Medusa Aeschylus's "Prometheus Bound", which places both trinities of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain": Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged With snakes for hair— hatred of mortal man— While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa". In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid ("Metamorphoses" 4.770), Medusa was originally a ravishingly beautiful
Pierides (mythology) Pierides (mythology) In Greek mythology, the Pierides (Ancient Greek: Πιερίδες) or Emathides (Ἠμαθίδες) were the nine sisters who defied the Muses in a contest of song and, having been defeated, were turned into birds. The Muses themselves are sometimes called by this name. They were the daughters of Pierus, king of Emathia in Macedon, by Antiope of Pieria or Euippe of Paionia. The sisters were also called Emathides, named after their paternal uncle Emathus. In Ovid's "Metamorphoses", Urania, one of the Muses recounts their contest with the Pierides to Athena in the following excerpts:"So spoke the Muse. And now was