The only mortal one of three snake-haired sisters
Stheno and Euryale could not be killed; she could, which is why she is the one in the story
Myth · Greek
Medusa
Greek mythology — Gorgon
The one mortal Gorgon, a monster with snakes for hair whose look turned living things to stone. Beheaded by Perseus, who used a polished shield to avoid her gaze, she went on being useful after death: her head on Athena's aegis petrified enemies, and from her neck sprang the winged horse Pegasus. Ovid added the twist that she had once been beautiful and was punished for a rape committed against her.
How to spot them
- ▸A face ringed with living snakes, staring straight out at the viewer
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Stheno and Euryale', 'the only mortal one', 'the gorgoneion', 'a mirrored shield'
- ▸Her severed head becomes a weapon and then a badge on a breastplate
- ▸Daughter of the sea-deities Phorcys and Ceto
Stories & episodes
Her direct gaze turned anyone who met it into stone
The reason heroes and temples alike used her face to ward off harm
Beheaded by a hero watching her reflection in a polished shield
Perseus, wearing winged sandals and the cap of invisibility
A winged horse and a golden-sworded giant sprang from her severed neck
Pegasus and Chrysaor, fathered on her by Poseidon
Her head ended up fixed to Athena's breastplate
The gorgoneion on the aegis, copied onto shields, coins and temple pediments
In Ovid's version she was a beautiful priestess punished for what was done to her
Raped by Neptune in Minerva's temple, and given snakes for hair by the goddess
Blood from her left side was poison; from her right, it raised the dead
Athena gave both to Asclepius, according to Apollodorus
Quick-fire facts
- •Her sisters were Stheno and Euryale; their parents were the sea-gods Phorcys and Ceto
- •The gorgoneion, her face, was an apotropaic charm on shields, doorways, ovens and armour
- •Ovid's Metamorphoses 4 is the source of the story that she was once beautiful
- •Cellini's bronze Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1554) stands in Florence's Loggia dei Lanzi
- •Caravaggio painted her on a ceremonial shield, now in the Uffizi
- •Géricault's Raft of the Medusa is named for the French frigate, itself named for her
- •The free-swimming stage of a jellyfish is called a medusa, after her hair
- •Versace uses her head as its logo
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Aaron J. Atsma, the Theoi Project — The Gorgons
- Ovid — Metamorphoses Book 4: the beheading, the birth of Pegasus and the origin of the snakes