Medusa

Medusa was one of the three Gorgons, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, sisters of the Graeae and of the dragon Ladon – a family of dreadful and fearsome beasts. Medusa alone of the Gorgons was mortal, and in Ovid’s telling she had been a beautiful woman until Athena changed her hair into snakes after Poseidon violated her in the goddess’ temple. She was killed by Perseus, who afterward used her still potent head as a weapon, before giving it to Athena (Hesiod, Theogony 270–283; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.794–803; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2–3).

Who Was Medusa in Greek Mythology?

Medusa was a Gorgon in Greek mythology: a snake-haired monster whose gaze turned anyone who looked at her into stone. She was the only mortal of the three Gorgon sisters, which is why she could be killed, and her death at the hands of the hero Perseus is one of the most famous episodes in Greek myth (Hesiod, Theogony 276–283; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2).

• Parents: the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto; sisters: the immortal Gorgons Stheno and Euryale (Hesiod, Theogony 270–277)
• In Ovid’s version, born beautiful and changed into a monster by Athena after Poseidon violated her in the goddess’ temple (Metamorphoses 4.794–803); in Hesiod she is simply a Gorgon, and Poseidon lies with her in a meadow
• Killed by Perseus, who cut off her head while looking only at her image in a bronze shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2)
• Mother, by Poseidon, of Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus, who sprang out when her head was cut off (Hesiod, Theogony 280–281)

What Does the Name Medusa Mean?

The name Medusa, in Greek Medousa, is generally taken to mean “guardian” or “protectress,” from the Ancient Greek verb medein, “to guard” or “to rule over.” Her severed head was set on Athena’s shield, and the Gorgon’s head on the aegis is described in Homer as a terrible and fearful thing (Iliad 5.738–742).

• The same root appears in other Greek names, including Medea, Medon, and Diomedes
• Athena set the head in the middle of her shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3); the Gorgon’s head as an emblem is known in Greek as the gorgoneion
• The Greeks put the Gorgon’s head on shields, as on the shield of Agamemnon (Homer, Iliad 11.32–37), and Pausanias saw a gilded head of Medusa on the south wall of the Athenian Acropolis (Pausanias 1.21.3)

What Was Medusa’s Real Name?

Medusa’s name was simply Medusa – in Greek, Medousa (Μέδουσα). No ancient source gives her a different name before her transformation, and the idea that she was cursed into a new identity is a modern invention, not part of the Greek myth.

• The Latin form Medusa, used across the Roman world, is a transliteration of the Greek Medousa
• Homer speaks only of “the Gorgon” (Gorgō), the name of her kind rather than a personal name (Iliad 11.36; Odyssey 11.634)
• Other women in Greek myth also bear the name Medusa: a daughter of Sthenelus and Nicippe and sister of Eurystheus (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.5), and a daughter of Priam (Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5)

Was Medusa a Goddess or a Monster?

Medusa was not a goddess – she was a monster of divine descent, and the only mortal member of a divine family. Her parents Phorcys and Ceto were sea deities and her sisters were immortal, but Medusa herself could die (Hesiod, Theogony 276–278).

• Hesiod names her together with the Graeae and the Gorgons as children of Phorcys and Ceto, among the monstrous offspring of the sea (Theogony 270–277)
• Her severed head, not Medusa herself, ended up on Athena’s shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3)
• Her mortality is the entire reason the quest of Perseus was possible at all (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2)

Was Medusa Real?

Medusa was not a real person: she is a mythological figure, and there is no historical or archaeological evidence that she existed. What survives is her image on Greek and Roman objects, and a series of ancient writers who told her story differently.

• Pausanias gives a rationalised account in which Medusa was a queen who ruled the people around Lake Tritonis in Libya after her father Phorcus died, and who was killed by night when she faced Perseus in battle; the Argives showed a mound of earth in their market-place where her head was said to lie (Pausanias 2.21.5)
• He also gives a second account, that of Procles of Carthage, who held that she was a wild woman from the Libyan desert (Pausanias 2.21.6)
• Her fame in modern retellings rests largely on Ovid’s Roman version, the only ancient source for the temple scene (Metamorphoses 4.794–803)

The Story of Medusa: Summary

The story of Medusa is the story of a Gorgon who was hunted down and beheaded by a hero; in Ovid’s version, she was first a beautiful woman who was transformed into a monster. It runs in these stages:

• Medusa is born to the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto, the only mortal among the three Gorgon sisters (Hesiod, Theogony 270–277)
• In Ovid’s version she is famed for her beauty, above all for her hair (Metamorphoses 4.794–797)
• Poseidon takes her in a temple of Athena, and Athena punishes Medusa by turning her hair into snakes (Metamorphoses 4.798–803)
• King Polydectes sends Perseus to fetch her head; guided by Athena and Hermes, Perseus beheads her as she sleeps (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.1–2)
• Chrysaor and Pegasus spring from her, and her head becomes a weapon and then a protective emblem on Athena’s shield (Hesiod, Theogony 280–283; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3)

Medusa’s Backstory: Before the Snakes

In Ovid’s version, before the snakes, Medusa was a famous beauty, the object of many suitors’ hopes, and her hair was her most admired feature. This makes Athena’s punishment a deliberate reversal of what she was known for (Metamorphoses 4.794–797).

• Ovid has Perseus report that her beauty was famous and that no part of her was more admired than her hair (Metamorphoses 4.794–797)
• She was mortal in a family of monsters and immortals, which already set her apart from Stheno and Euryale (Hesiod, Theogony 277)
• An older tradition, found in Hesiod, knows her only as a Gorgon, a mortal sister of two undying Gorgons, and says nothing of earlier beauty or of a temple (Theogony 274–279)

Why Did Athena Curse Medusa?

In Ovid’s telling Athena cursed Medusa because Poseidon violated her inside a temple of Athena: the goddess turned away and covered her chaste face with her aegis, and so that the act should not go unpunished, she changed the Gorgon’s hair into snakes (Metamorphoses 4.798–801). In another version, mentioned by Apollodorus, Medusa was beheaded for Athena’s sake because she wished to rival the goddess even in beauty (Library 2.4.3).

• In Ovid, Athena punished Medusa rather than Poseidon
• The curse was targeted: her admired hair became hideous snakes (Metamorphoses 4.801)
• Ovid adds that the snakes remain on the aegis that the goddess wears on her breast to terrify her enemies (Metamorphoses 4.802–803)
• Athena stayed involved to the end: she guided Perseus’s hand and later wore the head on her shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2–3)

Did Poseidon Love Medusa?

Ancient sources describe desire rather than love. Hesiod says only that Poseidon of the dark-blue hair lay with Medusa in a soft meadow among spring flowers (Theogony 278–279), while Ovid’s Roman version places the encounter in Athena’s temple and says that the sea god “violated” her (vitiasse) (Metamorphoses 4.798).

• Hesiod’s brief account mentions no temple and does not say that she was unwilling
• Ovid’s Metamorphoses is the source of the temple scene and of the reading of Medusa as a victim
• Poseidon does nothing to help her, before or after, and plays no part in the rest of her story

Medusa’s Sisters and Birth

Gorgon Medusa

Medusa – whose name is generally taken to come from the Ancient Greek word for “guardian” – was one of the three Gorgons, daughters of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto, and sisters of the Graeae and of the dragon Ladon. The Gorgons’ siblings were monsters by birth, and in Ovid’s version Medusa, born with a beautiful face, was changed to match them (Hesiod, Theogony 270–336; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.794–803).

Apollodorus describes the Gorgons in these words: their heads were twined about with the scales of dragons, they had great tusks like swine’s, hands of bronze and golden wings by which they flew, and they turned to stone anyone who looked at them (Library 2.4.2). Aeschylus calls them winged, snake-haired, and hated by mortals, and says that no mortal who sees them keeps his breath (Prometheus Bound 798–800). In Ovid, one of the nobles at the banquet asks why Medusa alone of her sisters wore snakes mixed with her hair (Metamorphoses 4.791–792).

Where Did Medusa Come From?

Medusa came from the far edge of the world as the Greeks imagined it, born to the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto. Hesiod places the home of the Gorgons beyond glorious Ocean, at the world’s edge toward Night, where the clear-voiced Hesperides live (Theogony 274–276).

• A fragment of the epic Cypria places the Gorgons on Sarpedon, a rocky island in deep-eddying Ocean
• Aeschylus puts them in the plains of Cisthene, beyond the sea, near the Phorcides, the three ancient daughters of Phorcys who share a single eye and have a single tooth (Prometheus Bound 790–800)
• Pausanias gives a Libyan setting, with Medusa as a queen on Lake Tritonis (Pausanias 2.21.5–6)

Medusa’s Family Tree

Medusa’s mother was Ceto, a sea goddess, and her father was Phorcys, a sea god; in Hesiod they are the children of Pontus and Gaea, which makes Medusa a granddaughter of Earth and of the sea (Theogony 237–239, 270–276). She sits inside one of the most monstrous family lines in Greek myth.

• Sisters: Stheno and Euryale, the two immortal Gorgons, and the grey-haired Graeae, Pemphredo and Enyo (Hesiod, Theogony 270–276; Apollodorus adds Deino as the third, Library 2.4.2)
• Hesiod also makes Ceto and Phorcys the parents of the dragon that guards the golden apples (Theogony 333–336), the serpent Apollonius calls Ladon (Argonautica 4.1396–1397); Echidna, the half-woman, half-snake monster born in the same family of sea monsters, is called a daughter of Tartarus and Earth by Apollodorus (Theogony 295–300; Library 2.1.2)
• Children: Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus, fathered by Poseidon (Theogony 278–281)

Medusa and Poseidon

In Ovid’s version, Medusa was distinguished from her sisters by being born with a beautiful face. Ovid especially praises the beauty of her hair, as the part of her that was most admired (Metamorphoses 4.794–797). Poseidon, the great sea god, is said to have violated her in a temple of Athena. Enraged, the virgin goddess transformed Medusa’s enchanting hair into a coil of serpents (Metamorphoses 4.798–801), turning her into the monster described above.

Perseus and Medusa

According to Apollodorus, Polydectes, the king of Seriphos, had fallen in love with Perseus’s mother Danae, and when Perseus boasted that he would refuse nothing, not even the Gorgon’s head, Polydectes ordered him to bring that very head (Library 2.4.1). With the help of Athena and Hermes, Perseus went to the Graeae, Enyo, Pephredo and Deino, who shared a single eye and a single tooth. He took the eye and the tooth, and gave them back only when they told him the way to the nymphs who had the winged sandals, the wallet (kibisis) and the cap of Hades. Hermes also gave him an adamantine sickle (Library 2.4.2).

Perseus then flew to the ocean and found the Gorgons asleep. Athena guided his hand and, looking away, he watched the image of the Gorgon in a bronze shield and cut off her head (Library 2.4.2). Ovid has Perseus describe the same moment: he saw the horrible form of Medusa reflected in the bronze of the shield he carried in his left hand, and took her head while deep sleep held the snakes and the Gorgon (Metamorphoses 4.782–785).

Who Killed Medusa?

Medusa was killed by Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, who beheaded her with a sickle while she slept. He survived the encounter only because he never looked at her directly, watching her image in a bronze shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2). Pindar says simply that he “slew the Gorgon” with Athena’s help (Pythian 10.44–48).

• His equipment came from the gods and nymphs: winged sandals, the wallet for the head and the cap of Hades from the nymphs, and a sickle from Hermes (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2)
• He found the nymphs only after taking the one eye and tooth of the Graeae and forcing them to reveal the way (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2)
• Medusa alone could be killed; her sisters Stheno and Euryale were immortal and could only chase him (Hesiod, Theogony 277–278; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3)

What Did Medusa Look Like?

Medusa was described as a winged female monster with snakes about her head, great tusks like a boar’s, hands of bronze, and a gaze that turned onlookers to stone. Apollodorus gives bronze hands and golden wings to the Gorgons as a group (Library 2.4.2).

• In early Greek art her face is shown as a grotesque mask, with a wide mouth and projecting tongue, meant to frighten
• Later artists also drew her as a beautiful woman with snakes in her hair
• Ovid’s account of her earlier beauty (Metamorphoses 4.794–797) supplied the story behind the beautiful snake-haired image

How Many Snakes Did Medusa Have?

None of the ancient writers who describe her hair gives a number: Aeschylus calls the Gorgons “snake-haired,” Apollodorus says their heads were twined about with dragon scales, and Ovid says her hair was changed into hideous water-snakes (Prometheus Bound 799; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2; Metamorphoses 4.801).

• Vase paintings and sculptures show anything from a few visible snakes to a full head of them
• Ovid also says that Athena bears the snakes on the aegis on her breast (Metamorphoses 4.802–803)
• Any specific number is a modern invention, not part of Greek myth

Did Medusa Have Wings?

Yes – in the Greek tradition the Gorgons, Medusa among them, had wings, which Apollodorus calls golden, along with hands of bronze (Library 2.4.2). Aeschylus likewise describes the three sisters as winged (Prometheus Bound 798).

• Winged Gorgons appear on temple pediments, shields, and vases from early Greek art onward
• Her son Pegasus, the winged horse, echoes this feature in the next generation (Hesiod, Theogony 281)

Medusa’s Powers

Medusa’s power was her gaze: anyone who looked at the Gorgons was turned to stone (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2). It was not something she could switch off, and it worked even after her death.

• Perseus used the severed head as a weapon, turning Phineus and his fellow plotters to stone in Ethiopia (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3), and then Polydectes and his friends on Seriphos (Library 2.4.3; Pindar, Pythian 10.46–48)
• Her blood was equally potent: Athena gave Asclepius blood from her veins, and he used the blood from the left side to destroy people and the blood from the right side to save them and even to raise the dead (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.3)
• Drops of her blood falling over Libya turned into the snakes that fill the region (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.617–620; Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1513–1517)

Was Medusa Immortal?

Medusa was not immortal, and this is the single most important fact about her. Her sisters Stheno and Euryale were undying and ageless, but Medusa was mortal, which is why Perseus could be sent after her head at all (Hesiod, Theogony 277–278; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2).

• No source states how long she lived or how old she was when Perseus found her
• Her mortality is stated explicitly by Hesiod, who says she was the one Gorgon subject to death (Theogony 277)
• Her powers, however, outlived her body and passed intact to her severed head

The Posthumous Fate of Medusa

Strangely enough, Medusa’s story doesn’t end with her death. In fact, one can argue that the most peculiar fragments of her biography are all posthumous.

What Happened to Medusa?

Medusa was beheaded by Perseus, and her head then travelled with him as a weapon before being given to Athena, who fixed it on her shield. Almost everything memorable about her happened after she died (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3).

• Her children Chrysaor and Pegasus sprang out when Perseus cut off her head (Hesiod, Theogony 280–281)
• Her head turned Polydectes and his company to stone, ending the threat to Perseus’ mother (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3)
• Her blood was used as poison, as a cure, and as a means of raising the dead (Euripides, Ion 1003–1017; Apollodorus, Library 3.10.3)
• Her shade met Heracles in the Underworld: he drew his sword on it, but Hermes told him it was an empty phantom (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.12)

Did Medusa Have Children?

Yes – Medusa had two children by Poseidon: Chrysaor, who came out holding a golden sword, and Pegasus, the winged horse. Both sprang out when Perseus cut off her head (Hesiod, Theogony 278–283; Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2).

• Pegasus was named, Hesiod says, from the springs (pegai) of Ocean, where he was born, and he flew to the immortals and lives in the house of Zeus, carrying thunder and lightning for him (Theogony 282–286). Later he served the hero Bellerophon (Hesiod, Theogony 325; Pindar, Olympian 13.63–92)
• Chrysaor, by Callirhoe, became the father of the three-headed Geryon, killed by Heracles (Hesiod, Theogony 287–294)
• No ancient source gives Medusa any other children or any partner besides Poseidon

Medusa’s Children · The Lament of the Gorgons

When Perseus severed her head, her two children Chrysaor and Pegasus sprang out (Hesiod, Theogony 280–281; Ovid has them born from her blood, Metamorphoses 4.785–786). The other Gorgons were awoken and pursued Perseus, but they could not see him, for he was wearing the cap of Hades (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3), and the winged sandals carried him away. So, they went back to mourn Medusa. Pindar, a great Ancient Greek poet, says that Athena, hearing the Gorgons’ gloomy lament pouring from the heads of their serpents and from Euryale’s jaws, devised the many-voiced music of the double pipe, the aulos (Pythian 12.6–26).

The Miraculous Head of Medusa

Now that Perseus had Medusa’s head in his bag, he went back to Seriphos. However, while flying over Libya, drops of Medusa’s blood fell to the ground and turned into snakes; it is because of this that Libya abounds with serpents (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.617–620; Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1513–1517). On the way, in Ethiopia, he used the head against Phineus and his fellow plotters (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3). When Perseus arrived in Seriphos, he showed Medusa’s head to Polydectes and his friends, and they were turned to stone, each in the attitude he had at the moment (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3; Pindar, Pythian 10.46–48).

After this, Perseus gave the head to Athena, who set it in the middle of her shield; the Gorgon’s head on the aegis is already described by Homer (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3; Homer, Iliad 5.738–742). As for the blood, Athena gave some of it to Asclepius, who used the blood from the Gorgon’s left side to take people’s lives and the blood from her right side to save them and raise the dead (Library 3.10.3). In Euripides’ Ion, Athena gave two drops of the Gorgon’s blood to the infant Erichthonius, bound in golden bonds: the drop that fell from the hollow vein wards off disease and sustains life, while the other, venom from the Gorgon’s snakes, kills (Ion 1001–1017). In the same play the Gorgon is a monster born of Earth to fight for the Giants, killed by Athena, whose skin is the aegis (Ion 987–997).

Apollodorus adds that Athena gave Heracles a lock of the Gorgon’s hair in a bronze jar, and Heracles gave it to Sterope, daughter of Cepheus, to protect Tegea: if an army advanced on the city, she was to hold up the lock three times from the walls, and the enemy would flee (Library 2.7.3).

Medusa in Roman Mythology

Medusa kept her name in Roman mythology – the Latin Medusa is simply the Greek Medousa transliterated – and her story remained the same, though the gods around her were renamed. Poseidon became Neptune, Athena became Minerva, and Perseus kept his name.

• Ovid’s Metamorphoses is the fullest surviving account of her transformation, and the only ancient source for the temple scene (4.770–803)
• Ovid calls Poseidon “ruler of the sea” (pelagi rector) and Athena Minerva, and he has Perseus tell the story at the court of Cepheus (4.770–803)
• Virgil places the Gorgons among the monsters at the gates of the Underworld (Aeneid 6.289)

What Does Medusa Symbolize?

In antiquity the Gorgon’s head was a protective emblem: Homer describes it on the aegis of Athena as the head of a dread monster, set there to frighten (Iliad 5.738–742), and on the shield of Agamemnon (Iliad 11.32–37). The Greeks associated the Gorgon’s head with protection rather than with the woman herself.

• Ovid says Athena still wears the snakes on her breast to terrify her enemies (Metamorphoses 4.802–803)
• In the Odyssey, Odysseus fears that Persephone may send up from Hades the head of the Gorgon, a terrible monster (Odyssey 11.633–635)
• Pausanias reports a gilded head of Medusa with an aegis on the Acropolis in Athens (Pausanias 1.21.3)

Medusa Facts

The essential facts about Medusa can be stated briefly:

• She was the only mortal of the three Gorgons; Stheno and Euryale were immortal (Hesiod, Theogony 276–278)
• Her name is generally understood to mean “guardian” or “protectress” in Ancient Greek
• Her gaze turned living beings to stone, and it kept working after her death (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2–3)
• She was the mother of Pegasus and Chrysaor by Poseidon (Hesiod, Theogony 278–281)
• Perseus killed her using a reflection in a bronze shield, winged sandals, and a cap of invisibility (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2)
• Her head ended up in the middle of Athena’s shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3)
• Her blood could both kill and heal, and the drops that fell over Libya became its snakes (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.617–620)

Medusa Sources

You can read a prose summary of Perseus’ quest for Medusa’s head in Apollodorus’ “Library” 2.4.1–3. For a poetic account, see the end of the fourth book of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” Medusa’s genealogy is given in Hesiod’s “Theogony” 270–288. Other sources used: Homer, Iliad 5.738–742, 11.32–37, Odyssey 11.633–635; Pindar, Pythian 10.44–48, 12.6–26, Olympian 13.63–92; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 790–800; Euripides, Ion 987–1017; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.1396–1397, 4.1513–1517; Apollodorus, Library 2.1.2, 2.4.1–5, 2.5.12, 2.7.3, 3.10.3, 3.12.5; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.614–620, 4.770–803; Virgil, Aeneid 6.289; Pausanias 1.21.3, 2.21.5–6; the Cypria (fragment on the Gorgons’ island Sarpedon).

See Also: Perseus, Adventures of Perseus, Pegasus, Gorgons, Phorcys, Keto, Athena, Poseidon, Chrysaor