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The Story of Perseus and Medusa, an Interpretation of Its Meaning, and the Topos of Decapitation

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The Story of Perseus and Medusa, an Interpretation of Its Meaning, and the Topos of Decapitation The Story of Perseus and Medusa 1 Chapter 1 The Story of Perseus and Medusa, An Interpretation of Its Meaning, and the Topos of Decapitation This chapter’s summary of the tale of Perseus and the Gorgon will precede a detailed analysis of the historical evolution of Medusa’s image as a maternal deity and what that image meant to ancient Greece. A subsequent section on the symbolism of the head as a life force will be important to this study’s dis- cussion of the value of Medusa’s head as a symbol of power. The Textual Sources for Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa Books IV and V of Ovid’s Metamorphoses include the version of Perseus’ tale that had the greatest impact upon Cellini. However, Hesiod’s Theogony and Lucan’s Pharsalia contain additional information that would have been impor- tant to the sculptor. Mention of other Greek authors is also due. What follows is Ovid’s account, unless specified otherwise.1 Danae was the daughter of King Acrisius of Argos, who feared an oracle that his future grandson would kill him and therefore become ruler of the land. So one day Acrisius imprisoned Danae to prevent her from meeting suitors. How- ever, Jupiter (Zeus) came to the girl as a shower of gold (he was a sun god) and impregnated Danae with the baby Perseus. For years the princess hid her baby, but it was not long before her father found him out and, according to the 1 Ovid’s, Lucan’s and Hesiod’s versions of Perseus’ tale are the most thorough popular accounts that existed in the Renaissance. Popular scholarly versions include Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller, vols. 1 and 2 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1916), Lucan, Pharsalia, trans. J.D. Duff (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1928), Hesiod, Theogony, trans. Glenn Most (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 2007). Apollodorus’ translation of the canonical version of the tale came into print only in 1555. However, medieval and Renaissance mythographers popularized the latter in Europe. See Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, the Mythological Tradition and its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 225. Seznec’s book is filled with information about Ovid’s immense popularity in the Renaissance. The first published editions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses appeared in Rome and Bologna in 1471 and the first Italian version of the text appeared in Florence in 1497. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004296787_002 2 Chapter 1 canonical version of 700–650 BC, ordered them both to be locked in a chest and thrown into the sea. Luckily, a fisherman called Dictys, whose brother, Polydec- tes ruled the island of Seriphos, saved Danae and Perseus and brought them to the island, where Perseus lived until he reached manhood. Polydectes fell in love with Danae. However, she refused him. Angered by his misfortune, Polydectes ordered Perseus to perform an impossible task so that he would be rid of Danae’s son for good: to bring him the head of Medusa. At one time Medusa was a mortal whose beauty intrigued Poseidon (Nep- tune), the supreme god the sea, and incited the jealousy of the goddess Athena (Minerva). As a result, the latter turned Medusa’s head into a mass of hissing snakes and her face into a sight so frightful that anyone who would look upon it would be turned to stone. Medusa unleashed a vengeful plan to destroy the world. However, with the aid of the gods, Perseus was able to overtake the Gor- gon. He came to Medusa’s lair, which, according to Hesiod’s Theogony (274), lay beyond River Okeanos, at the ‘edge of night,’ where stars and planets vanished for rebirth.2 Cohabitating with Medusa were her two Gorgon sisters, offspring, like their dreadful sister, of Ceto and Phorcys, themselves children of Earth and Sea. The Graiae, who shared one eye and one tooth among them, lived with the Gorgons. Perseus snatched the eye at the instant they were passing it from one to another, so the sisters became blind to his presence. He then coaxed infor- mation about the Gorgons’ whereabouts from them. Again employing deceit, Perseus made Medusa gaze upon her own face in Athena’s bronze mirror-like shield, whereupon she turned herself into stone. Perseus then decapitated her with the harpe, the saw-toothed sickle. The blood from Medusa’s head spawned the winged horse Pegasus and Chrysoar, the so- lar warrior with the golden sword.3 Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Lucan’s Pharsalia (Book IX) emphasize the heights which Perseus traveled on his way home from the Gorgon’s den. “Driv- en this way and that by sparring winds through heaven’s great immensity, as though of no more substance than the dewy mist, he looked down from a great height onto earth as he flew over it.”4 (Metamorphoses, Book IV, 851–855) Ovid and Lucan tell that during Perseus’ flight blood from Medusa’s head met the earth, where it gave rise to serpents in the Libyan desert. 2 All quotations of the Theogony come from Catherine Schlegel’s translation of 2006 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). 3 Hesiod maintained that Pegasus and Chrysoar were born from Medusa’s neck. 4 All quotations of Ovid come from the Metamorphoses, trans. Charles Martin (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005)..
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