THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
Medusa was the only mortal of the three Gorgon sisters, daughters of the sea deities Phorcys and Ceto. Living snakes coiled in her hair and her gaze turned any creature to stone; archaic vase painters showed the Gorgon face-on, round-cheeked, with bared tusks and a protruding tongue. Ovid's Metamorphoses adds that she had been a maiden famed for her hair, violated by Poseidon in Athena's temple, whereupon the goddess turned her locks to serpents.
Perseus was sent to fetch her head: Athena lent him a polished bronze shield so he need watch only the reflection, Hermes gave a curved blade, and nymphs supplied winged sandals, a cap of invisibility, and a pouch for the head. He struck while she slept, and the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor — her children by Poseidon — sprang from the severed neck. The head kept its petrifying power; Perseus turned King Polydectes of Seriphos, his mother's unwanted suitor, to stone with it before presenting it to Athena, who set it at the center of her aegis. Greeks carved the Gorgon face on temple pediments, shields, and lintels to turn away evil.
