Medusa: Further notes

Athena seems to play both champion and foe in the story of Medusa.

The first time we see her, Poseidon has just raped Medusa in the temple of Athena. The goddess turns her into a gorgon so that any man she looks at will turn to stone. Some see this as punishing the victim; it also could be read that Athena in her wisdom empowered Medusa so that she need never fear predatory men again.

And yet it is Athena who gives Perseus the mirrorized shield that he uses to kill Medusa. Is she playing both sides?

Medusa derives her power from her righteous anger at having been wronged. All her traditional feminine wiles have been upended to repel men. Her hair has become deadly snakes (phallic, representing the wrong done to her) and in the traditional myth her face, which once attracted men, now literally turns them to stone.

Even heroic Perseus, who comes at her with his sword while she is sleeping — pretty blatant rape imagery there — can’t bear to look at her and face her power. He has to look at her in a mirror to kill her.

That’s a pretty powerful woman. She comes off stronger than him, stronger than polydectes, stronger than Poseidon.

And as I write this, I’m pondering the connection between this powerful woman and the other individual women in the myth. There’s Danae, cruelly mistreated by her father, Acrisus; taken advantage of by Zeus and wanted by Polydectes; and there’s Andromeda, a maiden like Medusa also threatened by Poseidon. It seems Perseus should have had more sympathy for Medusa, especially since she becomes his most powerful ally in saving Andromeda and rescuing Danae.

Maybe that’s some of Athena’s wisdom at work.