1
Thetis
Her father, Acrisius, wanted to keep her from marrying. And, as she was so pretty, he shut her up in an iron room. And I don’t know whether it’s true—but they say that Zeus turned himself into gold, and came showering down through the roof, and she caught the gold in her lap,—and it was Zeus all the time. And then her father found out about it—he is a horrid, jealous old man—and he was furious, and thought she had been receiving a lover; and he put her into the chest, the moment the child was born.
Doris
And what did she do then?
Thetis
She never said a word against her own sentence; she was ready to submit: but she pleaded hard for the child’s life, and cried, and held him up for his grandfather to see; and there was the sweet babe, that thought no harm, smiling at the waves. I am beginning again, at the mere remembrance of it.
Doris
You make me cry, too. And is it all over?
Thetis
No; the chest has carried them safely so far; it is by Seriphus.
Doris
Then why should we not save them? We can put the chest into those fishermen’s nets, look; and then of course they will be hauled in, and come safe to shore.
5
Thetis
The very thing. She shall not die; nor the child, sweet treasure!
Triton. Iphianassa. Doris. Nereids
Triton
Well, ladies: so the monster you sent against the daughter of Cepheus has got killed himself, and never done Andromeda any harm at all!”
Nereid
Who did it? I suppose Cepheus was just using his daughter as a bait, and had a whole army waiting in ambush to kill him?
