and the reason why Minerva had changed her
hair into serpents.

The grandson of Hippotas[77] had shut up the winds in their eternal
prison; and Lucifer, who reminds {men} of their work, was risen in the
lofty sky, in all his splendor. Resuming his wings, {Perseus} binds his
feet with them on either side, and is girt with his crooked weapon, and
cleaves the liquid air with his winged ankles. Nations innumerable being
left behind, around and below, he beholds the people of the AEthiopians
and the lands of Cepheus. There the unjust Ammon[78] had ordered the
innocent Andromeda to suffer punishment for her mother's tongue.[79]

Soon as the descendant of Abas beheld her, with her arms bound to the
hard rock, but that the light breeze was moving her hair, and her eyes
were running with warm[80] tears, he would have thought her to be a work
of marble. Unconsciously he takes fire, and is astonished; captivated
with the appearance of her beauty, {thus} beheld, he almost forgets to
wave his wings in the air. When he has lighted {on the ground}, he says,
"O thou, undeserving of these chains, but {rather} of those by which
anxious lovers are mutually united, disclose to me, inquiring both the
name of this land and of thyself, and why thou wearest {these} chains."
At first she is silent, and, a virgin, she does not dare address[81] a
man; and with her hands she would have concealed her blushing features,
if she had not been bound; her eyes, 'twas {all} she could do, she
filled with gushing tears. Upon his often urging her, lest she should
seem unwilling to confess her offence, she told the name both of her
country and herself, and how great had been the confidence of her mother
in her beauty. All not yet being told, the waves roared, and a monster
approaching,[82] appeared with its head raised out of the boundless
ocean, and covered the wide expanse with its breast. The virgin shrieks
aloud; her mournful father, and her distracted mother, are there, both
wretched, but the latter more justly so. Nor do they bring her any help
with them, but tears suitable to the occasion, and lamentations, and
they cling round her body, bound {to the rock}.

Then thus the stranger says: "Plenty of time will be left for your tears
{hereafter}, the season for giving aid is {but} short. If I were to
demand her {in marriage}, I, Perseus, the son of Jove, and of her whom,
in prison, Jove embraced in the impregnating {shower of} gold, Perseus,
the conqu