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In Greek mythology, Medusa (Greek: Μέδουσα, "guardian, protectress"^[1]) was a monstrous chthonic female character; gazing upon her could turn onlookers to stone. She was beheaded by the human hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon^[2] until giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity and today, the image of the head of Medusa finds expression in the apotrope known as the Gorgoneion.

Contents 1 Medusa in classical mythology 2 Modern interpretations 2.1 Psychoanalysis 2.2 Feminism 3 Medusa in art 4 Notes 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Medusa in classical mythology

Topics in Greek mythology
Gods Primordial gods and Titans Zeus and the Olympians Pan and the nymphs Apollo and Dionysus Sea-gods and Earth-gods
Heroes Heracles and his Labors Achilles and the Trojan War Odysseus and the Odyssey Jason and the Argonauts Perseus and Medusa/Gorgon Oedipus and Thebes Theseus and the Minotaur Triptolemus and the Eleusinian Mysteries
Related Satyrs, centaurs and dragons Religion in Ancient Greece

The three gorgon sisters — Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale — were children of Phorcys and Ceto, or sometimes, Typhon and Echidna, in each case chthonic monsters from an archaic world. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Unbound, 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 a being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BCE Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".^[3] In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a beautiful nymph, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," but when she was raped by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the goddess transformed her beautiful hair to serpents and she made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn a man to stone.

In some versions, while Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon, she was beheaded in her sleep by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus. 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 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 giant Chrysaor who later became the hero wielding the golden sword.

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." (Harrison 1922:187). 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 grizzly head"

Harrison's translation states "the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon (Harrison 1922: 187, note 3).

According to Ovid, in North-West Africa Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed him into stone. 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. 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 his mother's island where she was about to be forced into marriage with the king. He cried out "Mother, shield your eyes", and everyone but his mother 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 say^[who?] the goddess gave Medusa's magical blood to the physician Asclepius, some of which was a deadly poison and the other had the power to raise the dead.

[edit] Modern interpretations

[edit] Psychoanalysis

In 1940, Sigmund Freud's Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head) was published posthumously. This article lay the framework for his significant contribution to a body of criticism surrounding the monster. Medusa is presented as “the supreme talisman who provides the image of castration -- associated in the child's mind with the discovery of maternal sexuality -- and its denial. The snakes are multiple phalluses and petrifaction represents the comforting erection.”^[4][5] Psychoanalysts continue archetypal literary criticism to the present day. In 2002's The Rape of Medusa in the Temple of Athena: Aspects of Triangulation in the Girl by Dr. Beth Seeley, analyzes Medusa's punishment for the ‘crime’ of having been raped in Athena's temple as an outcome of the goddess' unresolved conflicts with her father, Zeus.^[6]

[edit] Feminism

In the 20th Century, feminists have reassessed Medusa's appearances in literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a logo by fashion company Versace.^[7][8][9] The attack on Medusa is discussed as a potential example of violence against women or rape.

The name "Medusa" itself is often used in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the gorgon's abilities or connote malevolence; despite her origins as a beauty, the name in common usage "came to mean monster."^[10] The book Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne Devane notes that "When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind ... In one interview after another we were told that Medusa is 'the most horrific woman in the world' ... [though] none of the women we interviewed could remember the details of the myth."^[11]

[edit] Medusa in art

Main article: Cultural depictions of Medusa and gorgons

From ancient times, the Medusa was immortalized in numerous works of art, including:

• Medusa on the breastplate of Alexander the Great, as depicted in the Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii's House of the Faun (c. 200 BC)
• The "Rondanini Medusa", a Roman copy of the Gorgoneion on the aegis of Athena
• Medusa (oil on canvas) by Leonardo da Vinci
• Perseus with the Head of Medusa (bronze sculpture) by Benvenuto Cellini (1554)
• Medusa (oil on canvas) by Caravaggio (1597).
• Tête de Méduse, by Peter Paul Rubens (1618)
• Perseus with the Head of Medusa (marble sculpture) by Antonio Canova (1801)
• Medusa (oil on canvas) by Arnold Böcklin (c. 1878)
• Perseus (bronze sculpture) by Salvador Dalí

Accompanied by a revival of the legend by Thomas Bulfinch's Mythology, "Medusa had become a common theme in art" by the nineteenth century. Edward Burne-Jones' Perseus Cycle of paintings and a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley gave way to the twentieth century works of Paul Klee, John Singer Sargent, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin's bronze sculpture The Gates of Hell.^[12]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Jane Ellen Harrison, (1903) 3rd ed. 1922. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,: "The Ker as Gorgon"

[edit] See also

• Apotropaic symbols
• Caput medusa

[edit] External links

• Theoi Project, Medousa & the Gorgones References to Medusa and her sisters in classical literature and art
• "Medusa in Myth and Literary History" - English.uiuc.edu
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Ancient coins depicting Medusa