Perseus — “Child of the Morning”
“For now behind her unseen, Perseus passed,
And silently whirled the great sword round;
And when it fell, she fell upon the ground,
And felt no more of all her bitter pain.”
—Wm. Morris.
Story. The Slaying of the Gorgon
Perseus was sent by the tyrant, Polydictes, to attempt the conquest of the Gorgon, Medusa, a terrible monster, whose hair was hissing, writhing snakes, and who possessed petrifying power sufficient to turn all beholders into stone.
Perseus, favored by the gods and well equipped by them, sought the home of the Gorgons. He was rendered invisible by Pluto’s helmet, and drew near without detection. Minerva had loaned him her mirror-like shield and, watching in it the reflected form of Medusa, he severed her head and seizing it, bore it swiftly away to Polydictes, who, upon beholding it, turned to stone.
Interpretation
Perseus, the sun, “destroyer of evil and noxious things,” is forced by Polydictes, darkness, to journey to the home of the Gorgons, gloaming, and conquer Medusa, the star-lit heaven marred by ghastly vapors which stream like dark serpents across it.
Art
This Perseus, by Canova, is in the Belvedere of the Vatican. It is a beautifully finished statue in which the artist evidently imitated the Apollo Belvedere. The head of Medusa is that of a young and lovely woman, with the serpents arranged about her face like curling hair—yet Canova has succeeded in giving her that expression of “freezing disdain which pierces the very soul.”