Many elements of the myth suggest, through its basic ambiguity, the tragic nature of Medusa. When Perseus beheaded Medusa, Medusa and Poseidon´s sons, Pegasus (a winged horse) and Chrysaor (a golden sword-wielding giant), sprang from her body.Īccording to other accounts, either Perseus or Athena used the head to turn Atlas into stone, transforming him into the Atlas Mountains that held up both heaven and earth. Perseus could safely cut off Medusa’s head without turning to stone, by looking only at her reflection in the shield.ĭuring that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon. Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, so Perseus was able to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. Thus, he received a mirrored shield from Athena, gold, winged sandals from Hermes(the messenger of the Gods), a sword from Hephaestusand Hades´helm of invisibility. Perseus had been sent to fetch Medusa´s head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry his mother. He would later on become the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Dynasty of Danaans The goddess of Wisdom was supposed to have punished Medusa by transforming her face, which therefore made Medusa an innocent victim.Īs to Perseus, he was the son of the mortal Danae (the daughter of the King of Argos) and Zeus, the Ruler of Gods. In most versions of the story, Medusa was killed by Perseus.Īccording to Ovid (“Metamorphoses”, book IV), the reason for the dispute between Athena and Medusa lay in Poseidon‘s rape of Medusa inside the temple of the virgin goddess. BC found in Palencia, in the year 1869 and currently at the National archaeological Museum of Madrid. In Homer´s “Odyssey”, the Gorgon is a monster of the underworld into which the earliest Greek deities were cast. Homer speaks only of one Gorgon, whose head is represented in “The Iliad”as fixed in the centre of the aegis (meaning a mirrored shield) of Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, and whose counterpart was a device on the shield of Agamemnon. Hesiod in his “Theogony” imagines the Gorgons as three sea daemons and makes them the daughters of two sea deities. The name “Gorgon” is Greek, being derived from “gorgos” and translating as “terrible” or “dreadful”. It was said that their appearance would turn anyone who laid eyes upon it to stone. Although the first two were immortal, Medusa was not, and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus. Their names were Stheno (“forceful”), Euryale (“far-roaming”), and the most famous of them, Medusa (“ruler”). In Greek Mythology, the Gorgons were three monsters, daughters of Echidna and Typhon. Perseus and Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, (1554).
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