Mythology
Perseus is the mythological symbol of adventure. Perseus was born the son of Zeus (The “Father of Gods and men” ) and the mortal Danae. He was a demigod but not immortal. Perseus was challenged by King Polydectes of Seriphos to slay one of the Gorgons (Medusa), whose gaze turned an on-looking victim into stone. Athena, Hermes, and other gods gave Perseus a helmet, a shield, and a curved sword with studded jewels on its handle to aid him in the challenge. Along with beheading Medusa, Perseus performed other heroic deeds as well, such as saving Andromeda who was a princess chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. Due to his great accomplishments, the gods placed Perseus among the stars, with the head of Medusa in one hand and the jeweled sword in the other. The Double Cluster represents the jeweled handle of Perseus’s sword.
Read more about this topic: Double Cluster
Famous quotes containing the word mythology:
“One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind! The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Love, love, love—all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)