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Medusa in Ancient Greek Art

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Arthur C Clarke

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He married Callirhoe, Ocean s daughter, and by her had the monstrous Geryones, w h o had three heads each. Triplets apparently ran in the family. According to another, no doubt very confused, account, Geryones had one head and three bodies. Awakened by the noise and commotion of Medusa's death, Stheno and Euryale, the surviving Gorgon sisters, attacked Perseus.

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But he put on the cap of Hades and, becoming invisible, was able to escape. The next part of the story is not in the surviving portion of Pherekydes or in the works of some w h o copy him but is referred to in many old sources, including the Histories of Herodotus.

As usual, Apollodorus gathered the important parts into his narrative. Perseus was flying back to Seriphos on his magical sandals and was passing over Ethiopia the part o f Africa along the coast of the Red Sea south o f Egypt, not necessarily the modern country of that name; later accounts set the following events in Joppa, on the coast of present-day Israel when he saw Andromeda chained to a rock as a sacrifice to the sea monster, Ketos. Andromeda was the daughter of Kepheos, the king of Ethiopia, and Cassiepeia or Cassiopeia , the queen.

Cassiepeia had insulted Poseidon by boasting that her beauty was greater than that of the Nereids, the daughters of the sea god. In his wrath, Poseidon threatened to send a flood to devastate the city and to follow this with a visit from the sea monster. Ammon, a priest, announced that the disaster could be avoided if the princess Andromeda were chained to a rock as a sacrifice to the monster.

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This her parents reluctantly did. Perseus fell in love with Andromeda as soon as he saw her.

He promised Cepheos that he would kill the sea monster, if he could have Andromeda as his wife. Cepheos agreed, and Perseus promptly killed Ketos. One would think that the obvious way to do this would be to expose the Gorgon's head to the sea monster, since Perseus had it with him in the kibisis. In later versions of the story, that is just what he does, and the petrified monster becomes a rock in the harbor. But in older versions he kills the monster in more mundane fashion if killing a monster can ever be said to be mundane. In the oldest surviving depiction, for instance, he is shown throwing rocks at Ketos.

Now, however, a new crisis developed.

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Phineus, to w h o m Andromeda had originally been betrothed, opposed her engagement to Perseus and raised an The Myth of Perseus and Medusa 23 army against his rival. In some accounts, Cepheos and Cassiepeia support Phineus against Perseus. In Hyginus, the competing suitor is named Agenor.

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This time, Perseus did defeat his attackers by using the Gorgon's head, petrifying the lot. Perseus returned to Seriphos with Andromeda. There he found Danae and Diktys at the temple, where they had taken sanctuary against the advances o f Polydektes and his forces. Once again, Perseus used the head of Medusa against his enemies, and Polydektes and his men were turned to stone.

Acrisius fled when he learned of Perseus's return. Larissa was also the name of the acropolis at Corinth, which might be the site intended. The old king there had died, and his son, the new king Teutamides, was holding the athletic funeral games. Perseus, w h o came to attend and to take part in the games, came upon Acrisius there.

As Perseus was participating in the pentathlon, his thrown discus struck Acrisius on the foot, killing him. Perseus was shamed by the death and did not wish to rule over a city because he had killed the former ruler. He arranged to trade dominions with Megapenthes, his cousin and the ruler of Tiryns.

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And thus Perseus became ruler of the fortified city of Tiryns. An earlier son, Perses, remained with Kepheos and eventually became the eponymous founder of Persia according to Herodotus. T h e name of Perseus's daughter is interesting, because Gorgophone means "Gorgon-slayer. Perseus returned his magical gifts of cap, sandals, and kibisis to the gods, w h o returned them to the Nymphs. He gave the head o f Medusa to Athena, w h o placed it on her shield. This is the basic myth o f Perseus, Medusa, and Andromeda.

There are minor variations among many o f the versions, but this form agrees in most particulars with references to the story in other places and with depictions of the story in vase paintings, wall paintings, and sculpture. Before w e go further, I'd like to make a few observations here. Apollodorus's version is the work of a compulsive completist trying to set down all the facts he has at hand.

It is likely that this version is actually too complete. Hesiod, for example, tells the story of the birth of Chrysaor and Pegasus from Medusa's severed neck, but nothing of the rest o f the tale. Pherekydes tells the bulk of the story, but omits this monstrous birth. It is probable that Apollodorus joined the accounts together himself, creating a version that contained all the strands from past accounts but that had not previously existed as a single story. Similarly, our existing fragments of Pherekydes make no mention o f Andromeda. It could just be that we lack the portion of the story in which she appears, but Andromeda is also missing from Pherekydes's later ac- 24 The Mystery count of Perseus's return to Argos.

The side trip to rescue the chained maiden interrupts the story of Perseus and Polydektes, and it is likely that in the oldest versions such an adventure did not occur at that point in the story, or perhaps it did not even happen to this Perseus. Apollodorus's version—which, by virtue of its appearing in what we now consider the standard reference on myths, became the canonical version of the story—represents only one snapshot of time in the history of this myth.

Apollodorus's and Ovid's versions became the standards upon which later writers based their own tellings and effectively froze the myth in that form, as Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur crystallized the story of King Arthur. Nevertheless, there existed both competing earlier versions and later, noncanonical variations. In the oldest, most revered source, there is no mention of the story as we have it above.

Homer knows of Perseus as a son of Danae and Zeus but says nothing further of him or his adventures. He describes the Gorgon only as a monster of the underworld. When Odysseus speaks to the spirits of the dead, he is threatened with the prospect of meeting with the head of the Gorgon, and the mere threat frightens him. The monster does not have a body, nor does it turn anyone to stone.

No history of the frightening head is given. This variant history of the Gorgon was also repeated by Apollodorus. How did he reconcile this nonpetrifying monster of hell with the petrifying sister in the story of Perseus?

He dealt with the question in the myth of Hercules. When that hero, in the course of his famous twelve labors, went down to Hades to fetch back Cerberus, the guardian hound of the underworld, most souls fled from him. One of the few exceptions was Medusa. Hermes the helper of Hercules, as he had been of Perseus told Hercules that the Gorgon he saw in Hades was the soul of the dead Gorgon, implying that after death Medusa had lost her power of petrification. Virgil placed plural Gorgons in the underworld in his Aeneid.

The tradition seems to have drifted into obscurity after that—no medieval visions of hell feature Gorgons. But the classically minded poets of the Enlightenment brought the image to life again. Milton, drawing on Virgil, places Gorgons in hell again. The tradition also seems to have invaded the British stage, because Pope, in his Dunciad, refers disparagingly to the Gorgons represented in theatrical hells.

But after this brief revival, the tradition died out again.