All language subtitles for Clash.of.the.Gods.S01E05.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-deadorbit_track3_[eng]

[dramatic music]

NARRATOR: If looks could
kill, you would be dead.

Turned to stone with
just one glance,

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 her 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.

[growling]

[snakes hissing]

[dramatic music]

[rattling]

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.

NARRATOR: The myth of
Medusa has captivated us

for almost 3,000 years.

Today, her image still
commands instant recognition

around the world.

SCOTT LEONARD: The Medusa that
we often see depicted on vases

features a woman
with boar's tusks,

snakes curling around
her head instead of hair.

Sometimes she is bearded.

Very often, she is
grimacing facing us directly

with her tongue lolling out
of her mouth and her eyes

staring straight at you.

NARRATOR: 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.

PETER STRUCK: They teach
lessons to the society

and help them organize things,
and I think the Medusa story

gives us a window into
certain kinds of values

in ancient Greek society.

It surely gives a sense
of a rich portrait

of men's experience in
so far as they may well

have felt, at some
point in their lives,

completely under the spell of
some bewitching type of woman.

NARRATOR: 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 strong woman.

[dramatic music]

NARRATOR: 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.

NARRATOR: But Medusa
can't get married.

She is a priestess of
Athena, the goddess of war,

and bound by an eternal
vow of chastity.

PETER STRUCK: 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 male desire.

SCOTT LEONARD:
Servants in her temple

would have been expected to be
virginal so they could devote

their energies not to domestic
issues and child rearing

but to the goddess's service.

NARRATOR: 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.

The Parthenon.

In Greek, it means
place of the virgin.

When it was completed
in 430 BC, it

towered over the city of Athens.

PETER STRUCK: 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

REBECCA KENNEDY: Poseidon
is this very prominent,

masculine power.

He is a god of the sea
and a god of storms

and a god of earthquakes.

Earthquakes don't
just creep up on you.

They hit you very hard.

If he was angered,
even just a little bit,

he could explode violently
and really do harm to you.

NARRATOR: In a fit
of raw lust, Poseidon

makes his move and ravages
the virgin priestess.

[suspenseful music]

MEDUSA: [screams]

He raped her inside
of Athena's temple,

a sacrilegious act.

STEPHEN WILK: He stole
from her her virginity.

Certainly, this would be a
crime in any time of the world.

NARRATOR: 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 is no longer
a virgin either,

so she wasn't able to be
devoted to service to a goddess.

EMILY ALLEN: For certain
religious rights,

you had to purify
yourself from intercourse.

So actually having
intercourse in the temple

is desecrating that space,
hence Athena's anger.

And Athena is furious.

NARRATOR: 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.

PETER STRUCK: Athena
is one of the guys,

so she has this role that
places her in the male camp.

She is going to
side with the men.

REBECCA KENNEDY: In a way, it
reflects a society where they

considered women more
as property value.

They recognized 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 is punished.

NARRATOR: Athena will impose
a devastating sentence

on her shattered priestess.

She will transform Medusa
from a beauty into a beast.

MEDUSA: [screaming, growls]

NARRATOR: Her new look will
bear a terrifying resemblance

to a frequent and real
sight in ancient Greece.

Human corpses.

Medusa, 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.

MEDUSA: [screaming]

NARRATOR: In the myth, the
goddess Athena curses Medusa

without warning.

She begins an agonizing
transformation,

clawing desperately at her face.

[snakes hissing]

MEDUSA: [screaming]

NARRATOR: Her skin
cracks and withers,

and her long, silken hair
becomes a writhing mass

of poisonous snakes.

Medusa's horrific transformation
is almost complete.

[snakes hissing]

MEDUSA: [screaming, growling]

NARRATOR: But there's
one more twist.

PETER STRUCK: 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

PETER STRUCK: Medusa is
now going to live out

this curse for eternity.

And for all eternity,
things don't really change.

All that matters is that her
stone garden grows by one

every time someone tries
to come close to her.

NARRATOR: In the myth, Medusa
has become a type of monster

called a Gorgon,
a name that comes

from the ancient Greek
word for terrible.

STEPHEN WILK: 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 was then transformed

into one of these nasty beasts.

NARRATOR: In Greek
myth, Gorgons represent

the physical
embodiment of death.

In fact, death is
what inspired them.

The broad, wide-opened
eyes, the marks on the face,

the bloated face itself,
that pulled-back skin showing

the teeth and the tongue
protruding was inspired

by the sight of a dead body.

NARRATOR: 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
of 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 who
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.

NARRATOR: Death was everywhere
in the ancient world.

In fact, many other
historical monsters

are modeled on corpses.

STEPHEN WILK: 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 rictus grin.

You have the protruding tongue.

You find it in Bes, in Egypt.

In India, you find many of
the same features on Rahu,

the demon responsible
for the eclipse.

In Southeast Asia, Rangda, the
demon that kidnaps children,

also has huge pop eyes and
a very, very long tongue

scrolling out of her mouth.

PETER STRUCK: 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

KRISTINA MILNOR: In
antiquity, a lot of myths

were actually situated
in specific locations.

Now, this was important
for the people

who lived in those places.

They could actually
claim connection

to one of these divine heroes.

NARRATOR: In the
myth, Argos is ruled

by a tyrant named Acrisius.

The king has 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.

NARRATOR: Acrisius's only
child is a daughter, Danae.

She has no children of
her own, so the king

consults a prophetess
to ask if she will ever

bear him a grandson.

Acrisius is told in prophecy
that if his daughter ever

had a child, that child
would rise up and kill him.

[non-english speech]

REBECCA KENNEDY: 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.

ACRISIUS: [groaning]

DAVID GEORGE: 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.

NARRATOR: Overcome by terror,
the king hatches a plan

to save his own skin.

SCOTT LEONARD: Acrisius had his
daughter Danae walled up inside

of a tower where no
one could see her.

It was a pretty
miserable existence.

NARRATOR: Danae 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
starvation or thirst.

SCOTT LEONARD:
After a while, they

began to see lights on and
hear noise and sound coming

from the tower, and so
Acrisius went to see

what his daughter was up to.

NARRATOR: 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.

Acrisius 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 Danae through the grating
and falls in love with her.

So he comes down to her,
in about the only shape

that could come
through the bars, which

is a shower of gold.

PETER STRUCK: He 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.

NARRATOR: 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
Persean 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 legend of Perseus.

We have women and
animals sometimes being

impregnated by the wind.

Or in various mythologies, women
become pregnant by the Sun.

NARRATOR: Perseus is born both
divine and immortal, a type

of hero known as a demigod.

GEORGE ZARKADAKIS:
So this demigod idea

means that this person has some
features that are very godly,

some divine powers.

But at the same
time, he's 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.

NARRATOR: To fulfill his
destiny as a demigod,

Perseus must first survive
his grandfather's wrath.

King Acrisius 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.

IOANNIS MYLONOPOULOS:
Acrisius decided

to put both the
mother and the child

into a boat-like construction
and throw them into the sea.

[thunder rumbling]

NARRATOR: Danae and Perseus
have been left for dead

with no food, no direction,
and no protection

from the dangers of the sea.

[thunder rumbling]

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 that 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.

KRISTINA MILNOR: 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.

NARRATOR: The battlefield
wasn't the only place where

Medusa's powers were sought.

[clattering, grunting]

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.

GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: 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.

NARRATOR: In the myth, Medusa
has a price on her head.

Warriors from across
the Greek world

traveled 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 have
made the same fatal mistake.

They looked at her first.

PETER STRUCK: 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've
been a very 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 Medusa
living out her life waiting

for the next person to
waft into her purview

and get turned into stone.

NARRATOR: 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 Danae

were cast out to sea by his
grandfather, King Acrisius.

Mother and son were
expected to die,

but Perseus's divine father,
Zeus, protected them.

They washed up on an
island called Serifos

and settled there.

REBECCA KENNEDY: 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.

NARRATOR: Perseus has a very
good reason to feel protective.

The ruler of Serifos has
plans for his mother.

KRISTINA MILNOR:
The King of Serifos

was not enthusiastic about
having Perseus around, partly

because he had his eye on Danae,
who was still a young woman

and beautiful, and he
wanted to marry her.

NARRATOR: 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.

NARRATOR: 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 am 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

[non-english chattering]

NARRATOR: If Perseus
succeeds, he will return home

a hero with the 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.

PETER STRUCK: Mycenae was the
greatest of ancient city-states

back in the Bronze Age, and it
ruled sway over a large swath

of ancient Greece.

NARRATOR: For millennia,
it was thought

that Mycenae, 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 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.

NARRATOR: 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 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.

NARRATOR: 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 turned to stone.

SCOTT LEONARD: 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, he
soon gets supernatural aid.

NARRATOR: Lost in
the wilderness,

Perseus does what many
ancient Greeks would have done

under the same circumstances.

He prays, and the gods hear him.

[thunderclap]

His father Zeus sends down
a divine messenger, Hermes,

who gives Perseus the
jumpstart he needs.

A pair of winged sandals.

GEORGE ZARKADAKIS:
One of the things

that Perseus has to do is
travel long distances very fast,

and being an era
without airplanes,

here comes Hermes to offer
a solution of those sandals

with wings that he, himself, as
a messenger of the gods, uses.

So he gives them to Perseus,
so Perseus wears them,

and he can fly through
continents at the speed of a--

well, faster than a jet.

NARRATOR: Now that Perseus
has a set of wings,

what he really needs
is a set of weapons.

PETER STRUCK: Perseus has
got everything going for him.

I mean, he has divine blood,
he's got great powers,

he's been brought up
on the cusp of manhood.

He's ready to take on
these nasty beasts,

but he needs more.

He's got to have technology.

NARRATOR: 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.

EMILY ALLEN: The nymphs
are these female divinities

who are associated
with natural elements.

And they inhabit them,
so they are in springs.

They are in mountains.

They're in trees.

They're typically the
objects of deep and powerful

sexual desire.

And from this, we get the
idea of a nymphomaniac.

NARRATOR: The whereabouts of
these nymphs are a mystery.

Only three hideous women
know how to find them.

The Graeae 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.

[thunderclap]

MEDUSA: [growling]

NARRATOR: 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 Stygian Nymphs,

but only three wretched old
women know where they live.

The Graeae sisters.

PETER STRUCK: They
are 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.

NARRATOR: The island
of the Graeae Sisters

is a dark realm where even
the Moon does not shine.

Perseus uses his trusty
winged saddles to get there.

Perseus is also not
just a hothead and brawny,

but he's also pretty clever.

When he gets to 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.

GRAEAE SISTERS: [yelling]

NARRATOR: The sisters
fly into a blind panic.

They'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.

NARRATOR: Perseus
has the upper hand.

He demands the
location of the nymphs.

The Graeae 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.

GEORGE ZARKADAKIS: We
have, in the 5th century,

Greeks naming the
constellations by the names

of mythical beings.

And at that time, people not
only saw the mythical creatures

up in the sky as symbols,
as mere representations,

but they actually believed that
the constellations were divine.

NARRATOR: 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 Graeae 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.

NARRATOR: 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 Algol appear to dim
and then get bright again.

It is a three-day cycle that
may have inspired the story

of the three Graeae 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 Graeae

by Perseus.

And as it tries to pass
to the third Graeae,

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 up in the sky
and say, look, it's gone.

NARRATOR: Algol's
impact on the myth

may not end with
the Graeae 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
Styx, 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.

STEPHEN WILK: 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,

but because they also have
magical properties to them.

NARRATOR: Now, Perseus is
ready to fulfill his destiny,

and not a moment too soon.

Back home, on the
island of Serifos,

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's 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.

PETER STRUCK: All
that's 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

PETER STRUCK: 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 he gets closer and closer.

As far as he knows, that
shield will protect him,

but he must not have
really known for sure.

NARRATOR: Perseus cautiously
makes his way through the lair,

eyes locked on his shield.

The slightest misstep
will prove fatal.

[snakes hissing]

At last, Perseus locks onto
his target, closes his eyes,

and swings his sword.

[metal clangs]

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 or rooting against her,

there would have
been a great 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.

NARRATOR: It is a tragic
end for a tragic figure,

but Medusa's story
doesn't end here.

SCOTT LEONARD: 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.

PETER STRUCK: 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.

NARRATOR: 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 Serifos.

She's about to be made a
queen against her will.

For Perseus, it is
a race against time.

[suspenseful music]

[wind whistling]

As the hero flies home, it
becomes clear just how powerful

Medusa's head still is.

REBECCA KENNEDY: 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.

[snakes hissing]

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.

NARRATOR: In the myth, the
royal wedding day has arrived.

The father of the bride has
come from Argos, Perseus's

own grandfather, King Acrisius.

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 Serifos

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.

NARRATOR: 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.

Acrisius is also petrified.

Danae 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.

PETER STRUCK: 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

that the Greeks can look up to.

NARRATOR: 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.

PETER STRUCK: There is 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.

NARRATOR: 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.