T HE R ETURN TO S ERIPHOS ‘It’s not a palace,’ Perseus warned Andromeda as they flashed across the sea towards Seriphos. ‘Just a simple cottage.’ ‘If it’s where you grew up, I know I’ll adore it.’ ‘I love you.’ ‘Of course you do.’ But when they landed on the beach, they found that Dictys’s cottage had been burned to the ground. ‘What can have happened? Where is everyone? What can have happened?’ Perseus found a group of fishermen mending nets not far off. They shook their heads sadly. Danaë and Dictys had been taken prisoner by Polydectes. ‘They say the king is holding a great feast at the palace.’ ‘Aye. Even now.’ ‘Some announcement to make, they say.’ Perseus grabbed Andromeda’s hand and flew with her to the palace. They arrived at the back of the throne room in time to see Danaë and Dictys, bound with ropes and being dragged before the seated Polydectes. ‘How dare you? How dare you marry each other without my permission?’ ‘It was all my doing,’ said Dictys. ‘It was our doing,’ said Danaë. ‘But I offered you my hand. You could have been my queen!’ screamed Polydectes. ‘For this insult, you will both die.’ Perseus stepped forward and walked towards the throne. Polydectes looked over the shoulders of Danaë and Dictys and saw him coming. He smiled broadly. ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t brave young Perseus. You told me you wouldn’t return without the head of the Medusa.’ ‘You told me you were going to challenge Oenomaus to a chariot race for the hand of Hippodamia.’ ‘I changed my mind.’ ‘Why have you arrested my mother?’ ‘She and Dictys are due to die. You can be hanged alongside them if you like.’ Danaë and Dictys turned. ‘Run, Perseus, run!’ ‘Mother, Dictys, if you love me, turn and look at Polydectes. I beg you! All who love me, look on the king now!’ The smile on Polydectes’ face was a little less certain. ‘What nonsense is this?’ ‘You asked for the head of Medusa. Here she is!’ ‘Surely you don’t expect me to —’ Polydectes got no further. ‘You can turn and look at me now,’ said Perseus, putting Medusa’s head back in the satchel. ‘It’s safe now.’ The statue of Polydectes on his throne, flanked by stone men-at-arms, became a popular attraction on Seriphos. Visitors paid to see and touch them, and the money was spent on the construction of a temple to Athena and the installation of a hundred herms around the island.fn16 Andromeda and Perseus left King Dictys and Queen Danaë on Seriphos and moved on. Perseus and Andromeda could have stayed and inherited the throne. They could have returned to Andromeda’s homeland and ruled the combined kingdoms of Ethiopia and Egypt. But they were young, spirited and minded to travel, and Perseus was keen to visit the land of his birth. As a baby he had been there for less than a week. His grandfather King Acrisius had done everything to prevent his existence and shorten his life, but he was curious to see what Argos, the famous kingdom of his birth, was like. When Perseus and Andromeda arrived, they discovered that Acrisius, after casting his daughter and grandson onto the waters in their chest all those years ago, had turned dark, cruel and despotic. Never a popular ruler, he had soon been toppled from his throne. Nobody knew where he was now. The people of Argos, having heard of Perseus’s astonishing feats, invited him to fill the vacant throne. Uncertain what to do or where to settle, the young couple thanked the Argives and asked for time to consider. They wandered about mainland Greece, Perseus funding their travels with prize money from athletic meetings that he entered and invariably won. They heard news that the King of Larissa was holding the richest games of the year and made their way north to Thessaly to compete. The finest athletes in Greece were taking part and great would be the honours awarded the competitor who won the most events. One by one, Perseus prevailed in every race and every competition. It came at last to the discus. Perseus threw his so far it shot over the longest mark, cleared the stadium and landed amongst the spectators. The great roar of delight that met this astounding feat swiftly turned to a groan of horror. The discus had struck someone in the crowd. Perseus ran to the place. An old man was lying on the ground, blood streaming from his gashed head. Perseus cradled him in his arms. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘So terribly sorry. I don’t know my own strength. May the gods forgive me.’ To Perseus’s astonishment the old man smiled and even managed to cough out a laugh. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s funny really. I defeated the oracle. How many can say that? It said I would be killed by my grandson, and here I am instead, felled by some clumsy oaf of an athlete.’ The old man’s attendant pushed Perseus away. ‘Give his majesty air.’ ‘His majesty?’ ‘Don’t you know this is King Acrisius of Argos?’ Accident or not, preordained or not, it was a blood crime. Perseus and Andromeda made a sad pilgrimage to Mount Cyllene in Arcadia and the temple of Hermes that stood near the cave where the god was born. On the altar stone they laid the hood of invisibility and the talaria, the winged sandals. As they left the temple precincts, after a brief prayer to the god, they turned to look back at the altar. The hood and sandals had disappeared. ‘We did the right thing,’ said Andromeda. Now they made their way to Athens, and in the deepest recesses of the temple of Athena they hid the sickle, the shield and the satchel that held the head of Medusa. Athena herself appeared before them and blessed them. ‘You did well, Perseus. Our father is pleased with you.’ She raised the shield and they saw that the face of Medusa, startled, dismayed, sad and somehow beautiful stared out, forever trapped within the shining surface of the bronze. From that time on the shield was the Aegis of Athena – her sign, her standard and her warning to the world. It can be said of Perseus and Andromeda, and of no other great heroes I can think of, that they lived happily ever after. After their wanderings they returned to the Peloponnese – the large southwestern peninsula connected to the mainland of Greece by the land bridge of the Isthmus of Corinthfn17 – and founded Mycenae, a great kingdom that in time, under the name of Argolis or the Argolid, absorbed neighbouring Arcadia and Corinth as well as Perseus’s birth kingdom of Argos to the south. Through their son Perses, their bloodline founded the Persian nation and people. After their long lives, Perseus and Andromeda were awarded the greatest prize that Zeus can bestow on mortals. Along with Cassiopeia and Cepheus, they were taken up into the heavens as constellations. Together Perseus and Andromeda look over their unruly shower of meteor children, the PERSEIDS, whom we can still watch showing off in the night sky once a year.