Dialogues of the Gods (12.1)

Why are you crying, Thetis?

Oh, Doris, I’ve just seen a lovely girl [*] put into a box by her father along with her newborn baby. [*] He told his sailors to take the box and, when well away from land, to drop it into the sea, so that the mother should be killed, poor thing, herself and her baby.

Why, sister? Please tell me, if you have any definite information.

I have the whole story. Because she was ever so beautiful, her father Acrisius locked her up in a brazen room to keep her away from lovers. Then—I can’t say whether it’s true but it’s what they say—Zeus turned himself into gold and came pouring through the roof at her, and she received the god in her bosom as he came showering down, and became pregnant. When her father found out, the cruel, jealous old creature flew into a temper and, thinking she’d had a lover, threw her into the box just after her baby was born.