Medusa: Infamous Fiend of Greek Myth | Clash of the Gods (S1, E5) | Full Episode | History

if looks could kill you would  be dead turn to stone with just   one glass this is the myth of medusa  a monstrous female feared by all men   on the battlefield and beyond but she  will be challenged by a surprising enemy behind the story lurks a stunning reality  is greece's most famous monster inspired   by a human corpse and is a story based on  actual science as seen in our night sky discover the hidden meaning behind one of  the greatest stories ever told the hunt   for the head of medusa this was once a garden now it is a  graveyard littered with dead bodies   each face frozen in a moment of terror  the fatal moment when it gazed upon   medusa her gaze penetrates right into your inner  being and petrifies you from the inside out   the myth of medusa has captivated us for almost   3 000 years today her image still commands  instant recognition around the world   the medusa that we often see depicted on vases  features a woman with boars tusks snakes curling   around her head instead of hair sometimes  she is bearded very often she's grimacing   facing us directly with her tongue lolling out  of her mouth her eyes staring straight at you in ancient greece myths made sense of a confusing  world their stories recorded history explained   nature and dictated how people should  live the medusa myth was no exception   they teach lessons to the society and help them  organize things and i think the medusa story gives   us a window into just certain kinds of values in  ancient greek society it surely gives a sense of   kind of a rich portrait of men's experience  insofar as they may well have felt at some   point in their lives completely under the spell of  some bewitching type of woman medusa can crush a   man with a single penetrating look it is a power  that makes her nearly invincible the medusa myth   awakens a number of fears in people especially  men this image of the all-powerful woman whose   gaze can't be averted whose gaze can see right  through you to expose everything inside of you   that can freeze you in your tracks  and somehow devour you and consume you   and i think men in particular are  very afraid of this sort of strong woman to the ancient greeks medusa's  deadly image was one of the most   terrifying in all of mythology  but she was not always a monster according to the myth medusa was once a ravishing  woman every man in greece wanted to possess her   what she's described as is she's a beautiful  woman with long flowing locks of hair   every suitor wants to marry her  she causes envy among everyone but medusa can't get married  she is a priestess of athena   the goddess of war and bound by an eternal  vow of chastity athena is the patron goddess   of the great city of ancient athens  she's also a virgin goddess sex is   not a part of her world she's actually  beyond the reach of any uh male desire servants in her temple would have been  expected to be virginal so they could   devote their energies not to domestic issues  in child rearing but to the goddess of service medusa the hideous image of evil  starts out as a symbol of purity   this is the story but could it be based on reality athena's temple is no myth it still stands  today high atop the acropolis in athens   parthenon in greek it means place of the virgin   when it was completed in 430 bc  it towered over the city of athens   any great city should have a great temple  it would be like any city in america   having some kind of great sports stadium  so athens being the most prominent city in   ancient greece wanted to have also a temple that  befitted its magnificence and so they created   the parthenon at the center of the temple stood  a colossal statue of athena nearly 40 feet high   carved out of ivory and gold it was one of  the most impressive sites in the ancient world   in the myth this is where  medusa's tragic fate unfolds medusa's beauty is off-limits   locked away in service to athena but one suitor  will not let her vow of chastity stand in his way poseidon god of the sea poseidon is  his sort of very prominent masculine   power he is a god of the sea and a  god of storms and a god of earthquakes   earthquakes don't sort of just creep up  on you they they hit you very hard if he   was angered uh even just a little bit he could  explode violently and and really do harm to you in a fit of raw lust poseidon makes his move   and ravages the virgin priestess he raped her inside of the theme  as a temple a sacrilegious act   he stole from her her virginity certainly uh  this would be a crime at any time of the world   medusa is devastated her innocence has been stolen  her life changed forever she was a rape victim   and so she was no longer eligible for ordinary  marriage according to the mores of greek times   and she's no longer a virgin either so she  wasn't able to be devoted to service to a goddess   certain religious rights you had  to purify yourself from intercourse   so actually having intercourse in the temple is is  desecrating that space uh hence athena's anger and   athena is furious but not with poseidon as  a powerful male god this is expected of him   in the eyes of athena it is  medusa who deserves to be punished   the victim is about to become the accused athena  is one of the guys so she has this role that that   places her in the kind of male camp  she's going to side with the men   in a way it reflects a society where they  consider women more as property value they   recognize at some point that rape is necessarily  harmful to the woman but it doesn't seem in most   of these myths that there's any sympathy at all  and frequently the female figure who is raped   is the one who's punished athena will impose a  devastating sentence on her shattered priestess   she will transform medusa  from a beauty into a beast her new look will bear a terrifying resemblance  to a frequent and real sight in ancient greece human corpses   mythology's heinous snake-haired beast can  turn her enemies to stone with a single glance once she was greece's greatest  beauty desired by both men and gods but after poseidon raped her  medusa's world changed forever the medusa story is a tragedy because she  wasn't even the perpetrator of the deed it   was poseidon who raped her in athena's temple  but she's then turned into a hideous monster in the myth the goddess athena  curses medusa without warning   she begins an agonizing transformation  clawing desperately at her face her skin cracks and withers and her long silken  hair becomes a writhing mass of poisonous snakes   medusa's horrific transformation  is almost complete   but there's one more twist she's now going to have to undergo the most  powerful and most gut-wrenching of all the   aspects of her curse she'll have to be now a  person whose very sight turns the looker into   stone it's now going to isolate her from all of  human society medusa is now no longer going to   have any interactions with anyone else so what  athena has effectively done is consign this poor   girl to a kind of solitary confinement for the  rest of her life for the tragic crime of being   raped medusa has lost her status her beauty and  her ability to look at anyone without killing them   now the final blow she is banished to a remote  and desolate island for life medusa is now going   to live out this curse for eternity and for all  eternity things don't really change all that all   that matters is that her stone garden grows by  one every time someone tries to come close to her in the myth medusa has become a  type of monster called a gorgon   a name that comes from the  ancient greek word for terrible   the gorgon is this horrible monster it's got  scaly skin huge staring eyes and it can turn   you to stone by looking at you the earliest  traditions that we have of gorgons mention   medusa medusa becomes first a human being who's  then transformed into one of these nasty beasts in greek myth gorgons represent  the physical embodiment of death   in fact death is what inspired them   the broad wide open eyes the marks on the face the  uh the bloated face itself that pulled back skin   showing the teeth and the tongue protruding  was inspired by the the sight of a dead body in the days after dying the skin of a human corpse  begins to shrink around the various parts of the   body the face becomes grotesquely bloated the eyes  expand out of their sockets and the tongue swells   pushing itself out of the mouth gradually the  corpse morphs from man to monster on photographs   and dead bodies you can see all these changes  that are characteristic of the gorgon taking place   this is one of the things that people today  aren't so familiar with we get separated from   death very early we have specialists to  take care of dead bodies but the truth is   that in ancient times you wouldn't be insulated  from this people would see this sort of thing   death was everywhere in the ancient world in  fact many other historical monsters are modeled   on corpses in the middle of the aztec calendar you  find exactly the same features you've got exactly   the same oversized eyes you've got the broad  nose you've got the richter screen you have the   protruding tongue you find it in base in egypt in  india you find many of the same features on rahu   the demon responsible for the eclipse in southeast  asia haranguda the demon that kidnaps children   also has huge pop eyes and a very very  long tongue scrolling out of her mouth   the prominence of this gorgon symbol in  many different spots in the ancient world   gives us a real sense of just  how widespread these myths were in the story medusa is now a gorgon the mythical  face of death but her physical transformation is   only the beginning of her punishment her  hideous looks will make her an outcast   but her petrifying power will make her a  target because the warrior who beheads medusa   will possess the ultimate battlefield advantage  her severed head will still turn men to stone   men from all over the mediterranean set out to  slay medusa and claim that power for themselves   one of them has more than glory  at stake his name is perseus and his hunt for medusa's head is one  of mythology's greatest adventures the story of perseus begins in argos a real  region of southern greece in antiquity a lot of   myths were actually situated in specific  locations now this was important uh for   the people who lived in those places they could  actually claim connection to one of these divine   heroes in the myth argos is ruled by a  tyrant named acrysius the king is a problem   he has no male heir the greek world tried to  retain property in families and the way you   retain it in families is you leave it to  the firstborn son or the eldest male heir accresious only child is a daughter  danny she has no children of her own   so the king consults a prophetess to  ask if she will ever bear him a grandson a christus is told in prophecy that if his  daughter ever had a child that child would   rise up and kill him he finds out that the son  of his daughter is in fact going to kill him   he sort of freaks out and decides that he needs to  prevent her from ever having a child to begin with   this fear of generational shift this fear  of losing your power to the next generation   was real if you had a kid and you had something  worth taking at some point you needed to keep   an eye on the kid overcome by terror the  king hatches a plan to save his own skin chris had his daughter danny walled up  inside of a tower where no one could see   her it was a pretty miserable existence  danny is trapped with no fresh air   and barely any food it is the king's way of  killing her without getting blood on his hands the king kept waiting for news that his  daughter had died and was very surprised   that he never received news that she  had died of of starvation or thirst   after a while they began to see lights on and  hear noise and sound coming from the tower and so   chris went to see what his daughter was up  to the king enters his daughter's chamber   and discovers to his horror that danae is  not only still alive she's a mother to a son   perseus accresius is stunned that someone accessed  the secure tower and impregnated his daughter but   the baby's father isn't a mortal man he is king of  the greek gods mythology's most prolific womanizer   zeus zeus who seduced so many  women in so many myths sees   uh deny through the grating and falls in love  with her and so he comes down to her in about   the only shape that could come through the bars  which is a shower of gold we took the form of a   cascade of gold and poured himself into the room  and then was able to make love to her in that way   zeus's shower of gold may have been inspired  by a real natural phenomenon one named after   perseus probably the most impressive and the most  visible meteorite shower in the sky is the perseid   meteorite shower certainly it looks like a shower  of gold coming down if you've ever stopped and   watched it in august you can see the individual  streaks with the yellowish color to them   in mythologies around the world women can be  impregnated by various natural forces it's not   just the shower of gold that we have in the  in the legend of perseus we have women and   animals sometimes being impregnated by the wind  or in various mythologies women become pregnant   by the sun perseus is born both divine and  mortal a type of hero known as a demigod   so this demigod idea means that this  person has some features that are very   godly some divine powers but at the same time he  is mortal he can die i suspect that the greeks   invented this idea of a demigod because they  wanted to reach the gods as much as possible   to create images of themselves that  are closer and closer to the gods   to fulfill his destiny as a demigod perseus  must first survive his grandfather's wrath   king of cresius fears the boy will fulfill the  prophecy he dreads and grow up to kill him his   first impulse is to murder both mother  and child but he fears zeus's revenge   so he devises a plan to let nature do the  killing for him crisius decided to put both   the mother and the child into a boat-like  construction and throw them into the sea donna and perseus have been left  for dead with no food no direction   and no protection from the dangers of the sea meanwhile on a dismal island beyond the waves  medusa is adding statues to her garden of death   warriors turn to stone trying to capture her head   she possesses a power every conqueror desires  even real conquerors like alexander the great medusa's power to turn men to stone may have  spawned the famous phrase looks the kill   but the ancient greeks believed her power  could be used for good as well as evil in their   language the name medusa actually had a positive  connotation it meant guardian her image was often   used to ward off danger she even appeared on the  armor of some of the world's most feared warriors   evidence of this can be found in one of the  time capsules of the ancient world pompeii   when they were excavating the city in  the 1830s archaeologists found a very   large mosaic which depicts a battle between  alexander the great and the persian king darius   and on alexander's breastplate  is an image of medusa the battlefield wasn't the only place  where medusa's powers were sought she was also used to scare children the idea was that you would put the  symbol on the outside of your stove   and this would prevent children  from opening up the oven door   now the medusa was something that greek  parents used to use in order to scare   the kids in order to eat their food say eat  your food or i'll ask the medusa to get you   so it was something that was very horrendous  very horrible very mesmerizing very frightening in the myth medusa has a price on her head  warriors from across the greek world travel   to her remote island seeking to steal it and  use its petrifying power as a weapon against   their enemies so far all who have tried made  the same fatal mistake they looked at her first the ancient sources are relatively silent on what  medusa must have thought as she's just sitting   there living out her life amid a huge panoply  of stone corpses you can imagine that it would   have been very kind of strange situation you've  got little stalagmites of people all over the   place and there she is all alone but never had the  satisfaction of actually being able to engage with   anybody so you can imagine uh medusa living out  her life kind of waiting for the next person to   waft into her purview and get turned into stone  but one hero is determined to break her spell   as medusa languishes among her statues  perseus is coming of age across the sea when he was a baby he and his mother danny were  cast out to sea by his grandfather king acrysius mother and son were expected to die but percy is his divine father zeus protected them   they washed up on an island  called ceraphos and settled there he grows up into a nice strapping young lad as  it were very strong and also very strong-willed   and very protective of his mother perseus  has a very good reason to feel protective   the ruler of seraphos has plans for his mother  the king of sarah foss was not enthusiastic   about having perseus around partly because he  had his eye on danai who is still a young woman   and beautiful and he wanted to marry her the king  hatches a plan to take perseus out of the picture   he demands an expensive gift from all of his  subjects and vows to banish any who don't comply   he knows that perseus is poor and won't be able to  deliver perseus being a young man without a father   and really without a family if you didn't have a  father in ancient greece it meant that you were   really very much a kind of social outcast  didn't have any gift to bring to the king   perseus is cornered if he is exiled his mother  will be forced into an unwanted marriage and   be separated from him forever he makes an  impulsive decision with deadly ramifications   perseus says well i may not be able to buy a  great gift because i'm poor but i'm going to   do something that no one else has been able  to do i will bring you the head of medusa it's a suicide mission no one has ever returned  from medusa's island alive but for perseus there's   no turning back it's a matter of honor he can't  get out of it he has to bring the head of the gorgon if perseus succeeds he will  return home a hero with a stature to   challenge the king and protect his mother  but if he fails he'll be turned to stone in greek mythology the names perseus and  medusa are forever linked the consummate hero   and the ultimate monster it is a story that began here among these ruins this is ancient mycenae according to legend this  once great civilization was founded by perseus   himself myceni was the greatest of the ancient  city-states uh back in the bronze age and it   ruled sway over a large uh swath of ancient  greece for millennia it was thought that   maisini just like perseus and medusa was a  myth the only surviving reference to it was   in homer's epic story the iliad but in the late  19th century a lost civilization was rediscovered using homer's epic poems as a guide archaeologists  in the 19th century were actually able to locate   these great ancient citadels and what an amazing  adventure it must have been uh to find out that   not only was homer talking about something  that really existed but now they themselves   were in contact with it as well mycenae lies near  argos the city where perseus was born in the myth   its ruins are a window into the people who  invented the story of perseus and medusa   ancient greeks who used mythology to explain  life's mysteries the city's structures were   so massive later generations of greeks  believed they were built by gods they   would look at the ruins of those palaces and  see monumental masonry this was a kind of feat   that they couldn't imagine themselves doing it  seemed like something that only heroes could do   it was from these ruins that  the story of perseus sprang   the hero remembered for building  the city and taking on medusa it is the ultimate challenge perseus  confronts it with the bravado of a boy   who was eager to prove himself a man but he  is woefully unprepared for the task at hand   perseus has no weapons no experience  and no idea how to kill his target another piece that makes medusa so terrifying  is that they wouldn't have had a real sense   of exactly what she looked like anyone who  had seen her before perseus would not have   lived to tell the tale so all he knew about  was that there was this monster that was so   hideous that if you ever caught eyes on  her you would be frozen and turn to stone he stalked off and began his adventure and it  wasn't long before he realized that he had no   idea where he was going but as heroes often do  and especially heroes whose fathers are gods   uh he soon gets supernatural aid lost in the  wilderness perseus does what many ancient greeks   would have done under the same circumstances he  prays and the gods hear him his father zeus sends   down a divine messenger hermes who gives perseus  the jump start he needs a pair of winged sandals one of the things that persis has to  do is travel long distances very fast   and being an era without airplanes here comes  hermes to offer a solution those sandals with   wings that he himself as a messenger of the gods  uses so he gives them to perseus so says wears   them and he can fly through continents  at a speed of a well faster than a jet   now that perseus has a set of wings  what he really needs is a set of weapons   perseus has got everything going for  him i mean he has divine blood he's got   great powers he's been brought up to just  on the cusp of manhood he's ready to take   on these nasty beasts but he needs  more he's got to have technology hermes offers perseus an inside tip he  advises him to locate the stygian nymphs   beautiful women who possess the  magical weapons he needs to kill medusa   the nymphs are these female divinities who  are associated with natural elements and they   inhabit them so they are in springs they're in  mountains uh they're in trees they're typically   the objects of deep and uh powerful sexual desire  and from this we get the idea of a nymphomaniac   the whereabouts of these nymphs are a mystery  only three hideous women know how to find them   the grayish sisters they have been old  withered hags since the day they were born   and they don't like visitors perseus must get them  to talk so he can save his mother and survive his   face-off with medusa it's a battle we can still  see in today's night skies if we look closely   medusa a deadly gorgon has turned countless  warriors into stone but someone is still   stalking her perseus and he wants her head his  success will require more than boyish bravado   perseus will need a powerful set of weapons  to slay medusa to get them he must find the   stygia nymphs but only three wretched old  women know where they live the gray sisters they're very strange none of them have eyes  except this one that they pass between each other   whenever one wants to try to have a look  at something so they need to share it   that eye is very precious to them the island of the gray sisters is a dark  realm where even the moon does not shine   perseus uses his trusty winged sandals to get  there perseus is also not just you know a hot   head and brawny but he's also pretty clever when  he gets the island he realizes he should do some   reconnaissance and find out what their  weaknesses might be before he proceeds when he realizes they all have the one eye  and they're blind while they don't have it   he steals the eye from them as they're passing  it around the sisters fly into a blind panic   you're in a very abject position it's  like a beggar having his last farthing   stolen from him they're falling all over each  other trying to get that eye back from him perseus has the upper hand he demands the location  of the nymphs the gray sisters reveal that they   live on the river styx the waterway that separates  the land of the living from the land of the dead   perseus has what he came for he tosses the  eye onto the sand and takes to the skies this is the myth but how  does it connect to reality this story like many others in greek mythology  may literally have fallen from the sky since the   dawn of civilization mankind has looked to the  heavens to explain the past present and future an awful lot of storytelling revolved around the  things that you saw in the sky the constellations   that you see certainly we know that an awful  lot of myths were tied to the constellations   we have in the fifth century greeks naming the  constellations by the names of mythical beings   and at that time people not only saw those  mythical creatures up in the sky as symbols   as mere representations but they actually  believed that the constellations were divine   one especially curious  pattern exists in the heavens   a hero holding a curved sword and the head  of a gorgon this is the constellation known   as perseus a celestial blueprint for the myth  but there may be more to this cluster of stars   it may also reveal how the story  of the gray sisters originated the constellations themselves did things that  inspired portions of the myth the second brightest   star in the constellation of perseus is algol  now algol is a very peculiar star in the perseus   constellation algol forms a point on medusa's  head it is known as an eclipsing binary star   it appears as a single point of light in the sky  but it's actually two stars that orbit around one   another as they go they eclipse each other's light  making algo appear to dim and then get right again   it is a three-day cycle that may have inspired  the story of the three gray sisters algol   is very bright for a while and then it goes out  rather rapidly every third day this represents the   stealing of the eye of the gray eye by  perseus and as it tries to pass to the third   gray eye perseus is in there among them and  he steals the eye and when he takes the eye   you can see it go out well if you're a good  storyteller and you've kept track of this   you know when the star is going to disappear  so you can start telling your story   when the star is still bright then  when you get to the part of the story   where perseus has stolen the eye you can  point it from the sky and say look it's gone   algol's impact on the myth may  not end with the gray sisters   some experts believe it also inspired the  climax of the story medusa's gruesome demise the myth continues perseus is on a collision  course with medusa the odds are stacked   against him to take on the monster  he needs the right battle gear   he finds it along the river sticks the gateway  to hades where he encounters the stygian nymphs   they present perseus with three  weapons essential to his survival the sword of zeus the shield of athena  and the helmet of hades god of the dead   it reminds them irresistibly of james bond getting  all the fabulous devices from q not only because   he gets all these things to carry out his mission  because they also have magical properties to them   now perseus is ready to fulfill his destiny  and not a moment too soon back home on the   island of ceraphos a royal wedding  is in the works and perseus's mother   is the unwilling bride will her son slay medusa  and bring back her head before it's too late and   how can he succeed where so many others before  him have failed the secret lies in his shield perseus dangerous quest for the head of medusa  has taken him on a journey over thousands of miles   now his moment of truth has arrived he stands  at the threshold of medusa's deadly lair the   gods helped him get here but the rest is up to him  all this around medusa is rocks very hard things   anything that would have been living would have  been turned to stone so it must have been a very   bleak and desolate place perseus is frightened  as he takes the first steps toward his fate but they are not steps forward the  young hero is slowly creeping backwards   perseus is very smart and he realizes that trying  to attack medusa head on would be his own undoing   he'd be turned to stone so what he does instead is  get his shield turn it round and actually approach   her from behind and he walks up to her backwards  looking at her in his shield so that he's safe   you can imagine the tension building  as it gets closer and closer   as far as he knows the shield will protect  him but he must not have really known for sure perseus cautiously makes his way through  the lair eyes locked on his shield the slightest misstep will prove fatal at last perseus locks onto his target   closes his eyes and swings his sword with one clean stroke the head of medusa rolls  to the floor her years of torment and isolation   are finally over there would have been great  fascination for medusa among ancient audiences and   whether they were rooting for her rooting against  her there would have been a great kind of sympathy   for this poor poor person i mean think about what  she'd been through and all that she'd lost and   the horrible life she was fated to live and then  her end point is to have a hero chop her head off   it is a tragic end for a tragic figure  but medusa's story doesn't end here   one of the remarkable things about medusa's  head is even after she is dead even after it's   been removed and stuffed in a bag it still has the  power to transform anyone who looks on it to stone   medusa's unstoppable and terrifying but those  forces can also be harnessed and perseus's story   talks about that when the head is inside the bag  then it becomes a weapon that could be used for   good as well as evil perseus  is now the owner of the most   dangerous weapon on earth he can turn anyone  to stone and he has a few targets in mind his mother danae has been left with no one to  protect her from the lecherous king of seraphos   she's about to be made a queen against her  will for perseus it is a race against time as the hero flies home it becomes clear just how  powerful medusa's head still is as perseus is   flying with his winged sandals back across to get  to greece drops from her blood drop into the sand   and from this spring up hundreds  and hundreds of poisonous snakes some nasty monsters in antiquity are  so mean and so awful that their blood   actually produces other monsters medusa  is one of those that have such powerful   blood the dripping blood from her head as perseus  was flying away was thought in later tellings of   the story to have given rise to all the snakes  that ancient romans knew to exist in north africa in the myth the royal wedding day has arrived  the father of the bride has come from argos   perseus's own grandfather king acrysius   he has long feared the prophecy  that his grandson would kill him   perseus arrives just as the wedding ceremony  is getting underway when perseus returns   to seraphos and sees that his mother is  about to marry the king he becomes very angry so he lifts up the head of medusa and  says king i have brought you your gift one glance turns the king to stone  his face frozen in an eternal scream   but he's not the only king who gets caught looking a crazius is also petrified dana e has been saved by her son and perseus has earned his place as  one of mythology's bravest heroes   his death-defying journey has  transformed him from a boy   into a man perseus is particularly relatable among  the ancient heroes he's cast out at different   points along the way and only because of the  extra love of his mother is he able to make   his way through some very difficult times he  makes his mark in the world and he grows into   his own he becomes a real true powerful  hero someone the greeks can look up to after he saves his mother perseus presents  medusa's head as a tribute to athena the   goddess who created the monster in the end it is  medusa's original punisher who inherits her power   there's a poetic quality to the  ending of this story as medusa's head   becomes the icon on the breastplate of athena  after all this poor young girl started off   this great misadventure by running afoul of that  goddess athena has the first and the last laugh medusa's story has come full circle our myth ends where it began in  ancient greece's greatest temple   the parthenon above it she and the man who took  her life are forever linked in the night sky you

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 811,667

Rating: 4.8045564 out of 5

Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, clash of the gods, history clash of the gods, clash of the gods show, clash of the gods full episodes, clash of the gods clips, full episodes, Clash of the Gods history channel, Clash of the Gods videos, Clash of the Gods episodes, Clash of the Gods s1 clips, clash of the Gods se1 clips, Clash of the Gods s1 e5, Clash of the Gods s01 e5 clips, Clash of the Gods 1X5, clash of gods, Medusa, Everything Turns to Stone

Id: G5AeHca5150

Length: 45min 22sec (2722 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021