Who Is Medusa (Medousa)?
The only mortal Gorgon
Medusa is one of the Gorgons, three monstrous sisters in Greek mythology. She is a daughter of the sea god Phorcys and Ceto, and while her sisters Stheno and Euryale were immortal and ageless, she alone was mortal.
The Theogony says that she lay with Poseidon, "the Dark-haired One," in a soft meadow full of flowers. Later the hero Perseus cut off her head, and from it sprang Pegasus, the winged horse, and Chrysaor, who holds a golden sword. The Gorgons were said to live beyond Oceanus, at the edge of the world, near the realm of Night.
Her famous image, with snakes for hair and a gaze that turns people to stone, does not appear in the Theogony; it comes from other works. The story that she was once a beautiful maiden whom the goddess Athena punished by turning her into a monster is a later tradition, told by the Roman poet Ovid and others.
