When exposed to view, the lock was supposed to bring on a storm, which caused the enemy to flee. Medusa had promised to keep her chastity in honor of her deity, and took this vow seriously. While her sisters were immortal gods themselves, Medusa was a mortal woman only. She and her sisters were daughters of the primordial sea gods, Ceto and Phorcys. He gave it to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack. A beautiful mortal, Medusa was the exception in the family, until she incurred the wrath of Athena, either due to her boastfulness or because of an ill-fated. Medusa was a beautiful young woman, a virgin priestess of the goddess Athena. Heracles ( Hercules) is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa’s hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena. According to another account, however, Perseus buried the head in the marketplace of Argos. It was given to Athena, who placed it in her shield. The earliest surviving identifiable depiction of Medusa in art is a bas-relief from a pithosa kind of large storage jarfrom one of the Kykladic Islands dated to the early seventh century BCE. The severed head was just as deadly and could turn anyone who looked at it into stone. So which are you We all know Medusa for the monster she was, but who was she before Perseus In this fresh retelling of the classic Greek myth, the birth of. From the blood that spurted from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus (the winged horse), her two sons by the sea god Poseidon. She was killed by Perseus, who cut off her head. She was eventually taken down by Perseus, who uses a mirror as he fights her so he can avoid her wrath. Medusa was the only one of the Gorgons who was mortal. Medusa is best known as the monstrous creature of Greek myth, maligned and hideous, with snakes for hair and the power to turn people to stone with a single look. In later periods, however, Medusa-unlike the other Gorgons-was sometimes represented as very beautiful, although still very deadly. Their faces were grotesque and round, and their tongues lolled out. In early art the Gorgons were usually represented as winged female creatures whose heads of hair were actually snakes. The later Greek poet Hesiod, who lived about 700 bc, increased the number of Gorgons to three-Stheno (the Mighty), Euryale (the Far Springer), and Medusa (the Queen)-and made them the daughters of the sea god Phorcys and of his sister-wife Ceto. Homer, the presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey who flourished in the 9th or 8th century bc, spoke of a single Gorgon-a monster of the underworld ( see Homeric legend). In Greek mythology, Medusa was the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |