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THE SEA-MONSTER
Perseus, continuing his flight, arrived at the country of the
Aethiopians, of which Cepheus was king. Cassiopeia his queen,
proud of her beauty, had dared to compare herself to the Sea-
Nymphs, which roused their indignation to such a degree that they
sent a prodigious sea-monster to ravage the coast. To appease the
deities, Cepheus was directed by the oracle to expose his daughter
Andromeda to be devoured by the monster. As Perseus looked down
from his aerial height he beheld the virgin chained to a rock, and
waiting the approach of the serpent. She was so pale and
motionless that if it had not been for her flowing tears and her
hair that moved in the breeze, he would have taken her for a
marble statue. He was so startled at the sight that he almost
forgot to wave his wings. As he hovered over her he said, "O
virgin, undeserving of those chains, but rather of such as bind
fond lovers together, tell me, I beseech you, your name, and the
name of your country, and why you are thus bound." At first she
was silent from modesty, and, if she could, would have hid her
face with her hands; but when he repeated his questions, for fear
she might be thought guilty of some fault which she dared not
tell, she disclosed her name and that of her country, and her
mother's pride of beauty. Before she had done speaking, a sound
was heard off upon the water, and the sea-monster appeared, with
his head raised above the surface, cleaving the waves with his
broad breast. The virgin shrieked, the father and mother who had
now arrived at the scene, wretched both, but the mother more
justly so, stood by, not able to afford protection, but only to
pour forth lamentations and to embrace the victim. Then spoke
Perseus: "There will be time enough for tears; this hour is all we
have for rescue. My rank as the son of Jove and my renown as the
slayer of the Gorgon might make me acceptable as a suitor; but I
will try to win her by services rendered, if the gods will only be
propitious. If she be rescued by my valor, I demand that she be my
reward." The parents consent (how could they hesitate?) and
promise a royal dowry with her.
And now the monster was within the range of a stone thrown by a
skilful slinger, when with a sudden bound the youth soared into
the air. As an eagle, when from his lofty flight he sees a serpent
basking in the sun, pounces upon him and seizes him by the neck to
prevent him from turning his head round and using his fangs, so
the youth darted down upon the back of the monster and plunged his
sword into its shoulder. Irritated by the wound, the monster
raised himself in the air, then plunged into the depth; then, like
a wild boar surrounded, by a pack of barking dogs, turned swiftly
from side to side, while the youth eluded its attacks by means of
his wings. Wherever he can find a passage for his sword between
the scales he makes a wound, piercing now the side, now the flank,
as it slopes towards the tail. The brute spouts from his nostrils
water mixed with blood. The wings of the hero are wet with it, and
he dares no longer trust to them. Alighting on a rock which rose
above the waves, and holding on by a projecting fragment, as the
monster floated near he gave him a death stroke. The people who
had gathered on the shore shouted so that the hills reechoed the
sound. The parents, transported with joy, embraced their future
son-in-law, calling him their deliverer and the savior of their
house, and the virgin both cause and reward of the contest,
descended from the rock.
Cassiopeia was an Aethiopian, and consequently, in spite of her
boasted beauty, black; at least so Milton seems to have thought,
who alludes to this story in his "Penseroso," where he addresses
Melancholy as the
".... goddess, sage and holy,
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And, therefore, to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue.
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starred Aethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended."
Cassiopeia is called "the starred Aethiop queen" because after her
death she was placed among the stars, forming the constellation of
that name. Though she attained this honor, yet the Sea-Nymphs, her
old enemies, prevailed so far as to cause her to be placed in that
part of the heaven near the pole, where every night she is half
the time held with her head downward, to give her a lesson of
humility.
Memnon was an Aethiopian prince, of whom we shall tell in a future
chapter.
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