When Perseus beheaded her, Pegasus, a winged horse, and Chrysaor, a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon. Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. He received a mirrored shield from Athena, sandals with gold wings from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades's helm of invisibility. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. In most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother. In a late version of the Medusa myth, by the Roman poet Ovid ( Metamorphoses 4.794–803), Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune/ Poseidon had sex with her in Minerva/ Athena's temple, Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. In an ode written in 490 BC, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa". While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. With snakes for hair-hatred of mortal man Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, which places both trios of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain": The three Gorgon sisters-Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale-were all children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys (or "Phorkys") and his sister Ceto (or "Keto"), chthonic monsters from an archaic world. The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth as part of their religion.Īn archaic Medusa wearing the belt of the intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol, as depicted on the west pediment of the Temple of Artemis on the island of Corcyra
In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.Īccording to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, although the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto. Those who gazed into her eyes would turn to stone. In Greek mythology, Medusa ( / m ɪ ˈ dj uː z ə, - s ə/ Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. The Hesperides, Sthenno, Euryale, The Graea, Thoosa, Scylla, and Ladon Classical Greek gorgoneion featuring the head of Medusa fourth century BC
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