'But that's how the gods behaved in Greek mythology - petty, vindictive and cruel. 'Instead of punishing the god, Athena punished the mortal, which was unfair,' says Syropoulos. Poseidon raped Medusa in the Temple of Athena, and the goddess of wisdom and war was so angry that she transformed Medusa's flowing hair into 'loathsome snakes.' The Roman poet Ovid, writing around the time of Christ (first century C.E.), said that Medusa wasn't a monster at first, but a maiden with 'lovely hair' who caught the eye of lustful Poseidon, god of the sea. Each day she boasted of how pretty she was and each day her boasts became more outrageous. Unfortunately, Medusa was very proud of her beauty and thought or spoke of little else. Over the years and as cultures morphed and changed, so did the story of Medusa. Medusa lived in the city of Athens in a country named Greece - and although there were many pretty girls in the city, Medusa was considered the most lovely. What they might not know is why she looked that way. She boasts endlessly about her beauty all the time. Almost anyone you talk to will be able to tell you that Medusa was a monstrous creature with a head of writhing snakes instead of hair. The legend of Medusa is a story about a lady who is very beautiful to begin with.

Gricault astonished viewers by painting, in harrowing detail, not an antique and noble subject but a recent gruesome incident.

Later stories doubled down on the unfairness of Medusa's fate. Medusa by Arnold Bcklin, circa 1878 Medusa’s Story Throughout History. Thodore Gricault: The Raft of the Medusa The Raft of the Medusa, painting (1819) by French Romantic artist Thodore Gricault depicting the survivors of a shipwreck adrift and starving on a raft. Writing a century after Hesiod, Greek poet Stasinus of Cyprus described Medusa and her Gorgon sisters as 'fearful monsters who lived in Sarpedon, a rocky island in deep-eddying Oceanus.' The word Gorgon comes from the Greek gorgos meaning 'terrible.' Greek playwright Aeschylus, writing in the fifth century B.C.E., filled in the details of the Gorgons' horrific appearance: 'three winged sisters, the snake-haired Gorgons, loathed of mankind, whom no one of mortal kind shall look upon and still draw breath.' 'Not to mention that she was born from a 'monstrous' relationship.' Medusa is a monster she kills everyone, the one who ever gets looked upon by her turns into a stone, she is cursed, people of her time never ever like her. 'There's something monstrous and unfair in that Medusa's the only mortal,' says Syropoulos. The myth of Medusa tells the story of Perseus and his quest to defeat Medusa, a woman transformed into an evil creature who turns men to stone.

The story of medusa