s. It is a tedious task to
recount the names of the men of the lower rank. Two hundred bodies were
{yet} remaining for the fight: two hundred bodies, on beholding the
Gorgon, grew stiff.

Now at length Phineus repents of this unjust warfare. But what can he
do? He sees statues varying in form, and he recognizes his friends, and
demands help of them each, called by name; and not {yet} persuaded, he
touches the bodies next him; they are marble. He turns away {his eyes};
and thus suppliant, and stretching forth his hands, that confessed {his
fault}, and his arms obliquely extended, he says, "Perseus, thou hast
conquered; remove the direful monster, and take away that stone-making
face of thy Medusa, whatever she may be; take it away, I pray. It is not
hatred, or the desire of a kingdom, that has urged me to war: for a wife
I wielded arms. Thy cause was the better in point of merit, mine in
point of time. I am not sorry to yield. Grant me nothing, most valiant
man, beyond this life; the rest be thine." Upon his saying such things,
and not daring to look upon him, whom he is entreating with his voice,
{Perseus} says, "What am I able to give thee, most cowardly Phineus,
and, a great boon to a craven, that will I give; lay aside thy fears;
thou shalt be hurt by no weapon. Moreover, I will give thee a monument
to last forever, and in the house of my father-in-law thou shalt always
be seen, that my wife may comfort herself with the form of her
betrothed." {Thus} he said, and he turned the daughter of Phorcys to
that side, towards which Phineus had turned himself with trembling face.
Then, even as he endeavored to turn away his eyes, his neck grew stiff,
and the moisture of his eyes hardened in stone. But yet his timid
features, and his suppliant countenance, and his hands hanging down, and
his guilty attitude, still remained.

The descendant of Abas, together with his wife, enters the walls of his
native city; and as the defender and avenger of his innocent mother, he
attacks Proetus.[22] For, his brother being expelled by force of arms,
Proetus had taken possession of the citadel of Acrisius; but neither by
the help of arms, nor the citadel which he had unjustly seized, did he
prevail against the stern eyes of the snake-bearing monster.

[Footnote 1: _Phineus._--Ver. 8. He was the brother of Cepheus, to
whom Andromeda had been betrothed. There was another person of the
same name, who entertained the Argonauts, and