Coming down to a later period, Ælian makes mention of a fish caught in the Red Sea, and called Perseus equally by the dwellers on the shore, by the Greeks, and by the Arabs. He informs us that the latter honoured Perseus, the son of Zeus, and declared that it was from him this fish derived its name. He also describes a gigantic marine cricket, something like a rock-lobster, which many persons abstained from eating, because they deemed it sacred. The inhabitants of Seriphos, if they caught it in their nets, would not keep it, but returned it to the sea; if they found one dead, they would bury it, weeping; and they held that these creatures were dear to Perseus. The importance of these statements will appear hereafter. Another tradition of Seriphos noticed by the same writer attributes the silence of the frogs (which never croaked) on the island to the prayers of Perseus, when they disturbed his sleep on his return from the contest with Medusa.[9.1] The hero of the island would naturally be credited with many of its peculiarities.
The general result is that legends identical in substance with that of Perseus were widely known in ancient times. From Persia to Italy, from cultured Greece to the barbarous shores of the Red Sea, a tale was told, a hero was celebrated, identified by Greek and Roman writers with the son of Danae. The tale, however, was not told without variations, of which the underground chamber in the Argive territory and the escape of Danae to Ardea are specimens; while the hero’s mysterious connection with a fish, or marine crustacean, points to another.
The legend consists of three leading trains of incident, namely:—
1. The Birth, including the prophecy, the precautions taken by Akrisios, the supernatural conception, the exposure of mother and babe, and the fulfilment of the prophecy by the death of Akrisios.
2. The Quest of the Gorgon’s Head, including the jealousy of Polydektes, the divine gift of weapons, the visit to the Graiæ, the slaughter of Medusa, and the vengeance on Polydektes.
3. The Rescue of Andromeda, including the fight with the monster and the quelling of Phineus, the pretender to the maiden’s hand.
Singly, these trains of incident appear in many traditions, sometimes in one form, sometimes in another. We shall consider them first in combination, with the object of tracing the legend in its wanderings and modifications. Afterwards, leaving out of account the surrounding details, we shall examine the central incidents, so as, if possible, to arrive at the ideas which underlie them. In other words, we shall first treat the story as a whole, and then analyse it into its component parts. A tale, however, in its passage through the world is susceptible of almost infinite modifications. It will be obviously impossible in the analysis to deal with more than a few of these; and I shall confine my attention to the above three leading trains of incident and one other, which appears in many modern versions, and which we shall find to be not the least important and interesting of the four.
Considering the story as a story-whole, we may begin by reminding ourselves that the forms in which we receive it from Ovid and Lucian are literary forms of a pre-existing oral version. This version was probably the most widely accredited, though, as we have seen reason to think, not the only version current in classical times. And in transferring our inquiries from literature to tradition, we shall be met by variations much wider than those manifested in ancient writings. On the other hand, we shall not be left without approximations to the form with which we are familiar there.
Of these approximations, perhaps the closest was told a few years ago to Signor Giovanni Siciliano by an absolutely illiterate peasant woman of Pratovecchio in the Val d’Arno. It runs thus:—A childless king, praying for offspring, hears a voice asking him to choose between a son who will die and a daughter who will run away. By the advice of his subjects he chooses the latter; and a daughter is accordingly born. Some miles from his city the king has a palace in the midst of a fair garden. Thither he brings the child, with nurse and maid of honour, to keep her in safety; and he and his wife visit the little one but rarely. No sooner, however, had she arrived at the age of sixteen than the son of King Jonah, passing by, saw her and bribed her nurse to let him have access to her. The young people fell in love with one another, and were secretly married. In due time the bride gave birth to a son; and her father, learning this, refused to see her again. When the boy was fifteen years of age he went to find his grandfather, who would not so much as speak to him. He endured this silence for three or four months, and then demanded the reason for it, offering the king, if he would tell him, to go and cut off the Witch’s head for him. The king replied that this was just what he wanted him to do. Now, the witch in question was so terrible that all who looked at her became statues; and the king hoped that the youth would perish in the adventure. But on the way he met an old man who gave him a flying steed, and directed him to a palace wherein dwelt two women who had only one eye between them, from whom he was to obtain a mirror. And the old man warned him always to regard the witch in the mirror, and never to look at her otherwise, lest he should become a statue. The flying steed carried the adventurer safely over a mountain inhabited by all sorts of wild and ravenous beasts; and he arrived in due course at the palace of the one-eyed women. There, by possessing himself of the eye while one of them was handing it to the other, he extorted the mirror which enabled him to accomplish the object of his journey. After cutting off the witch’s head, he returned home another way; and coming to a seaport town he found a chapel by the sea-side, and a lovely maiden within it, clad in mourning garb and weeping. She bids him depart, lest he also be eaten by the seven-headed dragon whereto she has been offered, and whose coming she is then awaiting. He refuses to leave her. Instead of doing so, he attacks the dragon on its rising from the sea, turns it to stone, and cuts out its seven tongues, which he ties up in a handkerchief and puts in his pocket. But, having delivered the lady, he ungallantly refuses to see her home, saying that he wishes to see a little more of the world. Before leaving her, however, he makes an appointment to return in six months. This inscrutable conduct gives opportunity to a cobbler, who meets her alone, to threaten her with death unless she will tell her father that he is the slayer of the dragon. Deprived of her champion, she is compelled to submit to the terms; but when her father offers her in marriage to her supposed deliverer, she pleads for a delay of six months. Then the king sent placards through all his cities, announcing his daughter’s deliverance by a cobbler and her approaching marriage to him. Her real deliverer hears the placards, and returns to the capital just as the six months are expiring. He attends an audience, and inquires of the king how many heads the beast had, and whether the cobbler has any proof of his victory. The cobbler is summoned, and asked where are the dragon’s seven tongues? The damsel settles the question, however, by declaring that the youth it was who slew the dragon and cut out his tongues, and that the rascal of a shoemaker had taken her by force and compelled her to say that it was he. The shoemaker is promptly burned in the great square, and the hero married. He returns with his bride to his grandfather, to whom he shows the witch’s head, with the inevitable result, and then fetches his father from the garden where he had himself been born.[13.1]
That there should be so striking a resemblance between this story and that of the classical writers is not surprising to any one who realises the tenacity of popular traditions. It is not, indeed, necessary to suppose that it has been handed down from pagan times in Tuscany: it may only date, as a popular tale, from the revived paganism of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. If so, however, it would stand alone among Italian traditions, not one of which has been traced to the great movement known as the Revival of Learning, and a large number of which were already current while that movement was in progress. The assumption, therefore, that the Tuscan tale is a relic of two thousand years or more does not seem unwarranted. Moreover, it is confirmed by an Albanian märchen, obtained from the recital of a woman at Ljabovo in the district of Riça. It had been foretold, we learn, to a certain king that he should be put to death by his grandson, yet unborn. Wherefore he flung into the sea and drowned every boy born of his two daughters. The third boy, however, escaped with his life, and was cast by a wave on the shore, where he was found by two herdsmen and taken home to their wives to bring up. When he was in his twelfth year, beautiful and strong, a Lubia, or ogress, dried up all the waters; and it was prophesied that she would never let them flow again until she had eaten the king’s daughter. The maiden is accordingly bound in a certain spot, to await the Lubia; but the hero of the story, accidentally finding her, learns the fate in store for her, and bids her fear not, but call him when the Lubia comes. Meanwhile he hides behind a rock, and covers himself with a cap, so that he is no longer visible. He slays the Lubia with his club; and at the same moment the waters begin again to flow. The king offers his daughter in marriage to the victor; and the hero proves his right to the reward by the possession of the Lubia’s head. During the wedding games he throws his club and by mischance kills the king, thus fulfilling the prophecy, and himself becomes king in his stead.[14.1]