Note 139.1 — Chapter XX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN SAGA AND SUPERSTITION.

I have left to the last the Gorgonian power of petrifying with a look. The fatal head was regarded, we know, as the most powerful of Athene’s weapons. As a single illustration we may take a curious case mentioned by Pausanias. Describing the temple of Athene near Coronea, in Bœotia, where the Panbœotian festival was held, he says that a priestess named Iodamia coming into the temple once at night was confronted by the goddess herself armed with Medusa’s head, and was turned into stone. An altar called by the unfortunate priestess’ name seems to have stood in the temple when Pausanias wrote; and a woman daily put fire thereon, saying in the language of the country that Iodamia was living and demanded fire.139.1 The memory of Medusa yet lingers, as we have seen, in Seriphos, where her head on the coinage of the island seems to have preserved it. If we may trust mediæval writers like Walter Map, Gervase of Tilbury and Roger of Hoveden, a more definite recollection, though still confused and distorted, formerly remained in the Levant. Gervase tells us that between Rhodes and Cyprus are the Syrtes, commonly called the Gulf of Satalia, where the Gorgon’s head was said to have been thrown into the sea. They are opposite the town of Satalia, claimed by the Sultan of Iconium. The Gorgon was held to have been a prostitute whose beauty drove men out of their wits, until Perseus threw her head into the deep. This of course was a piece of euhemerism on the part of the Marshal of Arles or his informants, whoever they may have been. He goes on, however, to say that the natives report that a soldier fell in love with a certain queen, and not being able to obtain her during her life, he secretly violated her sepulchre. From his posthumous embraces the corpse bore a monstrous head, which, the soldier was warned by a voice in the air at the moment of his crime, would by its mere look destroy all things that it beheld. Accordingly at the proper time he opened the tomb and found the head, carefully averting himself from its gaze. Whenever he exhibited it to his foes they and their cities were destroyed. Afterwards he found another love; and one day, while sailing the sea he was sleeping peacefully in her lap, when she took the opportunity to steal the key and open the casket wherein the head was kept. Her curiosity proved her bane. Her lover awoke and, plunged in grief at the catastrophe, he took out the fatal head, stuck it up and perished with his ship from its glance. Every seven years, it was believed, the head rose to the surface of the sea and imperilled the safety of all who navigated those waters.140.1 Map’s account is that the hero was a cordwainer of exceeding great skill, who flourished at Constantinople in the time of Gerbert, that is to say, about a hundred and fifty years before his own time. Falling in love with a noble maiden whose naked foot he had been called upon to clothe in the course of business, he sold everything and took service in the army, in order to rise in the world and become worthy of her. She, however, died in his absence. The violation of her tomb follows. The Gorgonian head is expressly declared to have stiffened the wretches upon whom its gaze was brought to bear. The soldier at length weds the daughter and heiress of the Emperor. She gives him no peace until he tells her the contents of his casket; and having learnt the secret she tries the effect of the head upon her husband as he wakes from sleep. Having thus fordone him by her wiles, she orders his body and the instrument of his enormities to be cast together into the Grecian Sea. A terrific storm arose when her command was fulfilled; and on its subsiding a vast and destructive whirlpool remained ever thereafter, called Satalia, or more commonly, the Gulf of Satalia, from the maiden’s name.140.2