MYTHOLOGY: TIMELESS TALES OF GODS & HEROES
Chapters 9-12
PERSEUS
First of the mythic Greek heroes
Origins of Perseus
Son of Zeus and Denae
 Zeus came to Denae in a shower of
gold
 The Oracle told Denae’s father,
King Acrisius of Argos, that his
daughter’s son would one day kill
him
 The king threw Denae and Perseus
into the water in a wooden chest
 Mother and child washed onto shore
 Perseus raised by Dictys (brother to
Polydectes) who rescued them

The Quest for Medusa
Polydectes, the king of the island
Seriphos is in love with Denae
 Perseus will not allow the king to
marry his mother
 The king sends Perseus on a
seemingly impossible quest
 He is to bring back the head of
Medusa as a gift
 The king figured Perseus would be
turned to stone once he looked at
her

Medusa the Gorgon
One of the Gorgon sisters
 Depicted as beautiful and terrifying
 Born beautiful like her sisters; she
was vain about her hair
 Athena punishes Medusa for her
relationship with Poseidon
 Athena turns her hair into serpents
 Athena makes her face so terrifying
that one look at her would turn a
man to stone

The Graeae – The Gray Women
Perseus consults Athena about how
to cut off Medusa’s head
 He’s directed to the Graeae to ask
them the whereabouts of the
Hesperides, who have weapons to
defeat Medusa
 The Graeae are three perpetually
old women who share one eye and
one tooth between them
 Perseus steals the eye and demands
to know where he can find the
Hesperides (nymphs)

Hesperides (Nymphs)
Nymphs tending Hera’s orchard
 Hesperides give Perseus a
knapsack to hold the head of
Medusa
 From Zeus he receives an
“adamantine sword” and the
“cloak of invisibility”
 Hermes loans Perseus some
winged sandals
 Athena gives him a polished
shield

The Slaying of Medusa
Perseus visits the gorgons’ cave
 He views Medusa only through the
reflection on his polished shield
 He hovered above her with his
winged
 Slays Medusa with his adamantine
sword
 Escapes from the sisters Gorgon by
using the cloak of invisibility

The Rescue of Andromeda
On his return journey Perseus stops
at Ethiopia
 He finds that a lovely maiden has
been given up to be devoured by a
horrible sea serpent
 Andromeda was daughter of
Casiopeaia, who was being
punished for her vanity
 Poseidon sends sea serpents to
gobble up the Ethiopians
 Perseus falls in love with Andromeda
and rescues her

Polydectes Turned to Stone
Perseus returns to his mother with
Andromeda and Medusa’s head
 His mother is in hiding, afraid of
King Polydectes
 When he shows the head to the kin
and his servants they all turned to
stone
 The island was free from the tyrant
Polydectes

The Prophecy Fulfilled
Perseus and Denae return to
Argos to be reconciled with
Acrisius
 They found the king had been
driven away and no one knew
where to find him
 Perseus enters a discus-throwing
competition in Larissa
 He hurls the discus into the crowd
and it hits and kills Acrisius

THESEUS
Theseus, King of Athens
Son of Athenian King, Aegeus
 Raised by his mother in southern
Greece
 When he first went to Athens to
meet his father, he refused to go by
sea, because it was too safe
 He wanted to prove himself as a
hero on the way to Athens
 He meets and defeats a number of
nasty monsters and villains along the
way, including:

Villian: Procrustes

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Kept a house by the side of the road
where he offered hospitality to passing
strangers
Invited his guests in for a night’s rest in his
very special bed.
Procrustes described it as having the
unique property that its length exactly
matched whomsoever lay down upon it.
This "one-size-fits-all" was achieved by
stretching the guest on the rack if he was
too short for the bed and chopping off
his legs if he was too long.
Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes,
fatally adjusting him to fit his own bed.
Villain: Sinis the Pinebender
Bandit and son of Poseidon
 Known as “Pinebender”
 Killed people by fastening them
to two pine trees bent to the
ground
 Catapulted them to their deaths


Theseus captured Sinis and
catapulted him to his death in the
same manner
Villian: Sciron

Made those he captured kneel
to wash his feet and then
kicked them over a cliff into
the sea into the mouth of a
giant turtle

Theseus killed Sciron by hurling
him over a precipiece
Quest for the Minotaur
Greatest deed was killing the
minotaur
 Every seven years King Minos of
Crete forces Athenians to send a
seven boys and seven girls to
Crete where they are fed to the
Minotaur - a half-man, half-bull
who lives a maze called the
Labyrinth.
 Theseus volunteers to be one of
the boys and gets sent to Crete

Ariadne
When Theseus arrives at Crete,
King Minos’s daughter falls in love
with him
 Ariadne assists Theseus to slay the
Minotaur by giving him a ball of
string
 Theseus agrees to take Ariadne
with him in exchange for her help
 He slays the minotaur
 Finds his way out by following the
ball of string

The Return to Athens
On the return trip to Athens
Theseus leaves Ariadne on the
island of Naxxos
 Dionysus claims her as his wife-tobe
 Theseus forgets to remove the
black sail on his ship and to
replace it with a white one
 Aegeus then thinks Theseus is
dead and throws himself into the
sea

The Geography of Greece