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61-505: Minerve is the French spelling of Minerva , an ancient Roman goddess. Minerve or La Minerve may refer to: Minerva Minerva is a virgin goddess. Her domain includes music, poetry , medicine , wisdom , commerce , weaving , and the crafts . Minerva is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named the " owl of Minerva ". which symbolised her association with wisdom and knowledge, as well as, less frequently,

122-423: A beauty, the name in common usage "came to mean monster." The book Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne Devane notes that "When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind ... In one interview after another we were told that Medusa is 'the most horrific woman in the world' ... [though] none of

183-510: A common theme in art in the nineteenth century, when her myth was retold in Thomas Bulfinch 's Mythology . Edward Burne-Jones ' Perseus Cycle of paintings and a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley gave way to the twentieth-century works of Paul Klee , John Singer Sargent , Pablo Picasso , Pierre et Gilles , and Auguste Rodin 's bronze sculpture The Gates of Hell . The head of Medusa is featured on some regional symbols. One example

244-565: A cow being sacrificed to Minerva among the many sacrifices made as a part of the New Year vows. In Fasti III, Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works" due to all of the things she was associated with. Minerva was worshipped throughout Italy, and when she eventually became equated with the Greek goddess Athena, she also became a goddess of battle. Unlike Mars, god of war, she was sometimes portrayed with sword lowered, in sympathy for

305-459: A greater amount of protection from the goddess of crafts. Some women would also have images of her on accessories such as hairpins or jewellery. She was even featured on some funerary art on coffins and signet rings. During Roman rule, Minerva became equated with the Celtic goddess Sulis , to the degree where their names were used both together and interchangeably. She was believed to preside over

366-415: A horrid monster predate Ovid. In classical Greek art, the depiction of Medusa shifted from hideous beast to an attractive young woman, both aggressor and victim, a tragic figure in her death. The earliest of those depictions comes courtesy of Polygnotus , who drew Medusa as a comely woman sleeping peacefully as Perseus beheads her. As the act of killing a beautiful maiden in her sleep is rather unheroic, it

427-565: A map to guide us through our terrors, through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women." In issue three, Fall 1986 for the magazine Woman of Power an article called Gorgons: A Face for Contemporary Women's Rage, appeared, written by Emily Erwin Culpepper, who wrote that "The Amazon Gorgon face is female fury personified. The Gorgon/Medusa image has been rapidly adopted by large numbers of feminists who recognize her as one face of our own rage." Griselda Pollock analyses

488-511: A story that seeks to place the male, Perseus, at its center, blameless and heroic. Author Sibylle Baumbach described Medusa as a "multimodal image of intoxication, petrifaction, and luring attractiveness", citing her seductive contemporary representation, as well as her dimensionality, as the reason for her longevity. Elizabeth Johnston's November 2016 Atlantic essay called Medusa the original 'Nasty Woman.' Johnston goes on to say that as Medusa has been repeatedly compared to Hillary Clinton during

549-506: A sword from Hephaestus and Hades 's helm of invisibility . Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her; he did so while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon . When Perseus beheaded her, Pegasus , a winged horse, and Chrysaor , a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body. Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head

610-633: A trio of sisters was a secondary feature in the myth: The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general tendency... which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given us the Horae , the Charites , the Semnai , and a host of other triple groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three but one + two. The two unslain sisters are mere appendages due to custom;

671-520: A weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield . In classical antiquity , the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion . According to Hesiod and Aeschylus , she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene . The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya , where Herodotus had said

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732-511: A web would forever be a reminder to Arachne of her actions that offended the gods. This story also acted as a warning to mortals not to challenge the gods. Medusa was once a beautiful human girl with magnificent hair, she was also a priestess of Minerva. Neptune was obsessed with her and lusted after her. One day Neptune was watching her pray in the Temple of Minerva and decided to act upon his lustful obsession. He forced himself on Medusa but she

793-507: Is archaeological evidence to suggest that Minerva was worshipped not only in a formal civic fashion, but also by individuals on a more personal level. Minerva is featured on the coinage of different Roman emperors . She often is represented on the reverse side of a coin holding an owl and a spear among her attributes. During the Roman occupation of Britain , it was common for carpenters to own tools ornamented with images of Minerva to invoke

854-459: Is famously portrayed in an outfit inspired by Minerva, and also wrote poems in her honour. Medusa In Greek mythology , Medusa ( / m ɪ ˈ dj uː z ə , - s ə / ; Ancient Greek : Μέδουσα , romanized :  Médousa , lit.   'guardian, protectress'), also called Gorgo ( Ancient Greek : Γοργώ ) or the Gorgon , was one of the three Gorgons . Medusa

915-550: Is furious with Aglauros. She seeks the assistance of Envy , who fills Aglauros with so much envy for the good fortune of others that she turns to stone . Mercury fails to seduce Herse. Minerva assisted the hero Hercules . In Hyginus ' Fabulae she is said to have helped him kill the Hydra (30.3). Minerva assisted the hero Ulysses . Hyginus describes in his work Fabulae that Minerva changes Odysseus' appearance in order to protect and assist him multiple times (126). Minerva

976-439: Is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was turned to stone . Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto ; of the three, only Medusa was mortal. Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus , who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as

1037-453: Is not clear whether those vases are meant to elicit sympathy for Medusa's fate, or to mock the traditional hero. In most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus , who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from Athena , sandals with gold wings from Hermes ,

1098-655: Is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object , a ritual mask misunderstood." In the Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa: Lest for my daring Persephone the dread, From Hades should send up an awful monster's grisly head. Harrison's translation states that "the Gorgon

1159-563: Is the Lie that makes him free. Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis ; men dare not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie ." Medusa has been depicted in several works of art, including: Medusa remained

1220-410: Is thought to have invented the flute by piercing holes into boxwood. She enjoyed the music, but became embarrassed by how it made her face look when her cheeks puffed out to play. Because of this she threw it away and it landed on a riverbank where it was found by a satyr . The Romans celebrated her festival from March 19 to March 23 during the day that is called, in the neuter plural, Quinquatria ,

1281-440: Is widely known as a monstrous creature with snakes in her hair whose gaze turns men to stone. Through the lens of theology, film, art, and feminist literature, my students and I map how her meaning has shifted over time and across cultures. In so doing, we unravel a familiar narrative thread: In Western culture, strong women have historically been imagined as threats requiring male conquest and control, and Medusa herself has long been

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1342-469: The Acta Arvalia , a cow was sacrificed to Minerva on October 13 58 AD along with many other sacrifices to celebrate the anniversary of Nero coming to power. On January 3 81 AD, as a part of the New Year vows, two cows were sacrificed to Minerva (among many others) to secure the well-being of the emperor Titus, Domitian Caesar, Julia Augusta, and their children. On January 3 87 AD there is again record of

1403-527: The Amphisbaena (a horned dragon-like creature with a snake-headed tail). Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was being forced into marriage with the king, Polydectes, who was turned into stone by the head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis . Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that the tripling of Medusa into

1464-556: The Aventine Hill . Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus . The Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important center of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic . As Minerva Medica , she was the goddess of medicine and physicians. As Minerva Achaea , she was worshipped at Lucera in Apulia where votive gifts and arms said to be those of Diomedes were preserved in her temple. According to

1525-679: The Berbers originated her myth as part of their religion . The three Gorgons —Medusa, Stheno , and Euryale —were described by Hesiod and Apollodorus as offspring of the sea-god Phorcys and his sister Ceto ; according to Hyginus , however, their parents were "Gorgon" and Ceto. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae , as in Aeschylus 's Prometheus Bound , which places both trios of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain": Near them their sisters three,

1586-605: The Quinquatria by appointing a college of priests who were to stage plays and animal games in addition to poetry and oratory competitions. A lesser version, the Minusculae Quinquatria , was held on the Ides of June, June 13, by the flute-players , as Minerva was thought to have invented the flute. In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on

1647-424: The 2016 presidential election, she proves her merit as an icon, finding relevance even in modern politics. "Medusa has since haunted Western imagination, materializing whenever male authority feels threatened by female agency," writes Johnston. Beyond that, Medusa's story is, Johnston argues, a rape narrative. A story of victim blaming , one that she says sounds all too familiar in a current American context. Medusa

1708-468: The Gorgons, winged With snakes for hair—hatred of mortal man While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa". In a late version of the Medusa myth, by

1769-558: The Mystery of the Gorgon , questioned Medusa's enduring status among the feminist movement. He believes that one reason for her longevity may be her role as a protector, fearsome and enraged. "Only the Gorgon has the savage, threatening appearance to serve as an immediately recognized symbol of rage and a protector of women's secrets," wrote Wilk. Even in contemporary pop culture, Medusa has become largely synonymous with feminine rage. Through many of her iterations, Medusa pushes back against

1830-499: The PIE derivative * menes-ueh₂ ("provided with a mind, intelligent") as the transitional form. The myth of Minerva's birth follows that of Athena. In it, Minerva was borne of Metis , who had been swallowed by Jupiter , and burst from her father's head, fully grown and clad in armour. Jupiter had sex with the titaness Metis, which resulted in her attempting to change shape (or shapeshift ) to escape him. Jupiter then recalled

1891-593: The Roman poet Ovid , Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Poseidon ) mated with her in Minerva 's temple (Minerva being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena ), Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. Although no earlier versions mention this, ancient depictions of Medusa as a beautiful maiden instead of

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1952-440: The conscious mind. In 1940, Sigmund Freud 's "Das Medusenhaupt ( Medusa's Head )" was published posthumously. In Freud's interpretation: "To decapitate = to castrate. The terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something. Numerous analyses have made us familiar with the occasion for this: it occurs when a boy, who has hitherto been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight of

2013-641: The face of a quarry next to the River Dee . Stemming from an Italic moon goddess * Meneswā ('She who measures'), the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, * Menerwā , thereby calling her Menrva . It is presumed that her Roman name, Minerva, is based on this Etruscan mythology . Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools, justice and commerce. She was the Etruscan counterpart to Greek Athena . Like Athena, Minerva burst from

2074-586: The false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing. Inscribe the breath of the whole woman." Cixous wants to destroy the phallogocentric system, and to empower women's bodies and language. "You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her," writes Cixous. "And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing." Medusa has sometimes appeared as representing notions of scientific determinism and nihilism , especially in contrast with romantic idealism . In this interpretation of Medusa, attempts to avoid looking into her eyes represent avoiding

2135-421: The female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by hair, and essentially those of his mother." In this perspective the "ravishingly beautiful" Medusa (see above) is the mother remembered in innocence; before the mythic truth of castration dawns on the subject. Classic Medusa, in contrast, is an Oedipal/libidinous symptom. Looking at the forbidden mother (in her hair-covered genitals, so to speak) stiffens

2196-533: The fifth day after the Ides of March, the nineteenth, an artisans ' holiday. This festival was of deepest importance to artists and craftsmen as she was the patron goddess of crafting and arts. According to Ovid ( Fasti 3.809) the festival was 5 days long, and the first day was said to be the anniversary of Minerva's birth, so no blood was to be shed. The following four days were full of games of "drawn swords" in honour of Minerva's military association. Suetonius tells us (Life of Domitian 4.4) that Domitian celebrated

2257-599: The fight. In order to do this he slept in Minerva's temple, and she came to him with a golden bridle. When Pegasus saw Bellerophon with the bridle the horse immediately allowed Bellerophon to mount, and they defeated the Chimera. Metamorphoses by Ovid tell the story of Minerva and Aglauros . When Mercury comes to seduce mortal virgin Herse , her sister Aglauros is driven by her greed to help him. Minerva discovers this and

2318-413: The go-to figure for those seeking to demonize female authority. The Medusa story has also been interpreted in contemporary art as a classic case of rape-victim blaming, by the goddess Athena. Inspired by the #metoo movement , contemporary figurative artist Judy Takács returns Medusa's beauty along with a hashtag stigmata in her portrait, #Me(dusa)too. Feminist theorist Hélène Cixous famously tackled

2379-433: The goddess' unresolved conflicts with her own father Zeus . In the 20th century, feminists reassessed Medusa's appearances in literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a logo by fashion company Versace . The name "Medusa" itself is often used in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the gorgon's abilities or to connote malevolence; despite her claimed origins as

2440-909: The head of her father, Jupiter (Greek Zeus ), who had devoured her mother (Metis) in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent her birth. By a process of folk etymology , the Romans could have linked her foreign name to the root men- in Latin words such as mens meaning "mind", perhaps because one of her aspects as goddess pertained to the intellectual. The word mens is built from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- 'mind' (linked with memory as in Greek Mnemosyne /μνημοσύνη and mnestis /μνῆστις: memory, remembrance, recollection, manush in Sanskrit meaning mind). The Etruscan Menrva

2501-565: The healing hot springs located in Bath . Though Minerva is not a water deity, her association with intellectual professions as Minerva Medica she could also be thought of as a healing goddess, the epigraphic evidence present makes it clear that this is how Minerva was thought of in Bath. Some of the archaeological evidence present in Bath leads scholars to believe that it was thought Minerva could provide full healing from things such as rheumatism via

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2562-517: The hot springs if she was given full credit for the healing. The temple of Sulis Minerva was known for having a miraculous altar-fire that burned coal as opposed to the traditional wood. There is evidence of worship of Minerva Medica in Carrawburgh due to archaeological evidence such as a relief depicting her and Aesculapius . There is a shrine dedicated to Minerva in Edgar's Field built in

2623-427: The latter being apotropaic faces worn to frighten away the profane. That is to say, there occurred in the early thirteenth century B.C. an actual historic rupture, a sort of sociological trauma, which has been registered in this myth, much as what Freud terms the latent content of a neurosis is registered in the manifest content of a dream: registered yet hidden, registered in the unconscious yet unknown or misconstrued by

2684-652: The myth in her essay "The Laugh of the Medusa." She argues that men's retelling of the narrative turned Medusa into a monster because they feared female desire. "The Laugh of the Medusa" is largely a call to arms, urging women to reclaim their identity through writing as she rejects the patriarchal society of Western culture. Cixous calls writing "an act which will not only 'realize' the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal." She claims "we must kill

2745-596: The ostensibly depressing reality that the universe is meaningless. Jack London uses Medusa in this way in his novel The Mutiny of the Elsinore : I cannot help remembering a remark of De Casseres . It was over the wine in Mouquin's. Said he: "The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It

2806-448: The passage from horrorism to compassion in the figure of the Medusa through Adriana Cavarero 's philosophy and Bracha Ettinger 's art and Matrixial theory. Elana Dykewomon 's 1976 collection of lesbian stories and poems, They Will Know Me by My Teeth , features a drawing of a Gorgon on its cover. Its purpose was to act as a guardian for female power, keeping the book solely in the hands of women. Stephen Wilk, author of Medusa: Solving

2867-496: The price for it. This angered Minerva, and she took the form of an old woman to approach Arachne, offering her a chance to take back her challenge and ask forgiveness. When Arachne refused, Minerva rid herself of her disguise and took Arachne up on her challenge. Arachne began to weave a tapestry that showed the shortcomings of the gods, while Minerva depicted her competition with Neptune and the gods looking down with disgust on mortals who would dare to challenge them. Minerva's weaving

2928-537: The prophecy that his own child would overthrow him, as he had Saturn , and in turn, Saturn had Caelus . Fearing that their child would be male, and would grow stronger than he was and rule the Heavens in his place, Jupiter swallowed Metis whole after tricking her into turning herself into a fly. The Titaness gave birth to Minerva and forged weapons and armour for her child while within Jupiter's body. In some versions of

2989-503: The real Gorgon is Medusa. Several early classics scholars interpreted the myth of Medusa as a quasi-historical – "based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, style, etc., in the past", or "sublimated" memory of an actual invasion. According to Joseph Campbell : The legend of Perseus beheading Medusa means, specifically, that "the Hellenes overran the goddess's chief shrines" and "stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks",

3050-402: The recent dead, rather than raised in triumph and battle lust. In Rome her bellicose nature was emphasized less than elsewhere. According to Livy 's History of Rome (7.3), the annual nail marking the year, a process where the praetor maximus drove a nail in to formally keep track of the current year, happened in the temple of Minerva because she was thought to have invented numbers. There

3111-574: The severed head to Minerva, who placed its image on her Aegis . When Perseus beheaded Medusa some of the blood spilled onto the ground, and from it came Pegasus . Minerva caught the horse and tamed it before gifting the horse to the Muses . It was a kick from the hoof of Pegasus that opened the fountain Hippocrene . When Bellerophon later went to fight the Chimera he sought to use Pegasus in

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3172-576: The shore during his short stay in Ethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda , who was the most beautiful woman in the world at that time. Furthermore, the venomous vipers of the Sahara , in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood. The blood of Medusa also spawned

3233-566: The snake and the olive tree . Minerva is commonly depicted as tall with an athletic and muscular build. She is often wearing armour and carrying a spear. As an important Roman goddess, she is highly revered, honored, and respected. Marcus Terentius Varro considered her to be ideal and the plan for the universe personified. The name Minerva stems from Proto-Italic * meneswo ("intelligent, understanding"), and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) * menos ("thought"). Helmut Rix (1981) and Gerhard Meiser (1998) have proposed

3294-554: The stories of her Greek counterpart Athena are attributed to Minerva in Roman mythology, such as that of the naming of Athens resulting from a competition between Minerva and Neptune , in which Minerva created the olive tree. Arachne was a mortal highly proficient in weaving and embroidery. Not only were her finished works beautiful, but also her process, so much so that nymphs would come out of their natural environments to watch her work. Arachne boasted that her skills could beat those of Minerva, and if she were wrong she would pay

3355-511: The story, Metis continued to live inside of Jupiter's mind as the source of his wisdom. Others say she was simply a vessel for the birth of Minerva. The constant pounding and ringing left Jupiter with agonizing pain. To relieve the pain, Vulcan used a hammer to split Jupiter's head and, from the cleft, Minerva emerged, whole, adult, and in full battle armour. Minerva is a prominent figure in Roman mythology . She appears in many famous myths. Many of

3416-516: The subject in illicit desire and freezes him in terror of the Father's retribution. There are no recorded instances of Medusa turning a woman to stone. Archetypal literary criticism continues to find psychoanalysis useful. Beth Seelig chooses to interpret Medusa's punishment as resulting from rape rather than the common interpretation of having willingly consented in Athena's temple, as an outcome of

3477-491: The women we interviewed could remember the details of the myth." Medusa's visage has since been adopted by many women as a symbol of female rage; one of the first publications to express this idea was a feminist journal called Women: A Journal of Liberation in their issue one, volume six for 1978. The cover featured the image of the Gorgon Medusa by Froggi Lupton, which the editors on the inside cover explained "can be

3538-530: Was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon." According to Ovid , in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas , who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed Atlas into a stone when Atlas tried to attack him. In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside

3599-414: Was meant as a final warning to her foe to back down. Minerva was insulted by the scenes that Arachne was weaving, and destroyed it. She then touched Arachne on the forehead, which made her feel shame for what she had done, leading her to hang herself. Minerva then felt bad for the woman, and brought her back to life. However, Minerva transformed her into a spider as punishment for her actions, and hanging from

3660-558: Was not strong enough to fight him off. Minerva was furious this took place in her temple and she turned Medusa into a monster, replacing her hair with hissing snakes and removing her charm. Medusa turned any living creature she looked upon into stone. Neptune was not ever confronted for his wrongdoings to Medusa. When Perseus approached Medusa he used her reflection in his shield to avoid contact with her eyes, and then beheaded her. Medusa’s spilt blood gave birth to Pegasus; which Minerva immediately tamed and gifted to Bellerophon. He delivered

3721-689: Was part of a holy triad with Tinia and Uni , equivalent to the Roman Capitoline Triad of Jupiter-Juno-Minerva. She is remembered in De Mulieribus Claris , a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio , composed in 1361–62. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature. Poet Elizabeth Carter

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