Let us start from my splendid reading time, I will then certainly explain it. The last, we will get into the words.
I was reading Greek mythology related lores. There was Medusa.
Medusa actually has two sisters. The other two were rarely depicted in movies and literatures. They are known as the Gorgon sisters.
The Gorgon sisters:
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Stheno Immortal. ✅ Deformed and horrible by birth. A towering serpentine-giantess. Eldest of the Gorgons, highly aggressive and bloodthirsty. Special traits include superhuman strength, unmatched ferocity, survivor of countless battles. Battles which were mostly started by herself. 😂 -
Euryale Immortal. ✅ Euryale too is deformed and horrible by birth. Enormous compared to human. Serpentine-based also. Known for her haunting cries and swiftness. Special traits include piercing wails that disorient foes, evasive movement, and uncanny agility. She is elusive, but when appears, welp... -
Medusa (famous — everybody loves Medusa) Mortal. ❌ Originally beautiful, transformed into a monster by Athena — because Poseidon violated her inside Athena's temple — from Ovid's Metamorphoses. This bit was added later on by Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) — A Roman poet. 🤷♂️ 🧠 To me, Ovid was the primordial Hollywood: convolution, embellishment, and fecal matter sprinkles. But by bypassing Ovid's addition, Medusa would never be nearly as famous as currently. Thus, Ovid deserves an applause. ℹ️ Very convenient how "Ovid" is part of the term "COVID". 🧐 The original 🏛️ Greek's version: Medusa is already grotesque by birth, simply born as that — mortal, unlike her sisters. Youngest and most famous of the Gorgons. Special traits include petrifying gaze, living snakes as hair, and tragic aura that stuns enemies. Living snakes as hair... It's... actually funny. The logistics, the maintenance — try to bring that into reality. Oh they're mythical snakes. Nuh-uh, snakes are snakes. You either stapled or superglued them onto someone's head, see what would happen. Oh, oh! Hence the tragic aura. Staple cobras onto our heads, that's quite tragic. Not just the aura. Petrifying gaze, well, it's like... we saw a bird smashing concrete and we were baffled, petrified — instead, we saw a lady with superglued cobras and other species of snakes on her head fighting each other and biting her face. We'd be a statue for at least 10 seconds. The incomprehensibleness would be off the charts. We cannot decide if that's a threat, or a suicide attempt. I mean, what's the protocol to detach biting superglued snakes from someone's head? There will be.
🎥 Medusa is easier to depict in film because she's constantly "small", human-size, more or less. Unlike her towering inferno serpentine-based, warlike, fearless, and actively seeks out battles sister, Stheno, and her enormous-size, serpentine-based, extremely loud but "hard to see" sister, Euryale.
The Gorgon sisters' "parents" are:
- Phorcys: Father — A primordial sea god.
- Ceto: Mother — A sea goddess, often associated with sea monsters.
Phorcys and Ceto's "children" are:
-
Echidna Immortal. ✅ Half-woman, half-snake. Known as the "Mother of Monsters". Supposedly (or usually described as) the eldest of all in the family. As she bore many later monsters with Typhon (violent wind or storm — visualized as a monstrous, serpentine giant so tall his head brushed the stars). -
Ladon Immortal. ✅ The serpent-dragon who guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. He (usually described as male dragon) worked as a sole gigantic security for the golden apples in the garden. 🙂 Somebody needs to take care of the shining apples. They are shining! Did he get salary? 🤔 That concept is possibly undivine. Or in mathematics and digital realms, undefined.Now these, definedand divine. See those amusing words? Indeed. -
Graeae Immortal. ✅ Three gray sisters — Enyo, Pemphredo, and Deino — who shared one eye and one tooth. 🤔 Shared one eye and one tooth. 🤨 How... do we share one eye and one tooth among multiple individuals? Is it like that lady for Monday, the other Tuesday? Or all of them are bafflingly being attached to one another? Hm. Gray (grey) as in the color gray (grey). Graeae literally translates from ancient Greek (γραῖαι or ΓΡΑΙΑΙ, graiai) as "gray women" or "old women". They were depicted as elderly and gray-haired from birth — symbolising extreme age, wisdom, and decay. ... elderly and gray-haired from birth. From birth. 🤔 So they bypass the whole life period shenanigans and be like that for eternity, plus that unorthodox sharing. Well then, that's something. Like this blog's color theme, light gray ( #eeeeee). Gray and grey, same root, the U.S. spelling got it "right". Well, despite the "aluminum". Oxford vs. Bald Eagle — A match no one asked for.The three sisters concept is used in Witcher III, the Crones. 
-
Gorgons Sisters The prior description above. ⬆️ -
Scylla Unknown immortality ❓ — either mortal or immortal. The many-headed sea monster who terrorised sailors directly across from Charybdis. Quite a charmer. Likely the youngest in some traditions, though alternate parentage (like Hecate or Lamia) is sometimes given.
Phorcys and Ceto
Phorcys and Ceto are "brother and sister". Their parents are:
- Pontus — The sea ("son" of Gaia).
- Gaia — The Earth ("mother" of Pontus).
Pontus (the Sea)
Pontus emerged from Gaia (Earth) alone, without a consort.
Gaia (the Earth)
Gaia (Earth) emerged from Chaos.
Gaia's "children" are:
- Pontus — The sea.
- Uranus — The sky.
- Ourea — The mountains.
Hence, Pontus and Gaia are "son and parthenogenetic mother".
🧠 In my opinion, the deformities and such abnormal aggressive weird traits and tendencies in their "children" can be seen as the result of:
divine inbreeding.
None of their (Phorcys and Ceto's) children was "normal" in the mythology.
There's a hidden lesson in the story, and we just unraveled it. ☑️
If there were Bob in it, like Bob the normal, that would be unworthy of storytelling. Oh, that Bob, he's regular. Walking around, working, muttering. And that's it.
But when Bob the normal played marbles with Ladon when they were toddlers, and Ladon were already a 30 feet serpent and chomped Bob because it simply could, now that's a story. The excitement, the... not regular. And the wonder of the anatomy and physics, a 30 feet tall serpent playing marbles. 🤔
Chaos
Chaos (Χάος or ΧΑΟΣ) was the primordial state of existence according to Greek mythology.
Chaos, in the beginning, simply existed. No one made Chaos into existence, as presented by Hesiod in Theogony (θεογονία or ΘΕΟΓΟΝΙΑ). Theogony means "The Birth of Gods" — written in 8th - 7th BC.
Chaos is a representation of a state, a primordial void, a gaping chasm rather than a deity.
Hesiod in Theogony starts his poem with (paraphrased):
In the beginning, there was Chaos...
Fascinating, is it not? Now you have the reference for the timeline from ancient Greek's perspective.
Which is being used literally in mainstream modern science to the letter. The theory of the beginning.
Coincidence? I think not. The English word chaos comes directly from the ancient Greek ΧΑΟΣ (Khaos), which originally referred to the primordial void. Did you also notice biology, taxonomy, chemistry, medical terms, and whatnots in academia are using either Latin or Greek and mostly have Greek or Roman origin at some point? Yes, those.
B.C., A.D., C.E., and B.C.E.
The Holy Roman blokes:
B.C. = Before Christ.
A.D. = Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord".
B.C. is English and A.D. is Latin, you would think, Hey, what's going on there? 🤣
Because B.C. came much later. Medieval church scholars originally used A.D. alone. The B.C. label came much later, coined by English writers to describe pre-Christian dates more clearly.
I hope that answers it.
The modern blokes — to avoid Christian-centric:
B.C.E = Before Common Era.
C.E = Common Era.
But then again, it's just substituting the term, and NOT actually correcting the calendar reference. 🤦♂️
Oh, well... I suppose it would be quite a challenge.
I surely didn't live in that period of time, so how am I supposed to know the "correct" reference? I just took their words for it. Obscure laziness of mine is pretty spot on for this matter.
Therefore, it is what it is. 🤷♂️
Now, the Words
Back to our main theme, the words, gorgos and gorgeous.
It was from Medusa ➡️ Gorgon ➡️ gorgos-being (terrifying being) above. And my 🧠 brain connected it to "gorgeous" reading the Ovid's addition — the curse. As in, Dear heavens, such connection! Absolutely fascinating.
Gorgon word root is gorgos (Greek), meaning horrible or terrible.
It almost resembles gorgeous. As in the two words are related or share similar root.
Apparently not.
Gorgeous is taken from Old French, gorgias, meaning fine or elegant.
Fine, elegant, fashionable, stylish.
Previously, before the update, I typed
fire 🔥, elegant.
Apologies for the hilarious typo. I have humbly debugged my vision. I guess it served well for the immortal bots to "think about".
Fine and fire, the "n" and "r". But can't fire be seen as fine or elegant? 😂
But of course, a fashion show consists of people wearing burning clothes on stage would be disastrous.
The words (gorgos and gorgeous) share no common root, but each occupies opposite polarities — in which, each one can overlay the other.
🤔
Is it not? Right? I suppose it makes sense. We can actually see and feel those traits being mixed in reality. It's natural, we are not binary-minded beings.
In another story, ...
Gorgias
...was a Greek philosopher.
Interesting coincidences.
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