the Unshapen Land, where no man will ever find your bones."

"Better so than live despised," said Perseus. "Tell me, then, oh
tell me, fair and wise Goddess, how I can do but this one thing, and
then, if need be, die!"

Then Athene smiled and said:

"Be patient, and listen; for if you forget my words, you will indeed
die. You must go northward to the country of the Hyperboreans, who
live beyond the pole, at the sources of the cold north wind, till
you find the three Grey Sisters, who have but one eye and one tooth
between them. You must ask them the way to the Nymphs, the daughters
of the Evening Star, who dance about the golden tree, in the
Atlantic island of the west. They will tell you the way to the
Gorgon, that you may slay her, my enemy, the mother of monstrous
beasts. Once she was a maiden as beautiful as morn, till in her
pride she sinned a sin at which the sun hid his face; and from that
day her hair was turned to vipers, and her hands to eagle's claws;
and her heart was filled with shame and rage, and her lips with
bitter venom; and her eyes became so terrible that whosover looks on
them is turned to stone; and her children are the winged horse and
the giant of the golden sword; and her grandchildren are Echidna the
witch-adder, and Geryon the three-headed tyrant, who feeds his herds
beside the herds of hell. So she became the sister of the Gorgons,
the daughters of the Queen of the Sea. Touch them not, for they are
immortal; but bring me only Medusa's head."

"And I will bring it!" said Perseus; "but how am I to escape her
eyes? Will she not freeze me too into stone?"