ith applause, fills the shores and the lofty abodes of the
Gods. Cassiope and Cepheus, the father, rejoice, and salute him as their
son-in-law, and confess that he is the support and the preserver of
their house.

Released from her chains, the virgin walks along, both the reward and
the cause of his labors. He himself washes his victorious hands in water
taken {from the sea}; and that it may not injure the snake-bearing head
with the bare sand, he softens the ground with leaves; and strews some
weeds produced beneath the sea, and lays upon them the face of Medusa,
the daughter of Phorcys. The fresh weeds, being still alive, imbibed the
poison of the monster in their spongy pith, and hardened by its touch;
and felt an unwonted stiffness in their branches and their leaves. But
the Nymphs of the sea attempt the wondrous feat on many {other} weeds,
and are pleased at the same result; and raise seed again from them
scattered on the waves. Even now the same nature remains in the coral,
that it receives hardness from contact with the air; and what was a
plant in the sea, out of the sea becomes stone.

To three Deities he erects as many altars of turf; the left one to
Mercury; the right to thee, warlike Virgin; the altar of Jove is in the
middle. A cow is sacrificed to Minerva; a calf to the wing-footed {God,
and} a bull to thee, greatest of the Deities. Forthwith he takes
Andromeda, and the reward of an achievement so great, without any dowry.
Hymenaeus and Cupid wave their torches before them; the fires are heaped
with abundant perfumes. Garlands, too, are hanging from the houses:
flageolets and lyres, and pipes, and songs resound, the happy tokens of
a joyous mind. The folding-doors thrown open, the entire gilded halls
are displayed, and the nobles of king Cepheus sit down at a feast
furnished with splendid preparations. After they have done the feast,
and have cheered their minds with the gifts of the generous Bacchus, the
grandson of Abas inquires the customs and habits of the country.
Immediately one {of them}, Lyncides, tells him, on his inquiring, the
manners and habits of the inhabitants. Soon as he had told him these
things, he said, "Now, most valiant Perseus, tell us, I beseech thee,
with how great valor and by what arts thou didst cut off the head all
hairy with serpents." The descendant of Abas tells them that there is a
spot situate beneath cold Atlas, safe in its bulwark of a solid mass;
that, in the entrance o