Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

The myth of Danae and analogous myths 47 1

leaves the drops to our imagination, but gives us a Maenad-like
Danae sitting on a stool, with bare breast and wide-flung mantle,
as she turns her face towards the sky (fig. 309)1. The last two gems
attest the all-pervading influence of such popular types as those of
^oidalses' Aphrodite and Skopas' Maenad.

Finally, a bronze coin of Argos, struck by Hadrian (fig. 311)2,
^Presents Danae seated on a throne, her head thrown back, her
reast bared, and her garment held wide in the same significant
manner.

The episode of the floating coffer found its highest expression,
^ot in art3, but in literature4. Simonides of Keos, perhaps in one of
1S threriofi, limned the scene with exquisite skill6:

When in the well-wrought chest
She felt the blowing wind and moving mere,
She cowered in tearful terror and
Round Perseus cast a loving hand:
'Child, I am sore distrest.
But thou, a baby-boy, art slumbering here
In this same comfortless bronze-bolted bark,
Stretched out 'neath starlit night and the blue dark.
The brine that passes higher than thy hair
Thou heedest not, nor dost thou even hark
The whistling wind ; but lo, thou liest there
To the crimson cloak turning thy forehead fair.
If terrors had been terrible to thee,
Thy tiny ear had listened unto me.

But now sleep babe, sleep surging sea,
Sleep all our trouble infinite.
Yet, Father Zeus, some better plight
Send; and if overbold this prayer I pray,
Forgive each wrongful word I say.'

i p

Pl" 47. jr(Wangler A"t. Gemmen i pi. 14, 2;, ii. 68 ('Wohl Danae?'), Lippold Gemmen

G. San„myfig- 3°9) P- 175.
Publishes an2' in the RSm- Mitth. 1933 xlviii. 284—288 pl. 48, 4 ( = niy fig. 310)
°n a ":" ir °Val carbuncle, on which is engraved another half-draped Danae, leaning

- pillar ------,o ^'v'^ ...... — —.....a

Nv°rk of holding out the upper part of her garment to catch the shower. Good

2 £ 300 B.C.

Ar'""- Com*'"pCat- Coins Peloponnesus p. [48 pl. 28, 11, Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner

*o! S"p,a'p HfiV* 41 Pl' L' 49> My ^ 3,1 is from a cast'

'la'li 'facta See further F- Knatz Quomodo Pcrsei fabulam artifices Graeci et

• u S*WarT^ ^?"ae 1893 PP- 8-,a

1 • S*miu'-ZA "la Da"a"" Halis Saxonum 1881 p. 10 f.
Sir, f5'n,0n-/''rt "r ^tanl'n Geschichtedergriechischen Literatur Miinchen 1929 i. 1. 516.
i9 yth °f; 37 Bergk4. 13 P>iehl, 27 Edmonds. I follow the text given by H. Weir

3 Xviii.','.s / ~- London 1900. O. Schroeder 'Die Klage der Danae' in Hermes
d.scusses the metre.