[3] Ventris & Chadwick speculate about a Mycenaean goddess pe-re-*82 (Linear B: 𐀟𐀩𐁚), attested on tablet PY Tn 316, and tentatively reconstructed as *Preswa.

Disappointed by not having a male heir, Acrisius consulted the Oracle at Delphi, who warned him that he would one day be killed by his own grandson.

To keep Danaë childless, Acrisius imprisoned her in a room atop a bronze tower in the courtyard of his palace:[a] This mytheme is also connected to Ares, Oenopion, Eurystheus, and others.

Fearful for his future, but unwilling to provoke the wrath of the gods and the Erinyes by killing the offspring of Zeus and his daughter, Acrisius cast the two into the sea in a wooden chest.

Mother and child washed ashore on the island of Seriphos, where they were taken in by the fisherman Dictys ("fishing net"), who raised the boy to manhood.

[c] Polydectes requested that the guests bring horses, under the pretense that he was collecting contributions for the hand of Hippodamia, daughter of Oinomaos.

Medusa and her two immortal older sisters, Stheno and Euryale, were Gorgons, monsters with snakes for hair, sharp fangs and claws, wings of gold, and gazes that turned people to stone.

Before setting out on his quest, Perseus prayed to the gods and Zeus answered by sending two of his other children – Hermes and Athena – to bless their half-brother with the weapons needed to defeat Medusa.

Hermes gave Perseus his own pair of winged sandals to fly with and lent him his harpe sword to slay Medusa with, and Hades's helm of darkness to become invisible with.

To avenge their sister's death, Stheno and Euryale flew after Perseus, but he escaped them by wearing Hades's invisibility helm.

Cassiopeia, having boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, drew the vengeance of Poseidon, who sent an inundation on the land and a sea serpent, Cetus, which destroyed man and beast.

The oracle of Ammon announced that no relief would be found until the king sacrificed his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster, and so she was fastened naked to a rock on the shore.

[e] Sophocles and Euripides (and in more modern times Pierre Corneille) made the episode of Perseus and Andromeda the subject of tragedies, and its incidents were represented in many ancient works of art.

As Perseus was flying in his return above the sands of Libya, according to Apollonius of Rhodes,[17] the falling drops of Medusa's blood created a race of toxic serpents, one of whom was to kill the Argonaut Mopsus.

In the Bibliotheca,[19] the inevitable occurred by another route: Perseus did return to Argos, but when Acrisius learned of his grandson's approach, mindful of the oracle he went into voluntary exile in Pelasgiotis (Thessaly).

The story is related in Pausanias,[21] who gives as motivation for the swap that Perseus was ashamed to have become king of Argos by inflicting death.

In any case, early Greek literature reiterates that manslaughter, even involuntary, requires the exile of the slaughterer, expiation and ritual purification.

The two main sources regarding the legendary life of Perseus—for the Greeks considered him an authentic historical figure—are Pausanias and the Bibliotheca.

At Persia, he taught the magi about the Gorgon and, when a fireball fell from the sky, he took the fire and gave it to the people to guard and revere it.

[25] Perseus and Andromeda had seven sons: Perses, Alcaeus, Heleus, Mestor, Sthenelus, Electryon, and Cynurus, and two daughters, Gorgophone and Autochthe.

The replacement of Bellerophon as the tamer and rider of Pegasus by the more familiar culture hero Perseus was not simply an error of painters and poets of the Renaissance.

The transition was a development of Classical times which became the standard image during the Middle Ages and has been adopted by the European poets of the Renaissance and later: Giovanni Boccaccio's Genealogia deorum gentilium libri (10.27) identifies Pegasus as the steed of Perseus, and Pierre Corneille places Perseus upon Pegasus in Andromède.

[27] Various modern representations of Pegasus depict the winged horse with Perseus, including the fantasy film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake.

There are eight named stars in the constellation Algol, Atik, Berehinya, Menkib, Miram, Mirfak, Misam, and Muspelheim.