d Perseus is said to have received from Minerva, and by
virtue of it he was enabled to see without being seen. Lucian says
that Minerva herself held this reflecting shield before him, and
by that means afforded him the opportunity of seeing the
reflection of Medusa's figure; and that Perseus, seizing her by
the hair with his left hand, and keeping his eye fixed on the
image reflected in the shield, took his sword in his right, and
cut off her head, and then, by the aid of his wings, flew away
before the other Gorgon sisters were aware of what he had done.]

[Footnote 90: _Pegasus and his brother._--Ver. 786. Pegasus and
Chrysaor were two winged horses, which were fabled to have sprung
up from the blood of Medusa, when slain by Perseus.]

[Footnote 91: _Themselves no fiction._--Ver. 787. His dangers were
not false or imaginary, inasmuch as he was pursued by Sthenyo and
Euryale, the sisters of Medusa, who were fabled to have wings, and
claws of iron on their hands. Ovid deals a sly hit in the words
'non falsa pericula cursus,' at the tales of travellers, who, even
in his day, seem to have commenced dealing in the marvellous; as,
indeed, we may learn for ourselves, on turning to the pages of
Herodotus, who seems to have been often imposed upon.]

[Footnote 92: _Before it was expected._--Ver. 790. Showing thereby
how delighted his audience was with his narrative.]

EXPLANATION.

It is extremely difficult to surmise what may have given rise to many
of the fabulous circumstances here narrated. It has been conjectured
by some, that Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor, the two horses
produced from the blood of Medusa, were really two ships in the harbor
of the island where that princess was residing at the time when she
was slain by Perseus; and that, on that event, they were seized by
him. Perhaps they had the figure of a winged horse on the prow; from
which circumstance the fable had its origin. Possibly, the story of
the production of coral from the blood of Medusa may have originated
in the fact, that on the defeat of the Gorgons, navigation became more
safe, and, consequently, the fishing for coral more common than it had
been before.

The story of the exposure of Andromeda may be founded on the fact,
that she was contracted by her parents against her will to some
fierce, piratical prince, who infested the