King Acrisius and Queen Eurydice of Argos had one daughter, the beautiful Princess Danae. In this re-telling, I provided some embellishments for the sake of connectivity and to rationalize some of the scenes, without fundamentally altering the essence of the original story as told by the ancients. It’s sourced from the writings by Hesiod (7th century BCE), Aeschylus (6th century BCE), Simonides (6th century BCE), Pindar (5th century BCE), Strabo (1st century BCE), and (Pseudo) Apollodorus whose Perseus account is thought to be from Pherykides (5th century BCE).
The short story below is based on the oldest Greek versions of the myth before it was politicized by Ovid’s overwrought poem on the subject (see the box “The Problem with Ovid’s Medusa”). (c) Minerva (Athena) was not an unjustly punitive goddess – so why punish the victim? (b) Medusa was a lover of Poseidon – not a helpless, hapless victim of rape (a) Medusa was not singular, but was 1 of 3 Gorgons who were already born with snakes in their hair Once Ovid did this, problems arose with ancient literary protagonists being out-of-character: This sacrilege angered Minerva, and she (inexplicably) punished Medusa by turning the victim’s hair into snakes(?!) Because of this, Poseidon desired her and sexually violated her in Minerva’s temple. In Ovid’s version of the story in his Metamorphoses, Medusa was fabulously beautiful with gorgeous normal hair. Perseus’ Remorse and Medusa’s Redemption.Perseus Battles the Sea Monster & an Ex-Boyfriend.But did you know that he was born of a virgin mother, married an Ethiopian princess, and committed parricide? PLUS: All these centuries, we’ve been misled to believe that Medusa was a rape victim who was punished for being one!įeatured photo: While Perseus was quite a steady character since ancient times, Medusa had so many faces: beautiful, monstrous, persecuted, narcissistic and vain, ugly and malevolent, unjustly punished victim. Perseus is best known for his conquest of Medusa.
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