The Gorgon's Head: (from: "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys")
The Gorgon's Head: (from: "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys")
Perseus doesn't want to marry the princess. King Polydectes does, and when the young hero cannot pay the bride-price, the king sends him on an impossible mission: bring back the head of Medusa, one of the three Gorgon sisters whose gaze turns men to stone. Hawthorne retells this primal tale with Victorian polish, stripping it of much of the original terror while keeping its essential engine: a boy against a monster, armed with gifts from the gods. With winged sandals, an invisibility cap, and his sister's wise counsel, Perseus enters the Gorgon's lair and faces the ultimate test: he must strike while avoiding her lethal eyes, looking only at her reflection in polished bronze. The climax is swift and startling, and the return home brings a darker twist, Perseus uses the Gorgon's head as a weapon against those who wronged him. This is the tale that spawned a thousand retellings, the myth behind Hollywood blockbusters, rendered here in prose that feels both ancient and distinctly 19th-century American. For readers who want their mythology with a moral and their monsters with a happy ending.
