GORGON. - From the Greek Γοργά, Γοργόνη (Latin Gorgón and Gorgón). A female figure of Greek myth, originally single, later split into three sisters: Stheno, Euryale and Medusa, the first two immortal, the third mortal.

The Gorgons inhabit a dark region at the extreme west (Hesiod, Theog., 274 ff.): they therefore represent the darkness of night, and hence one of them, Medusa, is in conflict with the solar hero Perseus; in the legend of Argos he strikes off her head, whose terrible eye is capable of turning men to stone; another nature-symbol of the storm cloud from which is released the life-annihilating thunderbolt. The snake-haired head is given by the hero to Athena, who places it in the middle of her shield, which has led some mythographers to conjecture the original unity of Medusa and Athena.

There are two types of depictions of Medusa: an archaic one with the face frontal, provided with little wings, and the body in profile, the eyes staring, the tongue hanging out, the hair serpentine, which confers on the type itself an apotropaic value; the other, more recent, with the face composed into beauty, which of the ancient figuration preserves only the little wings.

GORGON - Head of G. Marble (6th cent. B.C.) - Athens, Acropolis Museum.(phot. Alinari)

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Roscher, s. v. in Roscher, Lex., I, coll. 1695-1727; K. Ziegler, s. v. in Pauly-Wissowa, VII, coll. 1630-55; A. Ferrabino, Kalypso, Torino 1914, p. 338.

Nicola Turchi

@incollection{ec6_gorgone, author = {Turchi, Nicola}, title = {Gorgone}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {930--931}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/gorgone} }

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