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
Medusa Rondanini , Glyptothek Munich
Compare the Medusa Rondanini with my colored version of the archaic Gorgo Medusa from the Corfu Artemis Temple (around 580 BC). See: The Artemis Temple and Medusa in Corfu
Sigmund Freund in "Medusa's Head" provides a psychological explanation of the terror of Medusa, as a fear of castration linked to the sight of the female genitals surrounded by hair in which the spectator becomes "stiff with terror,"...
http://www.stoa.org/metis/cgi-bin/qtvr?site=didyma 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.
Information about the Temple C
Medusa on Coins Medusa Coin , THRACE, Apollonia Pontica 450-400 BC. AR Drachm (from http://tjbuggey.ancients.info/Greek.html)
Medusa on the Aegis of Athena from the Temple of Apollo at Eretria
The Beauty of the Medusa:A Study in Romantic Literary Iconology
On The Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci
THE EARLIEST PROTO-SLAVONIC/GREEK STRING FIGURE?
The Medusa/Pegasus/Goddess Connection
Medusa di Bernini and another view
The Underworld, Orpheus and Perseus
Antonio Canova, Perseus with the Head of Medusa, Vatican Museum c. 1800
Medusa in Myth and Literary History
Medusa by Chris Achilleos
John Singer Sargent's Perseus on Pegasus Slaying Medusa
, Routledge; 2003, ISBN: 0415900999
