PRICE: $350

TITLE: Medusa

SIZE: 30” X 30”

Medusa was the mortal one of three sisters, including Euryale, and Sthenno. Medusa was said to be beautiful as well as a priestess of the Goddess Athena. Each evening Medusa tended Athena’s Temple, cleaning and tidying it up from the day’s use. Then, she worshipped Athena.

Medusa was a beautiful young woman with long goldenhair. Although she was a young woman at the marrying age, she had yet to be betrothed. One night as Medusa was tending Athena’s Temple, Poseidon came to her. He told her that her beauty was captivating; and he must have her. Medusa tried to avert his attention, but he returned the next night and the night after that. She refused his attention, which only made Poseidon more relentless. Every night when Medusa was in the Temple tidying up from the day’s use, Poseidon would come to her. Finally, he pushed his affections on her, and she was unable to fend him off. Athena was furious that her Temple had been defiled. Since Poseidon was a god, she could do little to him. However, to Medusa, she turned her beautiful golden hair into hideous and venomous snakes; caused anyone who looked into her eyes to be turned into stone, and banished her to the Hyperborean lands, where she was unlikely to turn any innocents into stone. Hyperborea was located north of the Land of the North Winds, which had been rumored to be where Great Britain and Stonehenge, a circular Temple, was located.