Pale grew Polydectes and his guests as they looked upon that
dreadful face. They tried to rise up from their seats: but from
their seats they never rose, but stiffened, each man where he sat,
into a ring of cold gray stones.

Then Perseus turned and left them, and went down to his galley in
the bay; and he gave the kingdom to good Dictys, and sailed away
with his mother and his bride.

And Polydectes and his guests sat still, with the wine-cups before
them on the board, till the rafters crumbled down above their
heads, and the walls behind their backs, and the table crumbled
down between them, and the grass sprung up about their feet: but
Polydectes and his guests sit on the hillside, a ring of gray
stones until this day.

But Perseus rowed westward toward Argos, and landed, and went up to
the town. And when he came, he found that Acrisius his grandfather
had fled. For Proetus his wicked brother had made war against him
afresh; and had come across the river from Tiryns, and conquered
Argos, and Acrisius had fled to Larissa, in the country of the wild
Pelasgi.

Then Perseus called the Argives together, and told them who he was,
and all the noble deeds which he had done. And all the nobles and
the yeomen made him king, for they saw that he had a royal heart;
and they fought with him against Argos, and took it, and killed
Proetus, and made the Cyclopes serve them, and build them walls
round Argos, like the walls which they had built at Tiryns; and
there were great rejoicings in the vale of Argos, because they had