1And while the hero, son of Danaë, recounts these things in the midst of the Cephenes, the royal halls are filled with a roaring crowd: and the clamour is not such as sings of wedding festivities, but such as announces savage war. 5And you could liken the banquet, turned to sudden tumult, to the sea, whose calm the savage fury of the winds roughens by stirring up the waves. 8First among them is Phineus, the reckless author of the war, brandishing an ashen spear with a bronze point: 'See,' he says, 'see, here I am, the avenger of my stolen bride, and neither your wings nor Jupiter turned into false gold shall snatch you from me.' 12As he tries to throw, Cepheus: 'What are you doing?' 13he cries out, 'what state of mind drives you, brother, in your madness, to this crime?
14Is this the thanks repaid for such great services? 15Is this the dowry with which you repay him for her life, which he saved? 16It was not Perseus, if you want the truth, who took her from you, but the stern power of the Nereids, but horned Ammon, but the monster of the sea that was coming to glut itself on my own flesh and blood. 19She was snatched from you at that moment when she was about to die: unless, cruel man, you demand that very thing, that she should die, and you would be relieved by our grief. 22No doubt it is not enough that she was chained while you looked on, and that you, her uncle and her betrothed, brought no help: are you to grieve besides that she was saved by anyone, and snatch away his reward?
25If these rewards seem great to you, you should have sought them on those crags where they were fastened. 27Now let the one who sought her, through whom this old age of mine is not childless, take what he bargained for both by his deeds and by his word, and understand that he was preferred not to you, but to certain death!' 30He makes no reply: but looking now at him, now at Perseus, he does not know whether to aim at this one or that, and after a brief hesitation he hurled his spear, whirled with all the strength his anger gave, at Perseus, in vain. 34When it stuck fast in the couch, then at last Perseus leapt up from the cushions; 35and, fiercely sending the weapon back, he would have burst open the hostile breast, had not Phineus gone behind the altar: and (shameful!) the altar served the criminal.
38Yet the point stuck, not without effect, in the forehead of Rhoetus. 39When he had fallen and the iron was wrenched out of the bone, he kicks and spatters the laid tables with blood. 41Then indeed the mob blazes up into ungovernable rage, and they hurl weapons, and there are those who say that Cepheus ought to die with his son-in-law. 43But Cepheus had gone out over the threshold of the house, calling to witness justice and good faith and the gods of hospitality that these things were set in motion against his will. 46Warlike Pallas is at hand, and shields her brother with the aegis, and gives him courage.
47There was an Indian, Athis, whom Limnaee, daughter of the river Ganges, is believed to have borne beneath its glassy waters, outstanding in beauty, which he enhanced with rich dress, still in the bloom of twice eight years, wearing a Tyrian cloak which a golden border ran round; 52golden necklaces adorned his neck, and a curved comb his hair, wet with myrrh. 54He had been taught to hit things, however distant, with a thrown javelin, but was more skilled at drawing the bow. 56Then too, as he was bending the pliant horns with his hand, Perseus struck him with a log that lay smoking in the middle of the altar, and smashed his face into the broken bones.
59When Assyrian Lycabas saw him tossing in his blood that much-praised face, Lycabas his closest friend and comrade, who did not hide his true love, after he had lamented Athis breathing out his life beneath the bitter wound, he snatches up the bow that Athis had strung and said, 'Let your contest be with me: nor will you long rejoice in the boy's death, which brings you more hatred than praise.' 66He had not yet said all this when the piercing shaft flashed from the string, yet, dodged, it hung in the folds of a robe. 69The grandson of Acrisius turns on him the curved sword proved in the slaughter of Medusa and drives it into his breast: but he, already dying, his eyes swimming under black night, looked round for Athis and leaned himself against him, and took to the shades the comfort of a shared death.