Gorgo
Gorgo, a Gorgon; plur. Gorgones, the three daughters of Phorcus, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, with beautiful faces, snakes for hair, and a petrifying look
Frieze-Dennison Vergil
- a daughter of Phorcus, called Medusa, whose hair consisted of snakes, and who turned all she looked upon to stone; she was killed by Perseus. Her head was fixed on the shield of Pallas, and from her blood sprang the winged horse Pegasus, Ov. M. 4, 699; 5, 180; 202; Verg. A. 2, 616; 8, 438; Val. Fl. 3, 54; Mart. 9, 26, 5; Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 56, § 124.—In apposition: ora Medusae Gorgonis anguineis cincta fuisse comis, Ov. Tr. 4, 7, 12.— Plur., the Gorgons, the three daughters of Phorcus, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, all of whom are described as above, Verg. A. 6, 289; Plin. 6, 31, 36, § 200; Mart. 10, 4, 9. —
- II Derivv.
- A Gorgŏnĕus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Gorgon, Gorgonian: crines, Ov. M. 4, 801; 5, 196: domus, the dwelling of Gorgon, id. ib. 4, 779: ignis, id. A. A. 3, 504: venena, i.e. snaky hair like that of Gorgon, Verg. A. 7, 341: equus, i.e. Pegasus, Ov. F. 3, 450; Stat. Th. 4, 61: caballus, the same, Juv. 3, 118.—Hence also: lacus, the fountain Hippocrene, on Mount Helicon, which burst forth where Pegasus struck the ground with his hoof, Prop. 3, 3 (4, 2), 32.—
- B Gorgŏnĭa, ae, f., coral (which hardens in the air), Plin. 37, 10, 59, § 164.
~ones ‥ in monstruosa mulierum natura iij quae dicebantur Stheno, Euriale, Medusa
si inveneris lapidem in quo sit Perseus habens ‥ in sinistra [manu ] caput ~onis ‥
~ones, meretrice, lupe, nonarie
homines caprarum cornua et pedes habentes, quos alii ~ones, alii Gaulales nominant
and GO'RGONES (Γοργώ and Γόργονες). Homer knows only one Gorgo, who, according to the Odyssey (11.633)), was one of the frightful phantoms in Hades: in the Iliad (5.741, 8.349, 11.36; comp. Verg. A. 6.289), the Aegis of Athena contains the head of Gorgo, the terror of her enemies. Euripides (Eur. Ion 989) still speaks of only one Gorgo, although Hesiod (Theoy. 278) had mentioned three Gorgones, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, whence they are sometimes called Phorcydes or Phorcides. (Aeschyl. Prom. 793, 797; Pind. P. 12.24; Ov. Met. 5.230.) The names of the three Gorgones are Stheino (Stheno or Stenusa), Euryale, and Medusa (Hes. l.c.; Apollod. 2.4.2), and they are conceived by Hesiod to live in the Western Ocean, in the neighbourhood of Night and the Hesperides. But later traditions place them in Libya. (Hdt. 2.91; Paus. 2.21.6.) They are described (Scut. Here. 233) as girded with serpents, raising their heads, vibrating their tongues, and gnashing their teeth; Aeschylus (Prom. 794. &c., Choeph. 1050) adds that they had wings and brazen claws, and enormous teeth. On the chest of Cypselus they were likewise represented with wings. (Paus. 5.18.1.) Medusa, who alone of her sisters was mortal, was, according to some legends, at first a beautiful maiden, but her hair was changed into serpents by Athena, in consequence of her having become by Poseidon the mother of Chrysaor and Pegasus, in one of Athena's temples. (Hes. Th. 287, &c.; Apollod. 2.4.3; Ov. Met. 4.792; comp. Perseus.) Her head was now of so fearful an appearance, that every one who looked at it was changed into stone. Hence the great difficulty which Perseus had in killing her; and Athena afterwards placed the head in the centre of her shield or breastplate. There was a tradition at Athens that the head of Medusa was buried under a mound in the Agora. (Paus. 2.21.6, 5.12.2.) Athena gave to Heracles a lock of Medusa (concealed in an urn), for it had a similar effect upon the beholder as the head itself. When Heracles went out against Lacedaemon he gave the lock of hair to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection of the town of Tegea, as the sight of it would put the enemy to fight. (Paus. 8.47.4; Apollod. 2.7.3.)
The mythus respecting the family of Phorcys, to which also the Graeae, Hesperides, Scylla, and other fabulous beings belonged, has been interpreted in various ways by the ancients themselves. Some believed that the Gorgones were formidable animals with long hair, whose aspect was so frightful, that men were paralysed or killed by it, and some of the soldiers of Marius were believed to have thus met with their death (Ath. 5.64). Pliny (Plin. Nat. 4.31) thought that they were a race of savage, swift, and hair-covered women; and Diodorus (3.55) regards them as a race of women inhabiting the western parts of Libya, who had been extirpated by Heracles in traversing Libya. These explanations may not suffice, and are certainly not so ingenious as those of Hug, Hermann, Creuzer, Böttiger, and others, but none of them has any strong degree of probability. [L.S]
(Γοργώ), a lyric poetess, a contemporary and rival of Sappho, who often attacked her in her poems. (Max. Tyr. Diss. 24.9, vol. i. p. 478, ed. Reiske.) On the relations of Sappho to her female contemporaries, see, besides the dissertation just quoted, Müller, Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, vol. i. p. 177. [P.S]
[Cleomenes, p. 793a.]
- , Γοργώ, a Gorgon; plur. Gorgones, the three daughters of Phorcus, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, with beautiful faces, snakes for hair, and a petrifying look, C., V., O., Iu.
or Gorgon (Γοργώ).
(1) The wife of Leonidas, king of Sparta. A fine repartee of hers is given by Plutarch. When a woman, a stranger, observed to her, “You Spartan women are the only ones that rule men,” she replied, “True, for we are the only ones that give birth to men” (Plut. Lacon. Apophth.).
(2) (Γοργώ). The capital of the Chorasmii in Bactriana. It is supposed to correspond to the modern Urghenz.
(3) (Γοργώ). Homer makes mention of the terrible head of the Gorgon, a formidable monster (Odyss. xi. 633). This head is a terror in Hades, and in the aegis of Zeus. Hesiod speaks of three Gorgons: Stheno (Valeria, the mighty), Euryalé (Lativolva, the wide-wandering), and Medusa (Guberna, the ruler). They are the daughters of the aged sea-god Phorcys and Ceto, and sisters of the Graiae. (See Graiae.) They dwell on the farthest shore of Ocean, in the neighbourhood of Night and of the Hesperides. They are awful beings, with hair and girdles of snakes, whose look turns the beholder to stone. They are also often represented with golden wings, brazen claws, and enormous teeth. Medusa is mortal, but the other two immortal. When Perseus cut off Medusa's head, Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus, with whom she was with child by Poseidon, sprang forth from the streaming blood. The head was given by Perseus to Athené, who set it in her shield. Heracles received a lock of the hair from Athené as a present. When endeavouring to persuade Cephalus of Tegea to take part in his expedition against Hippocoön of Sparta, the king represented that he feared an attack from his enemies the Argives in Heracles's absence. Heracles accordingly gave to Steropé, the daughter of Cephalus, the lock of Medusa's hair in a brazen urn, bidding her, in case the enemy approached, to avert her head and hold it three times over the walls, for the mere aspect of it would turn the enemy to flight.
In consequence of the belief in this power of the Gorgon 's head, or Gorgoneion, to paralyze and terrify an enemy, the Greeks carved images of it in its most terrifying forms, not only on armour of all sorts, especially shields and breastplates, but also on walls and gates. Thus, on the south wall of the Athenian Acropolis, a large gilded Gorgoneion was set on an aegis (Pausan. i. 21. 4). In the popular belief the Gorgon 's head was also a means of protection against all enchantment, whether of word or act, and we thus find it throughout Greek history employed as a powerful amulet, and often carved with graceful settings on decorative furniture and costly ornaments. But the Greek artists, with their innate sense of beauty, knew, even in the case of the Gorgon , how to give adequate expression to the idea which lay at the root of the story. The story said that Medusa had been a fair maiden, whose luxuriant hair had been turned by Athené into snakes in revenge for the desecration of her sanctuary. Accordingly the head of Medusa is represented in works of art with a countenance of touching beauty, and a wealth of hair wreathed with snakes. The face was imagined as itself in the stillness of death, and thus bearing the power to turn the living to stone. The most beautiful surviving instance of this conception is the Rondanini Medusa now at Munich. The story of Medusa has suggested several fine bits of English verse, among them D. G. Rossetti's Aspecta Medusa and Hake's sonnet, The Infant Medusa.
- king of Sparta: Hdt. 5.48
- her advice to Cleomenes: Hdt. 5.51
- her interpretation of a message: Hdt. 7.239
- Apollod. 2.1.5