Greetings fans of Greek and Roman mythology! After having recently written about the Olympians Zeus, Hera, and Demeter, I would now like to take a break from the Olympian gods and move on to Medusa. Medusa, who lived in the Land of the Hyperboreans with her immortal sisters Stheno and Euryale, was the only mortal Gorgon. A Gorgon was variously pictured as either a hideous or beautiful woman who had venemous, writhing serpents for hair, possibly the lower body of a reptile, and claws or hands made of bronze; her gaze would turn people to stone (but only if those undergoing petrifaction had gazed upon her as well).
Even though Stheno and Euryale could not die, Medusa could; in fact, she was eventually decapitated by the hero Perseus, the son of Zeus and Danae. More of Perseus in a later post. She was the mother of both Pegasus, the winged horse (there was a second winged horse in mythology as well, named Arion, whose color was black vs. the white of Pegasus, and who was owned by the hero Adrastus; for a time, Bellerophon controlled Pegasus by means of the golden bridle of Athena), and Chrysaor, the golden giant; but of her children were born from her neck when it was severed by Perseus's extremely sharp sword that he had received as a present from the gods.
Medusa was once a very beautiful woman with long, flowing tresses that shone like gold in the sun. One day, however, she made the mistake of kissing Poseidon in the temple of Athena; Athena didn't like that sort of thing going on in her temple, so in her rage she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon, the worst sort of punishment for a woman with such beautiful hair: not only would her hair now be unruly and not able to be combed, but she would always have a bad hair day!
The name "Medusa" means "ruling female wisdom." A "Medusa" was once worshiped by the Amazons as a serpent goddess, some time before the legend of the Greek Medusa began. Her sisters' names meant the following: Stheno (forceful) and Euryale (far-roaming). Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa were all the daughters of the marine deities Phorcys and Ceto.
**Mythology Book Corner**: My recommendation this post is Book IV in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series, entitled The Battle of the Labyrinth. The Minotaur, another horrible monster like Medusa, was half-man, half-bull; he, of course, lived within the confines of the labyrinth in Greek mythology, which was designed by Daedalus. Watch out for a future post just on the Minotaur!!
Please stay tuned for my next blog post which will discuss the god Poseidon.
I'd like to hear about Arion and Adrastus. Those names are new to me.
ReplyDelete-Ben Wade
Unfortunately there's not a lot about them. Arion was the child of Poseidon. You could check out The Greek Myths by Robert Graves, which might be helpful.
ReplyDelete