Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Unable to force Danaë while Perseus stood grown beside her, Polydectes summoned his friends—including Perseus—on the pretext of gathering contributions for a wedding gift to Hippodamia daughter of Oenomaus, as if he himself were a suitor. Perseus, young and boastful, declared that he would not refuse even the Gorgon’s head. Polydectes seized the opening: he required horses from the others, and from Perseus, who had none, he demanded the head of the Gorgon. Under the guidance of Hermes and Athena, Perseus set out on that impossible errand. Classical narrative places the concrete gifts in sequence after the visit to the Graeae (next entry): from the nymphs he received winged sandals, the kibisis (a wallet or pouch, so named in folk etymology because dress and food are laid in it), and the cap of Hades, which made the wearer invisible to others while he himself saw whom he would; from Hermes he received an adamantine sickle (*harpe*). Apollodorus, citing also Pindar and Hesiod’s *Shield*, keeps the kibisis as a fixed attribute of the flying hero who carries Medusa’s head. This entry isolates the political trap on Seriphos and the divine commissioning of the quest—the gods who guide and the gear that will make the beheading possible—before the separate episodes of the Graeae and the Gorgons.