Myths, as well as the stories recorded by Homer and Hesiod, were considered part of a lost heroic past when men and women interacted with heroes, gods, and the supernatural. While these stories sound fantastical today, to the ancient Greeks they were quasi-historical.

Such a sacrilege attracted the goddess’ wrath, and she punished Medusa by turning her hair to snakes. The Roman author Ovid describes the mortal Medusa as a beautiful maiden seduced by Poseidon in a temple of Athena. The snake-haired Medusa does not become widespread until the first century B.C. While she purposefully and successfully mimicked the wails of the Gorgons, she also unwittingly imitated their wide and dreadful features. When the goddess played the flute, however, she discarded it after seeing her reflection her face distended and became ugly as she played ( 24.97.28 ). After hearing their anguished and furious cries, Athena was inspired to invent the flute to mimic them. Pindar’s Twelfth Pythian Ode recounts how Stheno and Euryale’s angry pursuit of their sister’s killer resulted in another chapter of the Medusa myth. On his travels, he used the head to turn his enemies to stone and rescue the princess Andromeda from a sea monster ( 20.192.16 ), before giving it to Athena for her aegis ( 34.11.7 ). Not even death, however, could quell Medusa’s power, and Perseus had to keep her decapitated head in a special sack strong enough to contain it, called a kybisis. The two immortal sisters pursued Perseus with fury, but the hero escaped with his prize using Hermes’ winged boots and Hades’ helmet of invisibility. Such a violent act resulted in the birth of Medusa’s children, the winged horse Pegasos and the giant Chrysaor, who sprung from her neck. While the Gorgons slept, the hero attacked, using Athena’s polished shield to view the reflection of Medusa’s awful face and avoid her petrifying gaze while he beheaded her with a harpe, an adamantine sword. Perseus set out with the aid of the gods, who provided him with divine tools. A dishonorable king demanded that he bring him an impossible gift: the head of Medusa. The best known myth recounts her fateful encounter with the Greek hero Perseus. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, she was one of three Gorgon sisters born to Keto and Phorkys, primordial sea gods Medusa was mortal, while the others, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal. lyric poet Pindar, provide a wide-ranging and diverse picture of the fabled creature. Multiple works by ancient sources, such as Homer, the eighth-century B.C. Medusa is best known for having hair made of snakes and for her ability to turn anyone she looked at to stone, literally to petrify. A close look at her role in Greek mythology and art reveals a nuanced and complex character with multiple iterations and implications. She represents a dangerous threat meant to deter other dangerous threats, an image of evil to repel evil. The most common interpretation of Medusa suggests she is an apotropaic symbol used to protect from and ward off the negative, much like the modern evil eye. Her face, whether fierce and grotesque or feminine and composed, appears in virtually all media in varying contexts. Medusa is an instantly recognizable figure from ancient Greek art.

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