177But when he saw his valour giving way before the crowd, Perseus said, 'Since you yourselves force me to it, I shall seek help from an enemy. 179Turn away your faces, if any friend is here!' 180and he raised up the Gorgon's face. 181'Find someone else to be moved by your wonders,' said Thescelus; 182and as he was making ready to throw the deadly javelin with his hand, he stuck fast in that very gesture, a marble statue. 184Next to him, Ampyx aims his sword at the breast of Lynceus' descendant, full to the brim with great courage; 185and in the aiming his right hand stiffened and moved neither this way nor that.
187But Nileus, who had falsely claimed to be begotten of the sevenfold Nile, and had also engraved seven streams on his shield, partly in silver, partly in gold, says, 'Behold, Perseus, the origins of our race: you will take great comfort for your death to the silent shades, to have fallen at the hands of so great a man': the last part of his speech was choked in the middle of the sound, and you would think the open mouth wished to speak, but it gives no passage to words. 195Eryx rebukes them and says, 'It is from weakness of spirit, not from the Gorgon's power, that you are numb: charge with me and lay low on the ground this youth who wields magic arms!' 198He was about to charge: the earth held his footsteps fast, and he remained motionless flint, an armed image.
200These, however, suffered the punishment they deserved; 200but there was one soldier of Perseus, Aconteus, who, while he fights for him, caught sight of the Gorgon and hardened as stone spread over him. 203Astyages, thinking he was still alive, strikes him with his long sword: the sword rang with shrill clangs. 205While Astyages stands amazed, he took on the same nature, and the look of wonder remains on a marble face. 207It would take long to tell the names of the men from the common ranks: two hundred bodies remained for the fight; two hundred bodies grew stiff at the sight of the Gorgon. 210Then at last Phineus repents of the unjust war.
211But what is he to do? 211he sees statues in various postures and recognises his own men, and, calling each by name, begs for help, and, scarcely trusting himself, touches the bodies nearest him: they were marble. 214He turns away, and so, a suppliant, stretching out hands that confess defeat and arms held sideways, he says, 'You win, Perseus. 216Remove your monster, take away the petrifying face of your Medusa, whoever she may be, take it away, I beg you. 218It was not hatred nor desire for the kingdom that drove me to war: I took up arms for a bride. 220Your cause was better in merit, ours in time.
221I regret that I did not give way. 221Grant me nothing, bravest of men, except this life: let the rest be yours.' 223As he said this, not daring to look at the one he entreated with his voice, Perseus said, 'What I can bestow, most cowardly Phineus, and what is a great gift to a coward, I shall bestow (put away your fear): you shall be harmed by no sword. 227Indeed I shall give you a monument to last through the ages, and in the house of my father-in-law you will always be gazed upon, so that my wife may console herself with the image of her betrothed.' 230He spoke, and moved the daughter of Phorcys to the side towards which Phineus had turned his trembling face.
232Then too, as he tried to turn his eyes away, his neck stiffened, and the moisture of his eyes hardened into stone. 234But still the timid face and the suppliant look in the marble, the lowered hands and the cringing expression remained. 236Victorious, Abas' descendant enters his ancestral walls with his wife, and as champion and avenger of his undeserving grandfather he attacks Proetus: for, having routed his brother by force of arms, Proetus had seized the citadel of Acrisius. 240But neither by the help of arms nor by the citadel he had wrongfully seized did he overcome the grim eyes of the snake-bearing monster. 242You, however, Polydectes, ruler of little Seriphos, neither the young man's valour, proved through so many labours, nor his sufferings had softened, but, hard-hearted, you persist in an inexorable hatred, and there is no end to your unjust anger.
246You even disparage his glory and claim that Medusa's death is a fiction. 247'I shall give you pledges of the truth. 248Spare your eyes!' 248says Perseus, and with Medusa's face he made the king's face bloodless stone.