It is peculiarly interesting to contrast the story of Medusa with its
Hebrew parallel in Lot's wife. Both are women presumably beautiful, and
both are turned to stone. But while the Greek petrifaction is the result
of too direct a gaze upon the horrible, the Hebrew is the result of too
loving and desirous a gaze upon the coveted beauty of the world. Nothing
could more exactly represent and epitomise the diverse genius of the
nations, and we understand the Greek story the better for the strong
contrast with its Hebrew parallel. To the Greek, ugliness was dangerous;
and the horror of the world, having no explanation nor redress, could
but petrify the heart of man. To the Hebrew, the beauty of the world was
dangerous, and man must learn to turn away his eyes from beholding
vanity.

The legend of Medusa is a story of despair, and there is little room in
it for idealism of any kind; and yet there may be some hint, in the
reflecting shield of Perseus, of a brighter and more heartening truth.
The horror of the world we have always with us, and for all exquisite
spirits like those of the Greeks there is the danger of their being
marred by the brutality of the universe, and made hard and cold in rigid
petrifaction by the too direct vision of evil. Yet for such spirits
there is ever some shield of faith, in whose reflection they may see the
darkest horrors and yet remain flesh and blood. Those who believe in
life and love, whose religion--or at least whose indomitable clinging to
the beauty they have once descried--has taught them sufficient courage
in dwelling upon these things, may come unscathed through any such
ordeal. But for that, the story is one of sheer pagan terror. It came
out of the old, dark pre-Olympian mythology (for the Gorgons are the
daughters of Hades), and it embodied the ancient truth that the sorrow
of the world worketh death. It is a tragic world, and the earth-bound,