Let it be pass on
No good can come of it -- it is not well
To meet it--it is an enchanted phantom,
A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,
It freezes up the blood of man; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
Like those who saw Medusa.
Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust.
The Medusa Rondanini, a reconstruction and my own (not original) colored version. A copy with missing wings and snakes parts now at the Munich Glyptothek. Copy of an original of about 440 BC? 1826 King Ludwig presents a copy of the Rondanini Medusa to Goethe
See
Vrtual Tour Didyma and the Medusa (Quicktime Movie)
Another version of the Medusa. The beheading of the Medusa probably this archaic relief (550-540 BC) is the most brutal piece of Greek Art . Perseus shows no signs of emotions, probably he avoids to see Medusa face to face because he knows the danger. Part of a metope of the so called Greek Temple C at Selinus (Selinunte), Sicily in Italy, Museo Archeologico, Palermo. Perseus gives the head of Medusa to Athena and she uses it as a weapon. The winged Pegasus horse in the hands of Medusa as it was produced from her blood.
, Routledge; 2003, ISBN: 0415900999
Stephen R. Wilk , Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0195124316