Graeae

Three daughters of PHORCYS and CETO, and and Deino, though Hesiod names only the first two, 'fine- robed Enyo and saffron-robed Pemphredo' (Theogony 270-3). He calls them 'fair of cheek' and says that they were named Graeae, 'Old Women', simply because they were white-haired from birth. When they later play a part in the legend of Perseus they seem to live up to their name rather better, for here they were blind and toothless, apart from a single eye and a single tooth which they shared among themselves, passing them around as needed. Perseus wished to find out from them the whereabouts of certain nymphs, who could help him in his quest to fetch the head of the Graeae's sister, the Gorgon Medousa, but the Graeae were naturally loath to give any assistance. So Perseus stole from them their single eye and tooth, until they were forced in their helplessness to tell him what he wanted. He then returned the eye and tooth, though in Aeschylus' lost tragedy he threw the eye into Lake Tritonis in Libya. In ancient art the Graeae are depicted as sometimes young and lovely, sometimes old and ugly. Perseus' theft of the eye occurs first on vases at about 425 BC. Apollodoros 2.4.2.

JENNY MARCH( DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY)