Heart in the Stone~medusa and the Blind Baby

Female monster in Greek mythology

This article is about the Greek mythological monster. For other uses, run across Gorgon (disambiguation).

A Gorgon (/ˈɡɔːrɡən/; plural: Gorgons, Ancient Greek: Γοργών/Γοργώ Gorgṓn/Gorgṓ) is a creature in Greek mythology. Gorgons occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary, the term nigh commonly refers to 3 sisters who are described every bit having pilus made of living, venomous snakes and horrifying visages that turned those who beheld them to stone. Traditionally, two of the Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, were immortal, only their sis Medusa was not^[1] and was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus.

Etymology [edit]

The name derives from the Ancient Greek discussion gorgós (γοργός), which ways 'grim or dreadful', and appears to come from the same root as the Sanskrit word garjana (गर्जन), which means a guttural sound, similar to the growling of a beast,^[two] thus possibly originating equally an onomatopoeia.

Depictions [edit]

Gorgons were a popular image in Greek mythology, actualization in the earliest of written records of Aboriginal Greek religious beliefs such as those of Homer, which may engagement to as early on as 1194–1184 BC. Because of their legendary and powerful gaze that could turn one to stone, images of the Gorgons were put upon objects and buildings for protection. An image of a Gorgon holds the primary location at the pediment of the temple at Corfu, which is the oldest rock pediment in Hellenic republic, and is dated to c. 600 BC.

A marble statue 1.35 m (53 inches) high of a Gorgon, dating from the 6th century BC, was found almost intact in 1993, in an ancient public building in Parikia, Paros capital, Hellenic republic (Archaeological Museum of Paros no. 1285, encounter pictures below). Information technology is idea originally to take belonged to a temple.

The concept of the Gorgon is at least as old in classical Greek mythology every bit Perseus and Zeus. Gorgoneia (figures depicting a Gorgon caput, run across below) start announced in Greek art at the turn of the 8th century BC. One of the primeval representations is on an electrum stater discovered during excavations at Parium. Other early on eighth-century examples were plant at Tiryns. Going even further dorsum into history, there is a like image from the palace of Knossos, datable to the 15th century BC. Marija Gimbutas even argues that "the Gorgon extends dorsum to at least 6000 BC, as a ceramic mask from the Sesklo culture ...". She also identifies the epitome of the Gorgoneion in Neolithic art motifs, especially in anthropomorphic vases and terracotta masks inlaid with gold.

Pausanias (5.10.4, 8.47.v, many other places), a geographer of the 2nd century AD, supplies details of where and how Gorgons were represented in Ancient Greek art and architecture.

The big Gorgon eyes, as well as Athena'due south "flashing" eyes, are symbols termed "the divine eyes" by Gimbutas (who did not originate the perception); they announced also in Athena'due south sacred bird, the little owl. They may be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, swastikas, firewheels, and other images. The bad-mannered stance of the gorgon, with artillery and legs at angles is closely associated with these symbols too.

Some Gorgons are shown with wide, circular heads, serpentine locks of hair, large staring eyes, wide mouths, tongues lolling, the tusks of swine, large projecting teeth, flared nostrils, and sometimes short, coarse beards. (In some cruder representations, stylized pilus or blood flowing nether the severed head of the Gorgon suggests a beard or wings.^[3])

Some reptilian attributes such as a belt made of snakes and snakes emanating from the caput or entwined in the pilus, equally in the temple of Artemis in Corfu, are symbols likely derived from the guardians closely associated with early Greek religious concepts at the centers such as Delphi where the dragon Delphyne lived and the priestess Pythia delivered oracles. The pare of the dragon was said to exist made of impenetrable scales.

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  Gorgon of Paros, marble statue at the Archaeological Museum of Paros, 6th century BC, Cyclades, Greece

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  Gorgon of Paros, marble statue at the Archaeological Museum of Paros, 6th century BC, Cyclades, Greece

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  Disk-fibula with a gorgoneion, bronze with repoussé decoration, second half of the sixth century BC (Louvre)

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  Winged goddess with a Gorgon'due south head, orientalizing plate, c.600 BC, from Kameiros, Rhodes

Origins [edit]

A number of early classics scholars interpreted the myth of the Medusa as a quasi-historical, or "sublimated", retention of an actual invasion.^{[4] [a]}

The legend of Perseus beheading Medusa means, specifically, that "the Hellenes overran the goddess's chief shrines" and "stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks", the latter being apotropaic faces worn to frighten away the profane.

That is to say, at that place occurred in the early thirteenth century B.C. an actual historic rupture, a sort of sociological trauma, which has been registered in this myth, much as what Freud terms the latent content of a neurosis is registered in the manifest content of a dream: Registered yet subconscious, registered in the unconscious yet unknown or misconstrued past the witting heed.
      — J. Campbell (1968)^{[6] [b]}

While seeking origins others have suggested examination of some similarities to the Babylonian creature, Humbaba, in the Gilgamesh ballsy.^[7]

Classical tradition [edit]

Transitions in religious traditions over such long periods of time may make some foreign turns. Gorgons are oft depicted equally having wings, brazen claws, the tusks of boars, and scaly skin. The oldest oracles were said to be protected past serpents and a Gorgon image was often associated with those temples. Lionesses or sphinxes are oftentimes associated with the Gorgon besides. The powerful image of the Gorgon was adopted for the classical images and myths of Athena and Zeus, mayhap being worn in continuation of a more ancient religious imagery. In tardily myths, the Gorgons were said to exist the daughters of two sea deities: Keto, the body of water monster, and Phorcys, her blood brother-hubby.

Homer, the author of the oldest known piece of work of European literature, speaks just of ane Gorgon, whose caput is represented in the Iliad as fixed in the centre of the custodianship of Athena:

About her shoulders she flung the tasselled custodianship, fraught with terror ... and therein is the head of the dread monster, the Gorgon, dread and awful ...

Its earthly counterpart is a device on the shield of Agamemnon:

... and therein was ready every bit a crown the Gorgon, grim of aspect, glaring terribly, and about her were Terror and Rout.

In the Odyssey, the Gorgon is a monster of the underworld into which the primeval Greek deities were bandage:

... and pale fear seized me, lest august Persephone might send forth upon me from out of the house of Hades the head of the Gorgon, that awful monster...

Around 700 BC, Hesiod, imagines the Gorgons every bit bounding main daemons and increases the number of them to iii – Stheno (the mighty), Euryale (the far-springer, or of the wide sea), and Medusa (the queen), and makes them the daughters of the sea deities Keto and Phorcys. Their home is on the uttermost side of the western sea; according to subsequently authorities, in Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya. Ancient Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya is identified as a possible source of the deity, Neith, who besides was a creation deity in Ancient Egypt and, when the Greeks occupied Arab republic of egypt, they said that Neith was called Athene in Greece.

Of the three Gorgons in classical Greek mythology, only Medusa is mortal.

The Attic tradition, reproduced in Euripides (Ion), regarded the Gorgon as a monster, produced past Gaia to aid her children, the Titans, against the new Olympian deities. Classical interpretations suggest that Gorgon was slain past Athena, who wore her pare thereafter.

The Bibliotheca provides a skillful summary of the Gorgon myth. Much later stories merits that each of three Gorgon sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, had snakes for hair, and that they had the power to turn anyone who looked at them to rock. Co-ordinate to Ovid, a Roman poet writing in 8 Advertizing, whose almost famous work was heavily involved in the depiction of Greek myths, Medusa alone had serpents in her hair, and he explained that this was due to Athena (Roman Minerva) blasphemous her. Medusa had copulated with Poseidon (Roman Neptune) in a temple of Athena after he was aroused by the golden color of Medusa's hair. Athena therefore changed the enticing gold locks into serpents.

Virgil mentions that the Gorgons lived in the entrance of the Underworld. Diodorus and Palaephatus mention that the Gorgons lived in the Gorgades, islands in the Aethiopian Sea. The master island was called Cerna. Henry T. Riley suggests these islands may represent to Republic of cape verde.

According to Pseudo-Hyginus the "Gorgo Aix" (Γοργώ Aιξ), daughter of Helios, was killed by Zeus during the Titanomachy. From her skin, a goat-like hide rimmed with serpents, he fabricated his famous aegis, and placed her fearsome visage upon it. This he gave to Athena. And then Aix became the goat Capra (Greek: Aix), on the left shoulder of the constellation Auriga. A primeval Gorgon was sometimes said to be the father of Medusa and her sister Gorgons by the sea Goddess Ceto. This figure may have been the same as Gorgo Aix as the fundamental Gorgon was of an indeterminable gender.

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  An Amazon with her shield bearing the Gorgon caput paradigm. Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, 510–500 BC

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  Athena wears the ancient form of the Gorgon head on her custodianship, as the huge snake who guards the gilded fleece regurgitates Jason; loving cup by Douris, Classical Greece, early fifth century BC (Vatican Museum)

Perseus and Medusa [edit]

Farther information: Medusa

In late myths, Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was not immortal.^[eight] Rex Polydectes sent Perseus to kill Medusa in hopes of getting him out of the way, while he pursued Perseus's mother, Danae. Some of these myths relate that Perseus was armed with a scythe from Hermes and a mirror (or a shield) from Athena.^[9] Perseus could safely cutting off Medusa's head without turning to stone by looking only at her reflection in the shield. From the blood that spurted from her neck and falling into the sea, sprang Pegasus^[10] and Chrysaor, her sons past Poseidon. Other sources say that each driblet of blood became a serpent.^[xi] Perseus is said by some to have given the head, which retained the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, to Athena. She and then placed information technology on the mirrored shield called Aegis^[12] and she gave it to Zeus. Some other source says that Perseus buried the caput in the marketplace of Argos.^[13]

According to other accounts, either he or Athena used the caput to turn Atlas into stone,^[14] transforming him into the Atlas Mountains that held upwardly both heaven and earth. He also used the Gorgon against Cetus (when saving Andromeda) and a competing suitor, Phineas, Andromeda's cousin. Ultimately, he used her confronting King Polydectes. When Perseus returned to the courtroom of the king, Polydectes asked if he had the head of Medusa. Perseus replied "here it is" and held it aloft, turning the whole court to rock.^[15]

Protective and healing powers [edit]

Archaic (Etruscan) fanged goggle-eyed Gorgon flanked past standing winged lionesses or sphinxes on a hydria from Vulci, 540–530 BC

In Ancient Greece a Gorgoneion (a stone head, engraving, or drawing of a Gorgon face, oftentimes with snakes protruding wildly and the natural language sticking out between her fangs) oftentimes was used equally an apotropaic symbol and placed on doors, walls, floors, coins, shields, breastplates, and tombstones in the hopes of warding off evil. In this regard Gorgoneia are similar to the sometimes grotesque faces on Chinese soldiers' shields, also used mostly as an amulet, a protection against the evil eye. As well, in Hindu mythology, Kali is often shown with a protruding natural language and snakes effectually her head.

In some Greek myths, blood taken from the correct side of a Gorgon could bring the dead back to life, even so blood taken from the left side was an instantly fatal poison.^[sixteen] Athena gave a vial of the healing blood to Asclepius, which ultimately brought about his demise.

Heracles is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa's hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena and to take given it to Sterope,^[17] the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack. According to the later idea of Medusa as a cute maiden, whose hair had been changed into snakes by Athena, the head was represented in works of art with a wonderfully handsome face, wrapped in the at-home serenity of death.

Cultural depictions of Gorgons [edit]

Gorgons, especially Medusa, have get a common image and symbol in Western culture since their origins in Greek mythology, appearing in fine art, literature, and elsewhere throughout history. In A Tale of 2 Cities, for example, Charles Dickens compares the exploitative French aristocracy to "the Gorgon" — He devotes an entire chapter to this extended metaphor.

1 of the more than recent and famous uses of Gorgons comes from the volume serial Percy Jackson and the Olympians, in which we see Medusa in the start book. Her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, are seen after in the serial.

Some other modern depiction of Gorgons is seen in the movie Clash of the Titans, a motion picture loosely based on the tale of Perseus.

Genealogy [edit]

Gaia

Pontus

Thalassa

Nereus

Thaumas

Phorcys

Ceto

Eurybia

The Telchines

Halia

Aphrodite[c]

Echidna

The Gorgons

The Graeae

Ladon

The Hesperides

Thoosa[d]

Stheno

Deino

Euryale

Enyo

Medusa[e]

Pemphredo

Meet also [edit]

• Gorgonites

Notes [edit]

1. ^ A large part of Greek myth is politico-religious history. Bellerophon masters winged Pegasus and kills the Chimaera. Perseus, in a variant of the same legend, flies through the air and beheads Pegasus's mother, the Gorgon Medusa; much as Marduk, a Babylonian hero, kills the she-monster Tiamat, Goddess of the Seal. Perseus'due south name should properly be spelled Perseus, 'the destroyer'; and he was non, equally Professor Kerenyi has suggested, an archetypal Expiry-effigy just, probably, represented the patriarchal Hellenes who invaded Hellenic republic and Asia Small early in the 2d millennium BC, and challenged the power of the Triple-goddess. Pegasus had been sacred to her considering the equus caballus with its moon-shaped hooves figured in the pelting-making ceremonies and the installment of sacred kings; his wings were symbolical of a celestial nature, rather than speed. Jane Harrison has pointed out^[4] that Medusa was one time the goddess herself, hiding behind a safe Gorgon mask: A hideous face intended to warn the profane confronting trespassing on her Mysteries. Perseus beheads Medusa: that is, the Hellenes overran the goddess's main shrines, stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks, and took possession of the sacred horses – an early on representation of the goddess with a Gorgon's head and a mare's trunk has been plant in Boeotia. Bellerophon, Perseus'south double, kills the Lycian Chimaera, that is: The Hellenes annulled the aboriginal Medusan calendar, and replaced it with another.
         — R. Graves (1955)^[5]
2. ^ We have already spoken of Medusa and of the powers of her blood to render both life and death. We may now think of the legend of her slayer, Perseus, past whom her head was removed and presented to Athene. Professor Hainmond assigns the historical King Perseus of Mycenae to a date c. 1290 B.C., every bit the founder of a dynasty; and Robert Graves – whose two volumes on The Greek Myths are peculiarly noteworthy for their suggestive historical applications – proposes that the fable of Perseus beheading Medusa means, specifically, that "the Hellenes overran the goddess'southward main shrines" and "stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks", the latter being apotropaic faces worn to frighten abroad the profane. That is to say, there occurred in the early thirteenth century B.C. an actual historic rupture, a sort of sociological trauma, which has been registered in this myth, much as what Freud terms the latent content of a neurosis is registered in the manifest content of a dream: Registered yet hidden, registered in the unconscious yet unknown or misconstrued by the conscious heed. And in every such screening myth – in every such mythology (that of the Bible beingness, as we take just seen, another of the kind) – there enters in an essential duplicity, the consequences of which cannot exist disregarded or suppressed.
         — J. Campbell (1968)^[6]
3. ^ There are ii major conflicting stories for Aphrodite's origins: Hesiod^[18] claims that she was "born" from the foam of the ocean after Cronus castrated Uranus, thus making her Uranus' daughter; but Homer^{[19] : Book V} has Aphrodite as daughter of Zeus and Dione. According to Plato,^[20] the two were entirely separate entities: Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos.
4. ^ Homer names Thoosa as a daughter of Phorcys, without specifying her mother.^{[21] : ane.70–73}
5. ^ Most sources describe Medusa as the girl of Phorcys and Ceto, though the author Hyginus (Fabulae Preface) makes Medusa the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto.

References [edit]

1. ^ Hes. Th. 270 1
2. ^ Feldman, Thalia (1965). "Gorgo and the origins of fear". Arion. four (iii): 484–94. JSTOR 20162978.
3. ^ gorgo-harpers 3
4. ^ ^{a b} Harrison, Jane Ellen (5 June 1991) [1908]. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 187–188. ISBN978-0691015149.
5. ^ Graves, Robert (1955). The Greek Myths. Penguin Books. pp. 17, 244. ISBN978-0241952740.
6. ^ ^{a b} Campbell, Joseph (1968). Occidental Mythology. The Masks of God. Vol. iii. Penguin Books. pp. 152–153. ISBN978-0140194418.
7. ^ Hopkins, Clark (1934). Assyrian Elements in the Perseus-Gorgon Story. American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 38. Archaeological Institute of America. pp. 341–358. doi:10.2307/498901. JSTOR 498901. S2CID 191408685.
8. ^ Hes. Th. 270 one
9. ^ perseus-bio-1
10. ^ Apollod. 2.3 4
11. ^ Medusa one
12. ^ *gorgw/
13. ^ Paus. 2.21 five
14. ^ Luc. 9.619 1
15. ^ Strab. 10.five 10
16. ^ Eur. Ion 998
17. ^ Apollod. two.seven 15
18. ^ Hesiod. Theogony.
19. ^ Homer. Iliad.
20. ^ Plato. Symposium. 180e.
21. ^ Homer. Odyssey.

• This commodity incorporates text from a publication at present in the public domain:Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gorgon, Gorgons". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge Academy Press. p. 257.
• Additional material has been added from the 1824 Lemprière's Classical Dictionary.

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gorgons.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon

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