Prevod

Yet both found great comfort for their altered forms in their grandson, whom conquered India worshipped, and whom Achaia honored with temples built in his name. Only Acrisius, a descendant of Abas and sprung from that same stock, still held out, barring the god from the walls of his Argive city, taking up arms against him, and denying that he was Jupiter’s son; for neither did he believe that Jupiter had fathered Perseus, whom Danaë conceived in a shower of gold.

Yet soon Acrisius—so compelling is the power of truth— regretted both his offense against the god and his refusal to acknowledge his grandson: the one was already installed in heaven, while the other, bearing the memorable trophy of the snake-haired monster, was cleaving the yielding air on whirring wings. As the victor hovered above the sands of Libya, bloody drops fell from the Gorgon’s head.

The earth received them and quickened them into snakes of many kinds: hence that land is thick with deadly serpents. From there, driven through the boundless sky by conflicting winds, he was carried now this way, now that, like a rain-laden cloud, and from the lofty heavens looked down on lands far distant from one another, flying over the whole world. Three times he saw the icy Bears, three times the claws of Cancer; often he was swept westward, often toward the rising sun.

Now, as daylight faded, afraid to trust himself to the night, he halted in the western world, in the kingdom of Atlas, and sought a little rest until the Morning Star should summon the fires of Dawn, and Dawn the chariot of the day. Here lived Atlas, son of Iapetus, whose enormous body surpassed all other men’s. Under this king’s rule lay the earth’s farthest shore, and the sea that offers its waters to the Sun’s panting horses and receives his weary chariot.

A thousand flocks and as many herds roamed his pastures, and no neighboring lands hemmed in his own. Leaves gleaming with radiant gold clothed his trees, whose branches were of gold, whose fruit was gold. “Stranger,” Perseus said to him, “if the glory of noble birth moves you, Jupiter is the father of my line; or if you admire great deeds, you will admire mine. I ask for shelter and rest.” But Atlas remembered an ancient prophecy, which Themis of Parnassus had delivered: “A time will come, Atlas, when your tree will be stripped of its gold, and a son of Jupiter will claim the glory of that spoil.”

Fearing this, Atlas had enclosed his orchards within mighty walls and entrusted them to an enormous dragon’s care, and kept all strangers from his borders. To Perseus too he said, “Be gone, lest the glory of the deeds you boast of prove far away, and Jupiter far from your aid!” He backed his threats with force and tried with his hands to drive out the lingering guest, who mingled bold words with pleas.

Outmatched in strength—for who could equal Atlas in strength?—Perseus said, “Since you hold my goodwill so cheap, accept a gift!” And, turning his own face away, he thrust out with his left hand Medusa’s grisly head. Huge as he was, Atlas became a mountain: his beard and hair turned into forests, his shoulders and arms into ridges; what had been his head became the mountain’s highest peak, his bones became stone. Then, swelling in every direction, he grew to boundless size—so you gods ordained—and all the heavens, with their countless stars, came to rest upon him.