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| Medusa Acrylic on Paper 14" x 17" |
Once upon a time a beautiful young lady named Medusa was a devotee in the temple of Aphrodite. Against her will she was raped in that sacred space. Aphrodite became enraged, banished her and changed her hair to snakes. Anyone who looked upon Medusa from that moment on was turned to stone.
Why did Aphrodite punish the victim? Was it because she, the goddess of love, didn't want to be associated with that selfish side of sexuality?
Poor Medusa, if you can see past her bitterness you find that she is still beautiful.
She has forgotten how to love, how fun it can be.
She is silent...
and silence is death.
So on facebook... this post has raised emotions which is only natural. I would like to add here that this telling of the Medusa story is how I have come to interpret it over time. One person pointed out that in the version they had read Medusa was not a victim of rape but a lover of Posidon. There are huge differences in the telling of the Medusa story. Some have her as a victim and some have her as a seducer. This story is just so old, that lots of people have taken it in different representational directions and the other characters involved are different too. One of the oldest versions is Ovid's telling which puts her in the non-victim camp. It appears that the version I read years ago is a more modern feminist telling. At any rate this is what she has come to represent for me and she is very important in my own symbolism.
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