Perseus

(pür'se-ūs.) (Myth.) The son of Jupiter and Danaë, who was (say the legends) preserved, when he was with his mother thrown into the sea by her father. He killed Medusa, by the help of the gods, and saved Andromeda, who became his wife, and at last fulfilled the oracle, by accidentally killing his grandfather Acrisius with a quoit.- (Ast.) A constellation of the N. hemisphere, bet. Andromeda on the W., and Auriga on the E., and with 46° N. as its mean declination. It contains, besides the Head of Medusa, two stars of the second magnitude. [s. 699]