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Literary References to Andromeda

Andromeda’s story is featured in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and it became the subject of lost tragedies by the Greek playwrights Sophocles and Euripides.

The French playwright, Corneille, wrote his tragedy Andromède in 1650, and it was revived as an opera in 1682, with the addition of 45 minutes of music by Charpentier.

In his poem, ‘On the Sonnet’ (1848), John Keats likened the poetic constrictions of the sonnet form to Andromeda’s imprisonment on the cliffs: ‘like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet / Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness’

This picture by Gustave Doré (1832-1833) shows Andromeda chained to a rock as the sea monster prepares to attack.

Andromeda

Andromeda in peril

Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, the king and queen of Ethiopia. Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter, or herself (accounts differ), was more beautiful than the sea-nymphs, the Nereids, thereby angering the god of the sea, Poseidon (Neptune), who sent a flood and a sea-monster to plague Ethiopia.

When Cepheus consulted the Oracle, he was told that he could save his country only by exposing Andromeda on the cliffs, as prey for the monster. The Ethiopians forced their king to comply, and Andromeda was chained to a rock to await her fate.

Fortunately, Perseus, on his return from slaying the gorgon, Medusa, fell in love with the defenceless Andromeda. Perseus promised Cepheus to save his daughter and his country from the sea-monster in return for Andromeda’s hand in marriage (although she had already been promised to another man, Phineus). Andromeda married Perseus who became king of Tiryns and Mycenae.

The constellation Andromeda

After her death, Athena placed the image of Andromeda amongst the stars of the northern sky as a reward for keeping her parents’ promise. The constellation is supposed to resemble a chained woman with her arms outstretched and is in the northern sky near Perseus and Cassiopeia.