Soon after killing Medusa, Perseus applied her severed head to be a weapon, turning most of his enemies to stone. In Libya, he used Medusa’s head to get rid of the monster Cetus and save Andromeda, who became his spouse.
Biding her time, the unborn Minerva plotted her emergence within the womb. At long last, she burst forth from Jupiter’s forehead, fully developed and ready for fight. Some accounts claimed that Vulcan, the god of metallurgy, served as being a midwife of types by prying open Jupiter’s head with the axe and delivering Minerva; the moment has been the subject of inventive renderings the two historic and present day.
Medusa’s blood was in some cases assumed to have magical or medicinal properties. Based on Apollodorus, Asclepius obtained a phial of her blood from Athena and utilized it to heal the Ill.[24] Medusa’s blood was also used for witchcraft by some legendary figures.[twenty five]
As the fierce goddess of warfare, Minerva would also wield a spear and don a Roman common’s armor, comprehensive which has a soldier’s helm and a little defend. Most depictions with the goddess portrayed her in this latter apparel.
When Perseus got down to eliminate the Gorgon Medusa, he 1st came towards the lair of the Graeae. There, he stole the sisters’ one eye, rendering them blind so they'd help him on his quest.
Perseus’ identify grew to become connected to the highly effective Perseid dynasty, which involved not merely several Mycenaean kings but additionally famous heroes such as Heracles.
Historic writers generally reported which the Graeae lived in a very remote part of the entire world. As outlined by Aeschylus’ Prometheus Certain, they might be located in the mysterious “Simple of Cisthene,” somewhere in the Much East, not much through the Gorgons. There, “neither does the Sunshine together with his beams look down on them, nor ever the nightly moon.”[eleven]
Perseus married Andromeda, an Jap princess. Andromeda’s mom, Cassiopeia, had offended The ocean gods by boasting of her have beauty; as punishment for this vanity, she was manufactured to sacrifice her daughter on the gods.
As thunder-bearer of Zeus, Pegasus was showered with honors. He also gained the love from the Muses when he developed the Hippocrene spring. click here The good winged horse was commemorated while in the evening sky as being the constellation Pegasus.
Perseus was despatched to eliminate Medusa by Polydectes, the king of Seriphos (Polydectes wished the youthful person outside of the image so he could marry his mother Danae). The king thought that Perseus would be killed on his mission, since Medusa was a awful Gorgon whose gaze turned people to stone.
And with swift toes unmarked [Eros] passed the edge and keenly glanced close to; and gliding within sight Aeson’s son [Jason] he laid the arrow-notch within the wire within the centre, and drawing huge apart with the two arms he shot at Medea; and speechless amazement seized her soul. Nevertheless the god himself flashed back again once more with the higher-roofed hall, laughing loud; plus the bolt burnt deep down in the maiden’s heart like a flame; and ever she stored darting vivid glances straight up at Aeson’s son, and in just her breast her coronary heart panted rapidly as a result of anguish, all remembrance remaining her, and her soul melted Using the sweet ache.
Based on Ovid, the corals on the Crimson Sea were formed when Perseus set Medusa’s head down inside the seaweed soon after preserving Andromeda. Medusa’s blood induced the seaweed to harden and grow to be attractive coral.[20]
She also warned him that after he sowed the dragon’s tooth, a race of warriors would sprout from your earth, Which the only real strategy to defeat them could be to trick them into killing one another.
But Perseus also needed the assistance of the Graeae—a difficult issue to acquire, on condition that Medusa was their sister.
An early hero and also a famed slayer of monsters, Perseus was usually represented Using the weapons and artifacts he received in the gods to fight Medusa: an unbreakable sword, a helmet of invisibility, a mirror protect, winged sandals, and also a magic satchel.