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Medusa Meets Her Doom

One of the best-known monsters from Greek mythology is Medusa, one of three
hideous sisters known as the Gorgons. They had wings, snakes for hair, and it
was said that Medusa (and in some accounts her sisters, Sthenno and Euryale,
too) turned people and animals into stone pillars simply by looking at them. Myth
tellers differed as to where the Gorgons’ island was located. According to Hesiod,
it lay “beyond the stream of the famous Ocean, on the [world’s] edge near night.”
The most famous myth featuring Medusa begins with the hero Perseus
deciding to seek her out and slay her. The young man rst enlisted the help of
the messenger god Hermes, who showed him how to nd the Gorgons’ island.
Hermes also handed Perseus a pair of winged sandals that gave him the ability
to y and a special cap that made him invisible. In addition, the goddess Athena
gave the hero a metal shield so polished that it could be used as a mirror. With
these tools, Perseus ew to the island and found Medusa sleeping on a at rock.
He did not look at her directly. Instead, he gazed only at her harmless re ection in
the shield’s surface. Medusa soon awakened and seemed to sense that trouble
was afoot. But because the cap Perseus wore made him invisible, she could not
see him. He ew above her and, when he deemed the moment right, swung his
sword, separating her horrible head from her equally repulsive body.

Hesiod, Theogony, in Hesiod and Theognis, trans. Dorothea Wender. New York: Penguin, 1982, p. 32.

One of the chief myths in which Cerberus played a pivotal role
involved the famous strongman Heracles (better known today by
his Roman name, Hercules). In the last of twelve fantastic feats
he performed at the behest of a king named Eurystheus, the hero
descended into the underworld and captured the many-headed
dog. Binding the creature and lugging it up to the earth’s surface,
Heracles presented it to Eurystheus. The king was so scared that
he hid inside a large bronze jar. His voice quavering, he ordered
the strongman to take the beast back where it came from, and
Heracles obediently did so.

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