![]() As the act of killing a beautiful maiden in her sleep is rather unheroic, it is not clear whether those vases are meant to elicit sympathy for Medusa's fate, or to mock the traditional hero. The earliest of those depictions comes courtesy of Polygnotus, who drew Medusa as a comely woman sleeping peacefully as Perseus beheads her. In classical Greek art, the depiction of Medusa shifted from hideous beast to an attractive young woman, both aggressor and victim, a tragic figure in her death. Although no earlier versions mention this, ancient depictions of Medusa as a beautiful maiden instead of a horrid monster predate Ovid. In a late version of the Medusa myth, by the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Poseidon) mated with her in Minerva's temple (Minerva being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena), Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. In an ode written in 490 BC, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa". While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. With snakes for hair-hatred of mortal man ![]() Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, which places both trios of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain": The three Gorgons-Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale-were described by Hesiod and Apollodorus as offspring of the sea-god Phorcys and his sister Ceto according to Hyginus, however, their parents were "Gorgon" and Ceto. Mythology An archaic Medusa wearing the belt of the intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol, as depicted on the west pediment of the Temple of Artemis on the island of Corcyra The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth as part of their religion. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.Īccording to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto of the three, only Medusa was mortal. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was turned to stone. In Greek mythology, Medusa ( / m ɪ ˈ dj uː z ə, - s ə/ Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα, romanized: Médousa, lit.'guardian, protectress'), also called Gorgo ( Ancient Greek: Γοργώ) or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. The Hesperides, Sthenno, Euryale, The Graeae, Thoosa, Scylla, and Ladon Classical Greek gorgoneion featuring the head of Medusa fourth century BC
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