DANAE, in Greek legend, is known only in connection with her son Perseus (Iliad, xiv. 319), and in particular from the circumstances of his birth. Her father Acrisius, king of Argos, having been warned by an oracle that his daughter would bear a son who would put him to death and rule in his stead, sought to prevent this by confiping Danae in an underground chamber lined with bronze like the underground treasuries still visible at Mycenae. But Zeus descended to her in a shower of gold, and she gave birth to Perseus, upon which Acrisius placed her and her infant in a wooden box and consigned them to the sea. After long floating about they were picked up by Dictys, a fisherman who lived with his brother Polydectes on the small island of Seriphus. There she remained till her son had grown up and returned from his expedition of cutting off Medusa’s head, when, finding his mother persecuted by Polydectes, Perseus first turned her tormentor and those with him into stone by exhibiting Medusa’s head, and then set out with her for Argos. From this point she has no more part in the Greek legend. In Latin legend she goes to Italy and marries Pilumnus or Picumnus. It has been pointed out that Perseus was a solar hero, and his birth in the dark chamber has been compared with the birth of Apollo from Leto, a goddess of the darkness of night. The wooden box in which mother and son floated safely is also compared with the boat of Helios, and the golden rain of Zeus may be the beams of sunlight.