The Gorgon Medusa and her two sons Pegasus and Chrysaor - Arte e mitologia

“She bore too the Gorgons who dwell near renowned Okeanos at the borders of the night beside the clear-toned Hesperides, Sthenno, Euryale and Medusa who suffered grievously. She was mortal, while they were immortal and ageless, the two. With the one, Medusa, the Azure-maned (Κυανοχαίτης) lay in a soft meadow and amid the spring flowers. When Perseus cut her head from her neck, mighty Chrysaor leaped out and the horse Pegasos.The latter had this name because he was born beside Ωκεανού πηγά (sources of the Ocean) while the other was born holding a golden sword in his hands. He [Chrysaor], flying upwards, left the earth mother of flocks, reached the immortals. He lives in the halls of Zeus and brings to Zeus the counsellor his thunder and flash.” (Hes. Theo, 276-286).
This was the version of the myth ‘reworked’ by the patriarchal religion of Olympian Zeus. But, before this, what matriarchal version of the myth of the glorious Medusa had inspired the sculpture on the Corfu fronton? And what was the original meaning behind the names of her children?
Unearthed at the site of the great temple of Artemis on Corfu, the fronton depicting the Gorgon Medusa is unique amongst archaeological finds relating to the Graeco-Latin world. This is true not only for the size of the sculptures but also for the fact that the work demonstrates how, prior to the demonization of the goddess Medusa by the Olympian religion centred around Zeus, that female figure was adored and glorified as the true face of the goddess of the Moon.
Medusa (in ancient Greek, Μέδουσα) meant “Lady” or “Protectress”, and derived from the verbs mèdo (μέδω = to reign, to maintain) and “medéo” (μεδέω = “to take care of”, “to protect”). Hence Medusa was a partially anthropomorphized figure of the Moon goddess, the higher deity that illuminated the night to prevent us from going astray; the rather sad expression in her eyes was that of a mother who feels our pain, whilst the open mouth shows her to be in the act of prophesizing and giving counsel, or perhaps singing, or even crying out in pain as she gives birth to the waters that she delivers from the heavens to slake our thirst.  
At the dawn of history, the Protectress Moon must have been depicted as we see her here, with a roundish head and the face characterised by the wide-open eyes. Subsequently, the depictions must also have included the addition of two or three wings to the sides of the head – such as we see in the bronze apotropaic figure whose magic enhanced the defences of an Archaic-age shield now in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. These wings symbolised the fact that the Moon flies through the heavens like a bird.
Then the depiction became more anthropomorphized, with the addition of a female torso and arms. However, this form was definitely that of a divine figure and thus also included animal attributes, the symbolic body ending in a fish’s tail (a symbol of the waters that she delivers) and the front legs being those of a lioness (a symbol of the superhuman strength with which she commands the waters of the sea to swell up into tides). This is the form in which another apotropaic image of the Medusa appears in the bronze decoration of an different Archaic-age shield in the Olympia museum.
Subsequently, those venerating the goddess tried to give her a much more human form. The characteristic ‘full moon’ face was maintained, but it was now shown atop a fully human body, though with the addition of wings (on the shoulders and sandals). This is how she appears on a black-figure Attic bowl of 600-575 B.C., the work of ‘Anagyros Painter’, now in the Athens Archaeological Museum. Here, the image shows the goddess running left to right: within the northern hemisphere, when we look towards the Moon we always look south and thus always see it as rising in the East (that is, to our left) and then move across the sky to the West (our right). From this period onwards the Gorgon is always shown moving in this direction.
Probably the women of the prehistoric period interpreted the different phases of the Moon as changes in the veiling across the face of the divine Protectress, who thus hide her features to a greater or lesser degree. However, others saw the first sickle of the crescent moon as the goddess’s small child, as the first wellspring and source of lunar light. This would explain why it was called Pegasus (Πήγασος), the name deriving from words that mean “a source” or “a spring”: peghè (πηγή) or pagà (Pindar uses παγά in a figurative sense to mean “the source of all song”). Thus Pegasus was depicted as a winged horse: winged because it manages to hold itself suspended in the heavens; a horse because the crescent moon ressembles the form of a horse’s neck along the curve of the mane. Horses were also associated with water, the gift of the Lady of the Heavens, because the crested waves of the sea and of mountain torrents ressembled the flying mane of horses. In modern Italian, high waves are still referred to as cavalloni [big horses], just as in modern English they are “white horses”.  
The sickle of the waning moon was also considered by some to be the goddess’s son. Here, however, the appearance of a gilded curve was associated with the sickle used to cut grain (another gift of the goddess of fertility) and thus the son was called Chrysaor (Χρυσάωρ) meaning “sword of gold”: άορ = sword or a weapon in general (for example, a trident or a rhinoceros’s horn); Χρυσός = gold. The epithet Χρυσάωρ was also used of Zeus, the Lord of Lightning; of Apollo and Artemis, the archer-gods; and of Demeter, the bearer of the torch.
The Lady of the Heavens, a protectress and mother, a nourisher of men and animals, was, therefore, a highly venerated goddess of light, water and fertility, possessing the superhuman force needed to regenerate life each springtime; this was why she was associated with the power of lionesses. From this goddess poured forth the waters that swelled streams and rivulets, whose winding course resembled that of twisting snakes; this was why the goddess’s neck, hair and waist were shown writhing with serpents. Indeed, one thousand years later, the god of Medicine, Asclepius, who harnessed the healing powers of water, was not ashamed to take as a symbol of health the serpent he nourished. Athena herself would protect the serpent under her shield, and she would protect herself with an aegis adorned with snakes. Similarly, Triptolemus, the hero who taught mankind how to cultivate wheat, travelled in a chariot drawn by serpents, whilst Hermes, the messenger god, bore as his sceptre of office a caduceus around which were entwined the bodies of two snakes that faced each other.

But then the veneration of the gods of Olympus became dominant and Zeus was Lord of the Heavens, which meant Gorgon was stripped of her position as Lady of the Skies. At this point the ‘full-moon’ face became an attribute of the goddess Hera (who was also known as Gorga, Γοργάς) and the beneficent power of the sickle of the crescent moon now became the property of Artemis and was reflected in the shape of her hunting bow. The venerators of the new gods demonised the serpents of the goddess of fertility and transformed the gentle child Chrysaor into Perseus, whose blade sliced off the head of the hideous Medusa. This horror-film version of events must have arised from the fact that the phase of the waning moon is followed by one in which the moon is entirely dark – a phase that was interpreted in these terms: “the head of Medusa is absent; she has been beheaded.” But where had the severed head gone to? It had, of course, been taken by the goddess Athena, daughter of Zeus, who hung it about her neck as the Gorgoneion, which was both an intimidating warning and a talisman of fertility. And Perseus (Περσεύς) is nothing other than the male version of the ocean goddess Perseìs (Περσηίς, perhaps from pertiìs, earlier petris, petra and πέτρα, all meaning ‘rock’), who was mother of Circe (the “circular” moon goddess) and a moon goddess herself. Persìa, in fact, was an epithet used of the lunar goddess Artemis; but once the poor lunar goddess Perseìs had been demonised, the term persis (πέρσις-εως, ή) took on the negative meaning of “destruction”. And thus the goddess “Rock” became dangerous precisely because she petrified those who still dared to venerate her.
Now to be seen in the Corfu museum, the fronton from the temple of Artemis and Medusa is proof that, prior to the demonization of the Gorgon, the two religions coexisted side-by-side on the island; the matriarchal religion of the Protectress and the patriarchal religion of Artemis, lunar daugther of Zeus, were two forms of worship that were respected by all. And in that image we see Medusa as a loving mother who teaches her children the direction in which they are to run.