About UsMedusa and Athena
By Glenn Hefley © 2011
It is difficult to transcribe, from across time, the myths of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, even more difficult to grasp the full meaning. All that we can do is attempt to understand the myths from what we know about the people, the culture and the values those people had at the time of the telling. We also have to keep in mind, especially with the Ancient myths, that these stories were as much art as they were religion, and like art, often sought to render meaning that the people did not possess at the time of the telling – to bring to the populous a new perspective – so, it is very likely that the full meaning of some of these myths, was not understood by the original audiences. All we have is perspectives. So this writing will not be a conclusive evaluation of Medusa’s story, only a perspective.
The story of Medusa, by the poet Ovid, is one that deserves a closer examination, much closer than is popularly rendered by our own storytellers. The origin story of Medusa is rarely told at all, we are only introduced to the monster, and the terrible weapon of her gaze; given to us as the monster in the story of Perseus. Perseus sets out on the task of acquiring Medusa’s head. When Perseus makes the boast that he will acquire this terrible weapon, it is the vainglory of youth, which pushes him to set this term for himself. Thousands of the best warriors in the world had already gone before him with the same claim, and never returned from the island where Medusa made her home. Perseus, another son of Zeus, is young, untried and overly protective of his mother. In other words, Perseus is a boy, not a man. He is innocent, not only of the true nature of the course he set himself on, but ignorant of the power he has set out to acquire.
