The vulgar deaths ’twere tedious to rehearse, And fates below the dignity of verse: Their safety in their flight two hundred found; Two hundred by Medusa’s head were stoned. Fierce Phineus now repents the wrongful fight, And views his varied friends; a dreadful sight; He knows their faces, for their help he sues, And thinks, not hearing him, that they refuse; By name he begs their succour, one by one, Then doubts their life, and feels the friendly stone. Struck with remorse, and conscious of his pride, Convict of sin, he turn’d his eyes aside; With suppliant mien, to Perseus thus he prays: “Hence with the head, as far as winds and seas Can bear thee; hence; O quit the Cephen shore, And never curse us with Medusa more; That horrid head, which stiffens into stone Those impious men, who, daring death, look on. I warr’d not with thee out of hate or strife; My honest cause was to defend my wife, First pledged to me: what crime could I suppose, To arm my friends, and vindicate my spouse? But vain, too late, I see, was our design; Mine was the title, but the merit thine.

Contending made me guilty, I confess; But penitence should make that guilt the less: ’Twas thine to conquer by Minerva’s power; Favour’d by heaven, thy mercy I implore; For life I sue, the rest to thee I yield: In pity from my sight remove the shield.” He suing said, nor durst revert his eyes On the grim head; and Perseus thus replies: “Coward, what is in me to grant I will, Nor blood, unworthy of my valour, spill; Fear not to perish by my vengeful sword; From that secure, ’tis all the Fates afford. Where now I see thee, thou shalt still be seen, A lasting monument, to please our queen; There still shall thy betroth’d behold her spouse, And find his image in her father’s house.” This said, where Phineus turn’d to shun the shield, Full in his face the staring head he held; As here and there he strove to turn aside, The wonder wrought; the man was petrified: All marble was his frame, his humid eyes Dropp’d tears, which hung upon the stone like ice; In suppliant posture, with uplifted hands, And fearful look, the guilty statue stands

Hence Perseus to his native city hies, Victorious, and rewarded with his prize: Conquest, o’er Praetus the usurper, won, He reinstates his grandsire in the throne. Praetus his brother dispossess’d by might, His realm enjoy’d, and still detain’d his right: But Perseus pull’d the haughty tyrant down, And to the rightful king restored the throne; Weak was the usurper, as his cause was wrong: Where Gorgon’s head appears, what arms are strong? When Perseus to his host the monster held, They soon were statues, and their king expell’d.

Thence to Seriphus with the head he sails, Whose prince his story treats as idle tales: Lord of a little isle, he scorns to seem Too credulous, but laughs at that and him; Yet did he not so much suspect the truth, As, out of pride or envy, hate the youth. The Argive prince, at his contempt enraged, To force his faith by fatal proof engaged: “Friends, shut your eyes,” he cries: his shield he takes, And to the king exposed Medusa’s snakes: The monarch felt the power he would not own, And stood convict of folly in the stone.

Minerva visits Mount Helicon, the seat of the Muses, by whom she is hospitably entertained.

Thus far Minerva was content to rove With Perseus, offspring of her father Jove: Now hid in clouds Seriphus she forsook, And to the Theban towers her journey took; Cythnos and Gyaros, lying to the right, She pass’d unheeded in her eager flight; And choosing first on Helicon to rest, The virgin muses in these words address’d: