gilded creature

[944] So too endured Danae in her beauty to change [945] the light of the sky for brass-bound walls, and in that chamber, both burial and bridal, she was held in strict confinement. And yet was she of esteemed lineage, my daughter, [950] and guarded a deposit of the seed of Zeus that had fallen in a golden rain. But dreadful is the mysterious power of fate--there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by towered city, or dark, sea-beaten ships.