Danae
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Danae. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
dan'a-e, in Greek mythology, daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. Acrisius had been warned by an oracle that his daughter's child would cause his death. To avoid the fulfillment of this prophecy he decided to prevent his daughter's marriage, and therefore shut her up in a brazen tower built for this express purpose. But Zeus was more powerful than Acrisius. He had seen and admired the beautiful Danae. Now he changed himself into a shower of gold, and in this form shone into the tower and wooed the captive. Perseus, destined to become the hero of many famous adventures, was the son of Zeus and Danae. Acrisius put child and mother into a chest, and sent the chest floating on the sea. It was wafted to the shores of the island of Seriphus, where it became entangled in a fisherman's net. The fisherman opened the chest, took Danae and the infant to his own home, and there Perseus grew to manhood. Danae has been a favorite subject with artists. She is usually pictured in her tower with the golden shower falling about her. In a celebrated painting by Corregio, Cupid holds a fold of drapery across Danae's knees to catch the golden shower. See Perseus
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
Daughter of Acrisius , king of Argos, and Eurydice. Jupiter was enamored of her, and they had a son, with whom Danae was exposed in a boat on the sea by her father. The winds carried them to the island of Seriphus, where she was saved by some fishermen, and carried to Polydectes , king of the place, whose brother, named Dictys, educated the child, who was called Perseus , and kindly treated the mother.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The story Aiton's told in 1910 — the brazen tower, the shower of gold, the chest cast adrift and caught in a fisherman's net at Seriphus — is still the story told today, and no discovery has altered it. What has moved is chiefly the handling: the 1900 volume's Roman names (Jupiter for Zeus) have largely dropped out of modern retellings in favour of the Greek, and the golden shower, once decorously described, is now routinely read by scholars as a figure for purchased consent. The paintings Aiton's pointed to have had their own history: Rembrandt's Danaë in the Hermitage was slashed and doused with acid by a visitor in 1985 and took some twelve years of restoration before it returned to view.
Written for this edition, 2026.