GOR'GO, or GORGON (Gk. Fogyei, Gorgd, ropy61m, Gorgone, rop-yac, Gorgas, from yopy6c, gorgos, grim). A sister of the Grua' (q.v.) and the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. Evidences are conflicting. In Homer, Odysseus fears that Persephone may send forth against him the Gor gon's head, which is therefore regarded as be longing to the Lower World. The later legend knows Gorge as a terrible female monster, with hideous face, hair of bronze or intertwined with serpents, mighty wings, and clad in black. Gor go or Medusa is mortal, but her two sisters, 20evc5, 'the Strong,' and EiyiudXn, 'the Far Leaper,' are immortal. Medusa is the most ter rible, and one glance from her eyes will turn any human being to stone. Though hated of the other gods, Poseidon loved her. These Gor gons lived in the far west, near the garden of the gods, and the realm of the dead. Medusa was beheaded by Perseus (q.v.), and from her trunk sprang the fruit of Poseidon's love, Chry saor, of the golden sword, and the winged horse, Pegasus. The head, with its petrifying power, was used by Perseus against his enemies, and later taken by Athena and placed upon her tegis (q.v.). Attic legend knew of but one Gorgon, produced by Gala to aid the giants against the gods, and slain by Athena, while the later poets explained Poseidon's love by telling of the maiden Medusa, who won the love of the god, but in spired the jealousy of Athena, who transformed her into the hideous monster and guided Perseus to her destruction. Roscher has made it very
probable that the Gorgons are a personification of destructive and terrifying thunder-storms, which come with speed from the western ocean. Hence, the golden sword of the lightning, and the bearer of thunderbolts, Pegasus, spring from her dead body. Hence, too, the appearance of the Gorgoneion on the aegis of Zeus and Athena, who are armed with the thunderbolt. The head of the Gorge was used by the Greeks for apotropuic purposes—that is, to ward off the evil eye or other evil influences. In Greek art the Gorgo neion does not appear much before the seventh century B.C. Its earliest form is certainly the hideous mask, with round face, snaky hair, huge staring eyes, and wide mouth, with projecting tongue and tusk-like teeth, which was used to keep off the evil spirits, and from which the later figure of the Gorgon develops. There was a later conception of the Gorgon as beautiful, best seen in the "Medusa Rondanini" at Munich. Consult: Roscher, Die Gorgonen and Verwandtes (Leipzig, 1890) ; Six, De Gorgone (Amsterdam, 1880), es pecially for the coin-types. Especially good is the article by Roscher and Furtwangler in Rosch er's Lexikon der griechischen and romischen Mythologie (Leipzig, 1886-90) ; Glotz, in Harem berg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquites (Paris, 1896).