He is impulsive, perhaps a little boastful sometimes, but his mother Danaë is right to be proud of him and to believe him the best and bravest boy on the island.
The plainness of Dictys’s home seemed all the more remarkable to Danaë when she discovered that this humble fisherman was the brother of Seriphos’s king, POLYDECTES. The island’s ruler was everything that Dictys was not: proud, cruel, dishonest, greedy, lascivious, extravagant and demanding. At first he had paid no particular attention to Dictys’s houseguest. Over the last few years, however, his black heart had become more and more troubled with feelings of attraction for the beautiful mother of that boy, that impertinent boy.
Perseus had an instinctive way of interposing himself between his mother and the king that was most aggravating. Polydectes was in the habit of calling round when he knew that his brother would be out, but every time he did the pestilential Perseus would be there:
‘Mum, mum, have you seen my running sandals?’
‘Mum, mum! Come out to the rock pool and time me while I hold my breath underwater.’
It was too irritating.
At last Polydectes hit on a way of sending Perseus far away. He would exploit the youth’s vanity, pride and bluster.
Messages were sent to all the young men of the island inviting them to the palace for a feast to celebrate Polydectes’ resolution to seek the hand in marriage of hippodamia, daughter of King oenomaus of Pisa.fn6 This was a bold and surprising move. Just as the oracle had prophesied that King Acrisius of Argos would be killed by a grandson, so it had told Oenomaus that he would be killed by a son-in-law. To prevent his daughter ever marrying, the king challenged every applicant for her hand to a chariot race, the loser to forfeit his life. Oenomaus was the finest charioteer in the land: so far, the heads of more than a dozen hopeful young men adorned the wooden stakes that fenced the racing field. Hippodamia was very beautiful, Pisa was very rich and the suitors kept coming.
Danaë was delighted to hear that Polydectes had thrown his hat into the ring. She had long felt uncomfortable in his presence and the surprising news that his heart was elsewhere came as a great relief. How gracious of him to invite her son to a feast and show that there were no hard feelings.
‘It is an honour to be invited,’ she told Perseus. ‘Don’t forget to thank him politely. Don’t drink too much and try not to talk with your mouth full.’
Polydectes sat young Perseus in the seat of honour to his right, filling and refilling his cup with strong wine. He played the young man just as Perseus himself would have played a fish.
‘Yes, this chariot race will certainly be a challenge,’ he said. ‘But the best families of Seriphos have each promised me a horse for my team. May I look to you and your mother to …?’
Perseus flushed. His poverty had always been a source of mortification. The young men with whom he played at sports, wrestled, hunted and chased girls all had servants and stables. He still lived in a stone fisherman’s cottage behind the dunes. His friend Pyrrho had a slave to fan him in his bed when the nights were warm. Perseus slept out on the sand and was more likely to be awoken by a nip from a crab than by a serving girl with a cup of fresh milk.
‘I don’t really have a horse as such,’ said Perseus.