Ovid's Metamorphoses: Perseus and Medusa, translated by Tony Kline (2000).
Perseus stabs a monster repeatedly, making it vomit as it torments it in battle. Perseus drives into overkill, stabbing the monster until he hears applause from the people he has saved. Having done his part in the bargain, he will now marry the beautiful Andromeda. During the celebration, he sets Medusa's head on the ground which turns the green plants into stone coral. Sea nymphs try the head's magic on other plants and are delighted by the magic.
In a shrine to the gods, Perseus sacrifices a cow to Athena and a bull to Zeus. The wedding ceremony starts, with many rich guests and even Dionysus joining the party. Perseus takes a request to tell the story of how he acquired Medusa's head:
He sneaked past the Gorgon's who share one eye, and after finding Medusa turning men to stone with her gaze he used his shield to look upon her - waiting until she was asleep to cut off her head; after this event, Pegasus and Chrysaor were born from her neck hole.
A prince asks why she alone had snakes for hair, and the tale of Medusa is recounted:
Medusa was a gorgeous woman who had the best hair above all other women, it was the key feature to her beauty. Poseidon, like his brother, had no ability to restrain himself and took her against her will - in the temple of Athena no less. Athena, unable to punish Poseidon, chose to take her anger out on Medusa by changing her into a Gorgon but with snakes for hair - whose head and snakes now decorate Athena's aegis.
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