Aries as the male tendency to fight for a cause, perhaps rarely realizing the cause may just as well be an effort to liberate something within as trying to fight for a worldly prize.
The picture shows Perseus as he frees Andromeda from the cliff which she is tied to, in order to be sacrificed to a hideous monster. First he frees the maiden, then he fights the monster coming from the sea. This is only one of the hero's adventures, he has already cut off the Medusa head and later he will be called upon to save also his mother.
Perseus is a young man who is called upon to acquire the head of the horrible Medusa to present to his step-father. On his quest he meets Athena and Hermes with whose aid he is furnished with winged shoes, the helmet of Hades, a sword and finally a satchel.
By using these weapons he manages to conquer the Medusa; he sees in the shield that she sleeps and so he can cut her head off with the sword and put it in the satchel. This act makes the winged horse Pegasus appear so he can use it to get away from the scene.
On his way home he sees the beautiful Andromeda tied to the rock, lowers the Pegasus and finds out the story that she has to be sacrificed to a monster in order to save her people. As he instantly has fallen in love with the girl, he promises her parents to save her only he is allowed to marry her. And after a terrible fight with the monster that appears from the sea, he can take the girl and continue on his way home.
It is often said that Aries is the "child" in the Zodiac, that he is focussed on his ego and on getting his will in the world. But often he is a fighter and seeks to put his effort to a worthy cause. Looked at in a symbolical way, those things we encounter in the world have some correspondence on the inner level, it would point at the effort of defending the right of something within, some value or side of the personality that cannot come out by itself, that needs the help of this fighter to make the way.
It seems that sometimes these inner values, whether we're a man or a woman, can be that which is weak and powerless inside, that which cannot come to its right by itself. It could be the feminine values which too long have had to live in the shadow, or it could mean having to fight a dominant father who is still influencing our life, or it could simply mean collective ideas which are limiting to our way of expression, but which never have had the means or personal power to liberate ourselves from.
Those with Aries strong in their charts can sometimes be egoistic and reckless, but more often than not it comes out of a deep need to find one's true challenge, one's personal call to quest.
