No, he was sent to kill her by King Polydectes of Seriphos. Th. So maybe its a good time to say what Sigmund Freud in his Das Medusenhaupt (Medusas Head) thought of her. o /; Ancient Greek: ) was, in Greek mythology, one of the mortal lovers of Zeus.An Argive princess, she was an ancestor of many kings and heroes, such as Perseus, Cadmus, Heracles, Minos, Lynceus, Cepheus, and Danaus.The astronomer Simon Marius named a moon of Jupiter after Io in 1614.. Because her brother was Phoroneus, Io is also On his way home, Perseus came upon Andromeda, a beautiful woman embedded into a rock on the shore. Hesiod used her in Theogony. She was usually represented as a winged female creature having a head of hair consisting of snakes; unlike the Gorgons, she was sometimes represented as very beautiful. WebDetermined to have a work from his hand, the countess negotiated a contract, signed by Canova on April 14, 1804, for a version of the artists marble Perseus with the Head of Medusa (17971801). Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In the Iliad, Athena is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Perseus had no personal grudge against Medusa. Whether it is Pausanius or Apollodorus you read, the story is remarkably the same. Medusa wandered Africa for some time. A Summary and Analysis of the Myth of Perseus and the Gorgon Danaes father, Acrisius, Athena immediately added the head to her shield called Aegis. Separated from her sisters and unable to find love, Medusa wandered through the African desert. WebAcrisius Grandfather of Perseus. There are three different ways you can cite this article. Perseus made a deal if he dealt with the monster, Andromeda would become his wife. It was said that Sthenmo and Euryale tried to kill Perseus but could not find him due to the special helmet he wore. WebIn one version of the Medusa story, she was a gorgeous young woman who agreed to become one of Athenas priestesses. London: Nutt, 189496. When Ovid wrote her story in Metamopheses, he claimed that she was born beautiful before becoming a snake-haired creature and retained her looks over the years. Medusa: In the Mirror of Time. Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.21.6, 5.12.2. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name and protection. Priestesses took a vow of chastity and devoted their lives to her. Here are the five most famous paintings depicting Medusa. She turned Medusa into an ugly creature by making her eyes bloodshot and raging and her face haglike. His entire body, including his head and hair, became part of a mountain range. Rhianna chose to dress as the Greek mythological figure when she dressed like her on the cover of GQ in 2013. Alcmenes husband, the hero Amphitryon, was from an important family, too, also tracing his lineage to Perseus through his father, Alcaeus. Medusa followed the goddess for many years before she met and fell in love with Poseidon. The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao came out the same year and told the traditional story of Medusa. She and her sisters were daughters of the primordial sea gods, Ceto and Phorcys. The Medusa head is part of fashion designer Gianni Versaces symbol. London: Reaktion Books, 2013. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Medusas other child was Pegasus, the beautiful winged horse. The best-known story of Perseus and Dionysus comes from Nonnus, who wrote an entire biography of the bacchic god. Fans of Percy Jackson & the Olympians will find that she pops up in both the original book and the film based on the book. The oracles of Zeus told the King that, by sacrificing Andromeda, the monster would be appeased and go once more. Themis was a Titaness (the female version of Titan), which was a generation of gods that came before the Olympians. Both Herodotus and Pausanias wrote passages about what they could discover about this king, including his possible connections in Egypt and Persia. In one version of the Medusa story, she was a gorgeous young woman who agreed to become one of Athenas priestesses. Some ancient Greek art would depict all three gorgons as having serpentine hair, tusks like pigs, and big round heads. Athenas moral and military superiority to Ares derives in part from the fact that she represents the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represents mere blood lust. The Helmet of Hades was also used by Athene in the battle of Troy and Hermes when he fought Hippolytus, the giant. She wanted to show the Gorgons head in a different way. The Timeless Myth of Medusa, a Rape Victim Turned Into a Monster Priestesses took a vow of chastity and devoted their lives to her. It is bordered by Taurus and Ares to the south, Andromeda to the west, Cassiopeia to the north, and Auriga to the east. Ovids Metamorphoses tells the story of how Perseus, traveling back from killing the Gorgon, came across the beautiful Ethiopian, Andromeda, and saved her from a vicious sea monster (Cetus). But Perseus is, without a doubt, the son of the king of the gods, Zeus. Pindar wrote in 490 BC that she had fair cheeks. Perseus Digital Library She personified, or represented, fairness, the laws of the gods, the laws of human nature, the laws made by man and customs (or tradition). story behind the Medusa statue that Pegasus was eventually tamed by the hero Bellerophon.[18]. In some stories, it was only then that he went and killed Proteus, but the chronology is different throughout history. The French military created a special belt during World War I that had her face on it. Representing the intellectual and civilized side of war, she is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal and personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. In 1782, Leonardo da Vincis biographer Luigi Lanzi discovered a depiction of Medusas head which he erroneously attributed to Leonardo, based on a description of Leonardos painting done by Giorgio Vasari. She was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. Medusa was often depicted as a terrifying winged female with snakes instead of hair. From then on she roamed, shamed, shunned and loathed by everyone. Link will appear as Themis Goddess of Order and Justice: https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net - Greek Gods & Goddesses, October 21, 2019, Greek Gods and Goddesses 2010 - 2023 | About | Contact | Sitemap | Privacy, Themis Goddess of Order and Justice: https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net, Goddess of divine order, law, natural law and custom, oracles. Pausanias, Description of Greece: A second-century CE travelogue; like Strabos Geography, an important source for local myths and customs. Medusa was one of the three Gorgons, daughters of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto. Medusa was the only one of the three who was not immortal. In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was originally a ravishingly beautiful maiden, the jealous aspiration of many suitors, but because Poseidon had raped her in Athenas temple, the enraged Athena transformed Medusas beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone. Though Athena helped Perseus defect the woman, she knew the powers that her former head held. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon. Ogden, Daniel. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. According to author Jane Ellen Harrison, Medusas power came from her head and anyone who carried it gained that power. WebPerseus was one of the oldest out of all of the Greek mythological heroes. Many of the women only knew her as a monster and not what she looked like before. Her long, beautiful hair became a head of snakes. She lost all of her looks and found snakes growing in her hair. Though she has a different name, she has the power to turn people to stone when they look into her eyes. His bones became stones. The Legend of Perseus. Her superiority also derives in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homers predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. While her sisters were immortal gods themselves, Medusa was a mortal woman only. She believes that Medusa was originally a beautiful woman with power and that men adapted her story to turn her into a monster because they did not appreciate powerful women. Kapach, Avi. Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 4.828ff; Eustathius on Homers Odyssey 12.85; scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 4.828; scholia on Platos Republic 9, 588c. Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus with the head of Medusa, 1545-1554, Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Italy. In this myth, the vipers emerged from the droplets of Medusas blood as Perseus flew over the Sahara with the Gorgons severed head. Perseus is a godly Greek hero (he was a son of Zeus) whose ancient name just might have modern possibilities along with other so-old-they're-new-again names such as Atticus and Orion. Perseus was eventually killed by Megapenthes, son of Proetus. March 08, 2023. The Death of Medusa I by Edward Burne-Jones (1882). He received a mirrored shield from Athena, gold, winged sandals from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus, and Hades helm of invisibility. Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Perseus was gone before they ever understood what had happened. Homer: Medusa is not named in the eighth-century BCE epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, but whenever Athena marches into battle, she is said to carry the head of the Gorgon on her armor. The head of Medusa is used as the logo of the Italian fashion company Versace.
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