The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now at his side a wallet Perseus bore,
With threads of yellow gold embroidered o'er;
Shuddering, therein he laid the fearful head,
Lest he unwitting yet might join the dead,
Or those he loved by sight of it be slain.

But strong fate led him to the Lybian plain,
Where, at the ending of a sultry day,
A palace huge and fair beneath him lay,
Whose roofs with silver plates were covered o'er;
Then lighting down by its enormous door,
He heard unmeasured sounds of revelry,
And thought: “A fair place this will be for me,
Who lack both food and drink and rest this night.”
So turning to the ruddy flood of light,
Up the huge steps he toiled unto the hall;
But even as his eager foot did fall
Upon the threshold, such a mocking shout
Rang in his ears as Etna sendeth out
When, at the day's end, round the stithy cold
The Cyclops some unmeasured banquet hold.
And monstrous men could he see sitting there,
Burnt by the sun, with length of straight back hair,
And taller far than men are wont to be;
And at a gold-strewn dais could he see
A mighty King, a fearful man to face,
Brown-skinned and black-haired, of the giants' race,
Who seeing him, with thundering voice 'gan call:
“O Stranger, come forthwith into the hall;
Atlas would see thee!” Forth stood Perseus then,
And going 'twixt the rows of uncouth men
Seemed but a pigmy; but his heart was great,
And vain is might against the stroke of fate.

Then the King cried: “Who art thou, little one?
Surely in thy land weak must be the sun
If there are bred such tender folk as thou:
May the Gods grant such men are few enow!
Art thou a king's son?” Loud he laughed withal,

207

And shouts of laughter rang throughout the hall,
Like clattering thunder on a July night.
But Perseus quailed not. “Little were my might,”
He said, “if helpless on the earth I were;
But to the equal Gods my life is dear,
And certes victory over Jove's own son
By earthly men shall not be lightly won.”

So spake he, moving inward from the door,
But louder laughed the black King than before,
And all his people shouted at his beck;
Therewith he cried: “Break now this Prince's neck,
And take him forth and hang him up straightway
Before my door, that henceforth from this day
Pigmies and jesters may take better heed,
Lest at our hands they gain a liar's meed.”

Then started up two huge men from the board,
And Perseus, seeing them come, half drew his sword,
Looking this way and that; but in a while,
Upon his wallet with a deadly smile
He set his hand, and forth the head he drew,
Dead, white midst golden hair, where serpents blue
Yet dangled dead; and ere they stooped to take
His outstretched arms, before them he did shake
The dreadful thing: then stopped they suddenly,
Stone dead, without a wound or any cry.

Then toward the King he held aloft the head,
And as he stiffened, cried at him, and said:
“O King! when such a gift I bring to thee,
Wilt thou be dumb and neither hear nor see?
Listen how sing thy men, and in thy hall
How swift the merry dancers' feet do fall!”

For now these, thinking him some God to be,
Cried in their fear, and made great haste to flee,
Crowding about the great doors of the hall,
Until not one was left of great or small,
But the dead King, and those that there had died.
—Lo, in such way Medusa's head was tried!