Dialogues of the Gods (14.2)

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.