Gorgon

GORGONE. - From the Greek Γοργά, Γοργόνη (Lat. Gorgón and Gorgón). A female figure of Greek myth, originally single, later divided into three sisters: Steno, Euriale, and Medusa, the first two immortal, the third mortal.

The Gorgons dwell in a dark region in the far west (Hesiod, Theog., 274 ff.): they therefore represent the darkness of night, and for this reason one of them, Medusa, is in conflict with the solar hero Perseus; in the legend of Argos he cuts off her head, whose terrible eye is capable of turning men to stone; another naturalistic symbol of the storm-cloud from which the life-annihilating lightning is unleashed. The serpent-haired head is given by the hero to Atena, who places it in the centre of her shield; this has led some mythographers to conjecture the original unity of Medusa and Atena.

There are two types of representations of Medusa: an archaic one, with the face shown frontally and provided with small wings, and the body in profile, the eyes wide open, the tongue hanging out, and the hair formed of serpents, which gives the type itself an apotropaic value; the other, more recent, has a face composed in beauty and retains from the ancient representation only the small wings.

(photo Alinari)
GORGONE — Head of a G. Marble (6th century B.C.) — Athens,
Acropolis Museum.