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E. His deep dive into that lake for that eye; his near drowning and rescue by Medusa, disguised as a Styx-Nymph.

F. 1. His lakeshore idyll with this veiled and odorless nymph, who reveals herself to be Medusa, but won’t lift her veil. For Athena has told her that if her true lover unveils her, they will be immortalized together like Keats’s lovers on the Grecian Urn; but if anyone else does, she will be re-Gorgonized and he a fortiori petrified. She’s willing to risk it, but is he?

2. His decision that he is not, yet. He slips off, attempts to fly over the desert as in his youth, loses his way, crash-lands, loses his consciousness, awakes in a spiral temple muraled with all the foregoing scenes and ministered over, as is he, by a pretty young priestess, who becomes his lover. He believes himself dead and in heaven, learns that he’s alive and in Egypt (where he’d paused for refreshment in the 1st Cycle) and that his new hero-worshiping lover, a student of mythology, is the artist responsible for the story of his life thus far, complete to IIF2.

3. His gratefully kissing her… good-bye. He departs from the temple, returns down the Nile, and secretly enters Joppa, where he learns that Andromeda is established in the palace with her new lover.

4. His confrontation with her there, among the petrified host from IF4, their original wedding guests. Danaus’s live warriors step armed from behind the “statues”; it is a trap.

5. The second Banquet-Hall Battle, a reenactment of the first, but without Medusa’s aid. Perseus’s slaying of young Danaus, arduous general victory, and sparing of Andromeda. Their final rejection of each other.

6. His unveiling and open-eyed embrace of ambiguous Medusa, let come what may.

7. Their transfiguration (along with Andromeda, her mother Cassiopeia, her father Cepheus, the monster Cetus, the horse Pegasus, and the remarkable artist-priestess of IIF2, who will by now have added these scenes to the unwinding mural) into constellations.

G. Their “posthumous” dialogue in the sky, in which, as every night, certain questions are raised (e.g., Has Medusa been truly restored, and is Perseus her true lover? Or was his kiss a mere desperate hope, and she thus a Gorgon after all?) and at least equivocally answered; the stars set until the next nightly reenactment of their story.

3. If my story were so partitioned, and further arranged in its telling so that the First Cycle is rehearsed retrospectively in course of the Second — which itself begins in medias res, in the Egyptian temple of IIF2—then the “panel” IIF6, Perseus’s open-eyed embrace of his new Medusa, would be the climax of the climax, intimated in IE (not IE) above.

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