Andromeda freed

Description

Andromeda's misfortunes, began the day her mother claimed to be more beautiful than the Nereids, a group of particularly seductive sea nymphs. These, offended, decided that Cassiopeia's vanity had definitely overstepped its bounds and asked Poseidon, the god of the sea, to teach her a lesson. As punishment, Poseidon sent a terrible monster (some say even a flood) to raid the shores of King Cepheus' territory. Stunned by the devastation, with his subjects clamoring for his reaction, the beleaguered Cepheus turned to the Oracle of Ammon for a way out. He was told that to quiet the monster he must sacrifice his virgin daughter: Andromeda. Here then was the innocent Andromeda chained to a rocky shore to atone for the sins of her mother, who watched in remorse from the shore. As Andromeda stood chained to the wave-beaten cliff, pale with terror and in tears at her impending doom, the hero Perseus, fresh from the feat of beheading the Gorgon Medusa, happened to be there. His heart was rapt at the sight of that frail beauty in anguish. The Latin poet Ovid in his book Metamorphoses tells us that Perseus at first mistook Andromeda for a marble statue. But the wind tousling her hair and the warm tears running down her cheeks revealed to him her human nature. Perseus asked her what her name was and why she was chained there. Andromeda, completely different from her vain mother, at first, out of shyness, did not even answer him; although a horrible death awaited her in the monster's slobbering jaws, she would have preferred, out of modesty, to hide her face in her hands if she had not had them chained to that rock. Perseus continued to question her. Finally, lest her silence might be interpreted as an admission of guilt, she told him her story, which she interrupted improvv