Dialogues of the Gods (12.2-14.2)

And what did she do, Thetis, when they were putting her there?

She kept quiet about herself, submitting to her sentence, but she kept pleading for her child’s life,

You’ve made me weep, too. But are they dead now?

Oh, no! The box is still floating round Seriphos, and keeping them alive and safe.

Well, why don’t we save them by bringing them into the nets of these fishermen here from Seriphos? They’ll be sure to pull them up and save them.

A good idea, let’s do that. I wouldn’t like the mother to die, or the baby either. It’s so pretty.

I won’t mince words, Poseidon. Your behaviour’s been disgraceful—tricking my sweetheart [*] by impersonating me, and leading the child astray. She thought I was doing it and submitted.

You were so proud and so slow, Enipeus. A pretty girl like that came to you every day, dying of love, and you wouldn’t look at her, but enjoyed tormenting her! She would wander about your banks, putting her feet in and washing sometimes, praying for your love, but you always turned up your nose at her.

Even if I did, what right had you to forestall me and steal her love, pretending to be Enipeus rather than Poseidon, and winning a simple girl like Tyro by a trick?

It’s too late to be jealous now, Enipeus. You despised her before. Tyro’s suffered no harm. She thought it was you.

Oh, no! When you left her, you said you were Poseidon, and that upset her very much. It was unfair to me, too, for you to enjoy pleasures that should be mine, making a blue wave arch above you and hide you both, and making love to the girl in my place.

Yes, but only because you didn’t want her, Enipeus.

Your monster of the deep, my dear Nereids, the one of you sent against Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, didn’t harm the girl, as you’ve been thinking it would, but is now dead itself.

Who killed it, Triton? Did Cepheus set the girl there like a bait, and then attack and kill it, after lying in wait for it with a large force?

No. But I imagine, Iphianassa, you all know what happened to Perseus, Danae’s child, whom his mother’s father threw into the sea in a chest with his mother, and you saved out out of pity.

I know whom you mean. He must be a young man by now, and a very fine handsome fellow.

It was he who killed the monster.

Why, Triton? He shouldn’t have paid us in this coin for saving him.

I’ll tell you everything, just as it happened. He was sent against the Gorgons, to carry out a task for the king. [*] But when he reached Libya—

How did he do it, Triton? By himself? Did he take others to help him? Otherwise it’s a difficult journey.

He went through the air. Athena had given him wings on his feet. Well, when he’d reached where they lived, they must all have been asleep, and Perseus cut off Medusa’s head and flew away.

How could he see? They are not for the eye to behold. Anyone who sees them won’t see anything afterwards.

Athena held up her shield—I heard him describe it to Andromeda and later to Cepheus—and let him see the reflection of Medusa on that bright shield as though on a mirror; then, looking at the reflection, he caught her hair in his left hand, and holding his scimitar in his right, cut off her head, and flew away before her sisters woke up.