adjacent seas with his
depredations; and that the betrothal was made, on condition that he
should allow the realms of her father, Cepheus, to be free and
undisturbed; Perseus, being informed of this, slew the pirate, and
Phineus having been kept in a state of inactivity through dread of the
valor of Perseus, it was fabled that he had been changed into a stone.
This interpretation of the story is the one suggested by Vossius.

Some writers think, that Phineus, the uncle of Andromeda, was the
enemy from which she was rescued by Perseus, and who is here
represented under the form of a monster; while others suggest that
this monster was the name of the ship in which the pirate before
mentioned was to have carried away Andromeda.

BOOK THE FIFTH.

FABLE I. [V.1-242]

While Perseus is continuing the relation of the adventures of Medusa,
Phineus, to whom Andromeda has been previously promised in marriage,
rushes into the palace, with his adherents, and attacks his rival.
A furious combat is the consequence, in which Perseus gives signal
proofs of his valor. At length, perceiving himself likely to be
overpowered by the number of his enemies, he shows them the head of
the Gorgon; on which Phineus and his followers are turned into statues
of stone. After this victory, he takes Andromeda with him to Argos,
his native city, where he turns the usurper Proetus into stone, and
re-establishes his grandfather Acrisius on the throne.

And while the hero, the son of Danae, is relating these things in the
midst of the company of the subjects of Cepheus, the royal courts are
filled with a raging multitude; nor is the clamor such as celebrates a
marriage-feast, but one which portends dreadful warfare. You might
compare the banquet, changed into a sudden tumult, to the sea, which,
when calm, the boisterous rage of the winds disturbs by raising its
waves.

Foremost among these, Phineus,[1] the rash projector of the onslaught,
shaking an ashen spear with a brazen point, cries, "Behold! {now},
behold! I am come, the avenger of my wife, ravished from me; neither
shall thy wings nor Jupiter turned into fictitious gold, deliver thee
from me." As he is endeavoring to hurl {his lance}, Cepheus cries out,
"What art thou doing? What fancy, my brother, impels thee, in thy
madness, to this crime? Is this the due acknowledgment to return
for deserts so great? Dost thou repay the life of her {thus}