Medusa was the most famous of the three Gorgon sisters of Greek mythology, the only one of the three who was mortal, and the only one who was slain. Her name is a synonym for the idea of a monster whose appearance is so terrible that it kills. According to the most familiar version of her myth, she was a beautiful priestess of Athena who was transformed into a monster by the goddess after she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. The hero Perseus killed her, and from her blood sprang the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor.
Medusa is the most famous of the three Gorgon sisters, the only one of the three who is mortal, and the only one who is slain in the standard myth. She has two origin stories in the Greek sources: the older Hesiodic one (in the Theogony, line 270 ff.), in which she and her sisters are born as monsters from Phorcys and Ceto, and the Ovidian one (in the Metamorphoses, Book IV), in which she is a beautiful priestess of Athena who is transformed by the goddess after being raped by Poseidon. The two stories reflect two different periods and two different religious traditions. The standard scholarly treatment of the reception of the Medusa myth is Marina Warner’s Monstrous Beauty (2010).
The Three Gorgon Sisters
The Gorgons were three sisters, daughters of the sea-gods Phorcys and Ceto. They lived at the far edge of the world, where the sun sets, beyond the land of the Cimmerians. The three were:
- Stheno (the Mighty)
- Euryale (the Wide-Strider)
- Medusa (the Queen or the Ruler)
Only Medusa was mortal. The other two were immortal, which is why Perseus was able to kill only Medusa. To find the Gorgons, Perseus first visited their three grey sisters, the Graiae, who had a single eye and a single tooth between them, which they shared, taking turns to use them. Perseus stole the eye and the tooth and refused to return them until the Graiae told him the way to the Gorgons.
In early Greek art, the Gorgons were depicted as terrifying female creatures with wide grins, lolling tongues, snaky hair, and bulging eyes. Their gaze could turn onlookers to stone, and their very appearance was so horrible that the Greek word for them (Gorgô) means “grim” or “dreadful.” They were associated with death, the underworld, and the protection of sacred places.
The Origin of Medusa
The most familiar account of Medusa’s origin is given by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. According to Ovid, Medusa was once a beautiful maiden, the priestess of Athena in her temple. She caught the eye of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and he raped her in Athena’s temple.
Athena, furious at the desecration of her temple, transformed Medusa into a monster. Her hair became snakes, her face became so terrible that it turned onlookers to stone, and she was given great wings and bronze hands. Her sisters, who came to comfort her, were also transformed into monsters.
This version of the myth has been criticized in modern times for blaming the victim of sexual violence, and many modern retellings have attempted to restore Medusa’s perspective. The Roman poet Ovid himself, who lived in a society that was more openly sympathetic to the victim, ended the story with a kind of pity: when Perseus killed Medusa, he did so with a kind of necessity, and her death was a tragedy.
An earlier tradition, preserved in Hesiod’s Theogony, gives a different account. According to Hesiod, Medusa and her sisters were born as monsters, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. There is no transformation, no priestess, no rape. Medusa was simply a Gorgon from the beginning. This older version reflects the prehistoric origins of the Gorgon figure, which may go back to ancient Near Eastern art and the demon Lamashtu, a female demon who was associated with miscarriage and child death.
The Slaying of Medusa
The most famous myth of Medusa is her slaying by the hero Perseus. Perseus had been sent by King Polydectes of Serifos to bring back the head of Medusa as a wedding gift. The gods came to his aid: Athena gave him a polished bronze shield to use as a mirror, Hermes gave him winged sandals to fly, a cap of invisibility, and a curved sword, and Hades lent him his helm of darkness.
Perseus flew to the far edge of the world, where the Gorgons lived. He found the three sisters asleep. Using Athena’s shield as a mirror, he could see Medusa’s reflection without being turned to stone by her gaze. He cut off her head with a single stroke of his curved sword. From her blood, two beings sprang forth: the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor, both conceived by Poseidon when he had raped Medusa.
Perseus put Medusa’s head in a special bag and flew away. The other two Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, woke up and pursued him, but the cap of darkness made him invisible, and he escaped.
The Uses of Medusa’s Head
The severed head of Medusa, called the Gorgoneion, was a powerful magical talisman. Perseus used it on his journey home. He encountered the giant Atlas, who refused him hospitality, and Perseus turned him to stone, creating the Atlas Mountains. He encountered the monster that was about to devour Andromeda, and he turned it to stone. He used it to defeat his enemies in Serifos, turning King Polydectes and his court to stone when they tried to harm him.
Perseus eventually gave the head to Athena, who mounted it on her aegis, the goatskin shield that she carried into battle. The Gorgoneion remained a powerful protective symbol throughout Greek history, and it was used on shields, armor, buildings, and coins for centuries.
The Children of Medusa
When Perseus cut off Medusa’s head, two beings sprang from her blood:
- Pegasus, the winged horse, who flew to Mount Helicon and struck the ground with his hoof, creating the Hippocrene, the spring sacred to the Muses. Pegasus was eventually tamed by the hero Bellerophon, who rode him on various adventures. Bellerophon tried to fly to Olympus, and Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, causing Bellerophon to fall back to earth. Pegasus continued to Olympus and became the bearer of Zeus’s thunderbolts.
- Chrysaor, a giant with a golden sword, who became the ancestor of the kings of Persia in some traditions and of Geryon, the three-bodied giant whose cattle were one of the labors of Heracles.
Medusa was also said to have fathered other children in different traditions. In some accounts, Pegasus and Chrysaor were born when Poseidon lay with her in a meadow of flowers, in a version of the older myth.
Medusa in Greek Art
Medusa was subjects in Greek art, particularly in the Archaic period (c. 600-480 BCE). The Gorgon was a favorite image for the pediments of temples, for shields, for funerary monuments, and for pottery. The image of the Gorgon, with her wide eyes, snaky hair, and protruding tongue, was a powerful apotropaic symbol, meant to ward off evil.
The most famous surviving example is the Gorgon pediment of the temple of Artemis on Corfu, dating to around 580 BCE, which shows the Gorgon in all her terrifying majesty. The Medusa Rondanini, a Roman copy of a Greek original, now in the Glyptothek in Munich, is sculptures of antiquity.
Medusa in Modern Times
Medusa appears in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake, in the Percy Jackson series, and as the logo of the Versace fashion house (founded 1978). Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1554) in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, and Caravaggio’s Medusa (c. 1597) in the Uffizi, are the most-copied works of Medusa imagery in the Western tradition. She has been the subject of extensive feminist scholarship since the 1980s, including Marina Warner’s Monstrous Beauty (2010). For the broader modern reception, see our guide to Greek mythology in modern culture.
A Note on Reading This Profile
A note on reading this profile. The Medusa of the Greek sources is a much more complex figure than the Medusa of the modern popular reception. The Hesiodic Medusa (in the Theogony) is a chthonic monster, a child of Phorcys and Ceto, and the most fearsome of the three Gorgons; the Ovidian Medusa (in the Metamorphoses) is a beautiful priestess who is transformed into a monster by Athena after being raped by Poseidon. The two stories have different moral structures: in Hesiod, Medusa is a monster, in Ovid, she is a victim. The reader should be aware of which version they are reading.
For more on the mythological context, see our profile of Perseus, our guide to the Greek monsters and creatures, and our profiles of Athena, Poseidon, and Pegasus. For more on the cultural legacy, see our guide to Greek mythology in modern culture.