Medusa

Medusa is one of the three Gorgons, and the only one of them who can die, which is the reason Perseus is sent after her head rather than her sisters'. In Apollodorus the Gorgons have heads twined about with the scales of dragons, tusks like a boar's, hands of bronze and wings of gold, and they turn to stone whoever looks at them. When Perseus cuts her head off, the winged horse Pegasus and the swordsman Chrysaor spring out of the wound.

In short

Hesiod names the three Gorgons as Sthenno, Euryale and Medusa, and says Medusa alone was mortal while the other two were undying and grew not old.
In Apollodorus the Gorgons have heads twined with the scales of dragons, great tusks like a boar's, hands of bronze and wings of gold, and turn to stone anyone who looks at them.
Perseus killed her asleep, looking not at her but at her reflection in a brazen shield while Athena guided his hand.
Pegasus and Chrysaor sprang from the wound; Hesiod says the horse was named for the springs of Ocean, where he was born.
The west pediment of the temple of Artemis at Corcyra, on Corfu, is filled by the Gorgon reaching towards her son, with leopards beside her and Zeus fighting a giant in the corner.
The Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge, which holds a cast of it, dates the pediment to about 580 BC, records it as limestone, gives its span as 22.16 metres, and gives the location of the original as Corfu.

The shield that makes killing possible

Medusa sleeps while Perseus approaches without looking at her. Athena holds a polished bronze shield so that he can watch the reflection instead of the body. She guides his hand; he turns his face aside and cuts through the neck with the sickle Hermes provided. Every object in the plan exists because direct sight would turn the killer to stone.

Polydectes has demanded the head to remove Perseus, not because Medusa threatens his kingdom. The expedition makes her dangerous gaze useful to men who never meet her. Once Perseus carries the severed head away in the special wallet called the kibisis, he can uncover it against enemies and convert her power into his weapon.

Why one sister can die

Hesiod places three Gorgons beyond Ocean near the land of Night: Sthenno, Euryale and Medusa, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Sthenno and Euryale do not age and cannot die. Medusa alone is mortal. Apollodorus says that difference is precisely why Perseus is sent after her rather than either sister.

The same author gives the Gorgons their composite bodies: serpent scales coiled around their heads, boars’ tusks, bronze hands and golden wings. His description applies to all three and offers no origin story in which Medusa begins as a human woman. The transformed priestess familiar from Ovid belongs to a Roman poem written centuries later; it should not be inserted into Hesiod’s or Apollodorus’s account.

What comes from the wound

Death does not empty Medusa’s body of force. Pegasus and Chrysaor spring from the cut as Perseus removes the head. Hesiod makes Poseidon their father and explains the horse’s name through the springs of Ocean near his birthplace. Pegasus then reaches Zeus’s house and carries thunder and lightning for him. Chrysaor becomes the father of Geryon, another figure Heracles will later kill.

Medusa appears once more in Apollodorus, but she no longer has a body. When Heracles descends at Tainaron to fetch Cerberus, the dead flee from him except Meleager and Medusa. Heracles draws his sword before Hermes stops him: this Gorgon is an empty shade. The warning is unnecessary only because Perseus has already separated the dangerous head from the person who possessed it.

The Gorgon who faced out from Corfu

Around 580 BC, the temple of Artemis at Corcyra placed a running Gorgon at the centre of its west pediment. The limestone figure fills the triangular field with a frontal face, bent legs and wings. Leopards flank her; smaller scenes, including Zeus fighting a giant, occupy the narrowing corners. Her son Chrysaor appears beside her.

The sculpture is not an illustration of Perseus’s approach. No killer or mirror enters the scene. The Gorgon’s fixed outward stare instead confronts everyone before the temple, using the feared face as protection for Artemis’s building. The Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge holds a cast and records the original on Corfu. On the island, Medusa survives not as the sleeping victim Perseus avoids seeing, but as the temple image made to be seen first.

That change of function is already present in the myth. A face that kills unwanted viewers while attached to Medusa protects Perseus and Athena after it is removed. Temple sculpture makes the protective use permanent without narrating the beheading. The Corcyra Gorgon reaches outward with both children beside her, while the Perseus episode can continue only by putting her head in a bag.

Where to stand

Corfu

Ionian

Medusa fills the west pediment of the temple of Artemis at Corcyra, reaching towards her son, with leopards on either hand and Zeus fighting a giant in the corner. The Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge, which holds a cast, dates it to about 580 BC and records the original as being on Corfu.
Corfu