MEDUSA

GREEK MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES

Offspring : Pegasus

In Greek mythology Medusa (Greek: Μέδουσα), meaning "guardian, protectress" was a Gorgon, a chthonic female monster, and a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. Gazing directly upon her would turn men to stone. She was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield.


Medusa in Classical Mythology :

The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys and his sister Cetus, (the spelling vary based on accounts), chthonic monsters from an ancient world. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters names the Graeae. Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound describes them thusly: “Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged; With snakes for hair— hated of mortal man—“ While ancient Greek vase-painters and carvers envisioned Medusa and her Gorgon sisters as beings born monstrous, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century started to picture her as being beautiful as well as horrific.

However, in a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," priestess in Athena's temple, but when she was raped by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the enraged Athena transformed Medusa's beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn men to stone. In Ovid's telling, Perseus describes Medusa's punishment by Athena as just and well-deserved. It comes full circle, in retrospect that Poseidon, a man, defiled her, and Perseus a man ultimately killed her.