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Gorgon

.

Anything unusually hideous. There were three Gorgons, with serpents on their heads instead of hair: Meduʹsa was the chief of the three, and the only one that was mortal; but so hideous was her face that whoever set eyes on it was instantly turned into stone. She was slain by Perseus, and her head placed on the shield of Minerva.

“Lest Gorgon rising from the infernal lakes

With horrors armed, and curls of hissing snakes,

Should fix me, stiffened at the monstrous sight,

A stony image in eternal night.”


Odyssey, xi.


“What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone?

But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace, that dashed brute violence

With sudden adoration and blank awe.”


Milton: Comus, 458–463.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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