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| **image credit from Canva |
You might have heard of this famous character, Medusa. What is behind her terrifying face and gaze?
Her name means sovereign female wisdom. She was once a beautiful maiden, and her chief glory was her hair, and with that, she was adored by countless men from all walks of life. She was one of Athena's priestesses. Medusa was borne out of the love of Phorcys and Ceto, her parents. Their other children were Graiae and Ladon and her other two sisters, Stheno and Euryale. They were the monsters with brass hands, sharp fangs, and the hair of living venomous snakes. The two are the real Gorgons and they are immortal.
What happened on that night before Medusa became like her sisters was when Poseidon, the god of the sea, disrespected and ravished Medusa, and her femininity was destroyed. It happened in Athena’s temple, probably to annoy Athena since the two of them are not on good terms with each other, Athena discovered what happened and changed her form to match that of her sister, the Gorgons as punishment. According to some versions, Athena was just trying to protect her, and she made her face hideous and snake-haired, so she can defend herself from men. Though Poseidon and Athena were not on good terms, Athena cannot punish Poseidon since they are equal. So, Athena deprived Medusa of her charms and changed her beautiful ringlets into hissing repugnant serpents.
Now there was a king who wanted his stepson to be out of his sight, King Polydectes of Seriphos. He sent the son of her wife, Perseus to behead Medusa in her sleep. A duty said to require Perseus of maximum heroic-male courage and skill. Athena and Hermes guided him, he was even bestowed a magnificent curved sword by Hermes; a bright shield by Athena; winged shoes, the helmet of invisibility, and the magic wallet given to him by the Nymphs. With all these, Perseus was able to go near her with Athena’s bright shield, decapitate her with the curved sword, and put her head into the magic wallet. Her sisters chased after Perseus, but they cannot get their hands on him because he was wearing the helmet of invisibility. When her head was cut off, there sprang from her trunk, giving birth to Pegasus (the winged horse) and her bleeding neck sprang Chrysaor (the bladed giant). The fruits of her unraveling life.
Medusa even after
her death upheld her Gorgon powers to protect herself from enemies…
When Perseus arrived in Seriphos, he used Medusa’s head to turn his enemies into stone. The rest of Medusa’s blood – a vial containing two drops – one was a cure-all, and the other a deadly poison. Medusa’s hair lock could still cast terror into any enemy unfortunate enough to even accidentally behold it.
Until now, Medusa is still depicted as someone to be afraid of. Yet, her story is an example of our present social situation… the injustice as she was the one being punished instead of the culprit. In most Asian countries this is still happening, and there are still those people with that victim-blaming syndrome. If someone’s body is disrespected, some people tend to blame the victim for wearing this or that kind of dress, for going out with men. In the first place, a dirty mind can do all that even if a victim is all dressed up or covered. What can you say about a baby, a man, or a grandma being disrespected? Does it have something to do with the way they dress? Does it have something to do with their going out with men?
Though the story is just a myth, definitely it is one of the most famous characters in Greek mythology. As we can see what she had was a form of injustice and unequal treatment by the gods and the goddess. Like in our present situation, the powerful, those with connections or those in government positions, and those who have a lot of money can revert back the story in favor of them. Even in the end, Medusa did not find the justice she deserved, nor was she given a chance to prove what was done to her. Sounds familiar isn’t it?... much like today, there are still unsolved cases of rape and murder, and injustice has been found. Whatever happens to the case of the Vizconde massacre? The people involved in the case?- find it out; and the case of a missing girl in Robinson's Palawan? then again, the people involved in the case. The mysterious killing of suspected drug pushers/users until now just reminds us that there are people behind it as some of these cases involve policemen who acted in the line of their duty, take the case of Kian Lloyd delos Santos (17), Carl Arnaiz (19), and Reynaldo de Guzman (14).
In other countries, there are numerous cases of rape and missing persons as well. Sometimes a lax in investigation of the police causes it to prolong the justice to be served. Pieces of evidence are being cleaned up or tampered with, due to not following the SOP, and there also goes a cover-up among the police, family, and higher people involved in the case.
