The Story of Medusa

In the Myth Medusa is a beautiful mortal women who is a maiden  serving in the temple of the Goddess Athena.The God Neptune rapes her in the temple. Athena is angered by this blasphemy. She does not punish Neptune, but her wrath falls onto Medusa. Athena transforms the beautiful maiden into a grotesque Gorgon with a face that litteraly turns anyone who looks catches her gaze into stone.

Medusa is a recognizable figure from ancient Greek art. Her face, whether fierce and grotesque or feminine and composed, appears in virtually all media. The interpretation of Medusa suggests she is an apotropaic symbol used to protect from and ward off the negative. Her symbol is meant to deter other dangerous threats, an image to repel evil. Greek mythology and art reveals a nuanced and complex character with multiple iterations.

Medusa is best known for having hair made of snakes and for her ability to turn anyone she looked at to stone. Works by ancient sources, such as Homer, and the writings of Pindar, provide a wide-ranging and diverse picture of the fabled Gorgon. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, she was one of three Gorgon sisters born to Keto and Phorkys, primordial sea gods, Medusa was mortal.

The best-known myth recounts her fateful encounter with Perseus. A king demanded that he bring a gift, the head of Medusa. The gods, provided him with divine tools. While Medusa slept, Perseus attacked, using Athena’s polished shield to view the reflection of Medusa’s face and avoid her  gaze while he beheaded her with an adamantine sword. This resulted in the birth of Medusa’s Children, the winged horse Pegasos and Chrysaor,  the giant who sprung from her neck. Perseus escaped with his prize using Hermes’ winged boots. Not even death, however, could quell Medusa’s power, and Perseus had to keep her decapitated head in a special sack  called a kybisis. On his travels, he used the head to turn his enemies to stone and rescue the princess Andromeda  before giving it to Athena.

Medusa had two Gorgon sisters, named Stheno and Euryales.

Pindar’s Twelfth Pythian Ode tells of how Stheno and Euryale’s angry pursuit of their sister’s killer added to the Medusa myth. After hearing their anguished cries, Athena  invented a flute to mimic them. When the goddess played the flute, she discarded it after seeing her reflection, her face distended and became ugly as she played. I think this served Athena justly. She was jealous of Medusa’s Human beauty, and this gave her a taste of her own medicine. 

While she purposefully and successfully mimicked the wails of the Gorgons, she also unwittingly imitated their dreadful features. The myth of the snake-haired Medusa does not become widespread until the second century B.C. The author Ovid describes the mortal Medusa as a beautiful maiden raped by Neptune in a temple of Athena. Such blasphemy incurs the goddess’ wrath, and she punished Medusa by turning her hair to snakes.

While these stories sound fantastical today, to the ancient Greeks they were historical. These myths, as well as the stories recorded by Homer were considered part of a lost heroic past when men and women interacted with Heroes and Gods. Tales from this time period were repeated in every medium. The evidence from Greece presents a world saturated with heroes and Gorgons in poetry, and art. As such, Medusa was not just a fantastical beast, but part of a shared past and present in the minds of ancient viewers.

She signified a historical menace—the story of Perseus vanquishing and harnessing her energy was not just a story, but a chapter  shared, and historical record of the Greeks.

It is my feeling that Medusa was unjustly punished because Athena being a woman goddess had to prove to all the male gods that she was part of the pack.

Even today a woman who is raped is often made the villain not the victim. She may have to justify why she wore a certain outfit. Why she chose to go to a dance club. Why she didn’t call the police when a man was too aggressive with her.

I feel that if Medusa is real, her torture should be undone. She should be allowed to have a peaceful eternity.