turn back nor escape; but if your heart fails you, you must die in
the Unshapen Land, where no man will ever find your bones.'

'Better so than live here, useless and despised,' said Perseus.
'Tell me, then, oh tell me, fair and wise Goddess, of your great
kindness and condescension, 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 Gray 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 whosoever 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, Stheino and Euryte the
abhorred, the daughters of the Queen of the Sea. Touch them not,
for they are immortal; but bring me only Medusa's head.'