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Medusa
In Greek mythology Medusa (Greek: Μέδουσα (Médousa), "guardian, protectress")[1] was a Gorgon, a chthonic
monster, and a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto.[2] The author Hyginus, (Fabulae, 151) interposes a generation and
gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents.[3] Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone. She was
beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon[4] until he gave it to the goddess Athena
to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device
known as the Gorgoneion.
The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were children of the ancient marine deities
Phorcys (or Phorkys) and his sister Ceto (or Keto), chthonic monsters from an archaic world. Their
genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound who places both
trinities of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain":
Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged
With snakes for hair— hated of mortal man—
While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as beings born of
monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century began to envisage her as being beautiful as
well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".[5]
In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was
originally a ravishingly beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," priestess in Athena's
temple, but when she and the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon lay together 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 onlookers to stone. In Ovid's telling, Perseus describes Medusa's punishment by
Minerva (Athena) as just and well-deserved.
[edit] Death
In most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King
Polydectes of Seriphos as a gift. With help from Athena and Hermes who supplied him with winged sandals,
Hades' cap of invisibility, a sword, and a mirrored shield, he accomplished his quest. The hero slew Medusa
by looking at her harmless reflection in the mirror instead of directly at her, to prevent being turned into
stone. When the hero severed Medusa's head from her neck, two offspring sprang forth, the winged horse
Pegasus and the golden-sworded giant Chrysaor.
Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides
in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus
object, a ritual mask misunderstood."[6]
In Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa:
"Lest for my daring Persephone the dread,
From Hades should send up an awful monster's grisly head."
Harrison's translation states "the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon."[6]
According to Ovid, in North-West Africa Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft,
and transformed him into stone.[7] In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been
formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore
during his short stay in Aethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda.
Furthermore the poisonous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770
and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood.
Perseus then flew to Seriphos where his mother was about to be forced into marriage with the king. King
Polydectes was turned into stone by the gaze of Medusa's head.
Then he gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis.
Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that the tripling of Medusa into a trio
of sisters was a secondary feature in the myth:
The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general tendency... which makes of each
woman goddess a trinity, which has given us the Horae, the Charites, the Semnai, and a host of other triple
groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three but one + two. The two unslain sisters
are mere appendages due to custom; the real Gorgon is Medusa.[6]
Task:
1. Find 5 interesting facts about Medusa sculptures. Write down these facts as a list in your sketchbook under the
title: Medusa sculptures, what I have found out:
2. Write these facts in neat legible sentences to explain what you have found out about Medusa sculptures.
3. Find someone else who has done the Medusa as a subject and share your sentences with them. Write down two
more facts that you have found out so that you have a list of seven sentences each.
4. Discuss with your partner what feeling / mood / emotion the sculptures communicate to you and write this down
in your book.
5. Copy an example of a Medusa sculpture. Show how the carving is 3D by using shading.
Good Luck
Marks awarded for:
Level 2: Basic facts, basic understanding, reasonable drawing with little shading to describe 3D form
Level 3: Good facts, good understanding, well presented in legible sentences, good drawing with some shading to
accurately describe form.
Level 4: Very good facts, very good understanding, very well presented in legible sentences, very good quality
drawing with confident shading to accurately describe 3D form.
Artist/Maker Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598 –1680)
Head of Medusa, marble.
So-called “Rondanini Medusa”. Marble, Roman copy after a 5th-century BC Greek original by Phidias, which was set
on the shield of Athena Parthenos.