They never appear. They are an idea that surfaces in Odysseus’s mind in the deep underworld when an ear-splitting cry shakes everything still. Persephone is queen here and she did not invite him. Circe had warned: stay too long and the dead will not let you leave. He thinks of the Gorgons. Creatures that turn men to stone. Not death but worse: standing forever, conscious, surrounded by the dead, frozen mid-breath. He does not wait to see if she sends them. He runs. The horror in this glossary entry is that the Gorgons do their work without ever appearing. Their reputation alone gets the living back to the ship.
The Gorgons
Never seen. Only feared. The thought of them is what makes Odysseus turn and run from the underworld.