Athena, goddess of beauty, is angered by Medusa's conceit and pronounces a curse -- one day a boy from the sea will come to kill Medusa, but not before she lives out her days in such ugliness that anyone who looks upon her is instantly turned to stone. Medusa is transformed into a hideous monster, forced to hide herself in a distant cave, awaiting her fate.

When Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus, is ordered by the sinister Polydectes to deliver the head of Medusa, it seems he has been chosen to see that Athena's curse reaches its fruition. But how will he accomplish what no other mortal has been able to? How will he survive the glare of Medusa?

In her masterfully written and imaginatively illustrated book, Deborah Nourse Lattimore recreates the tragedy of one of the best-known Greek myths -- the tale of the gorgon Medusa.