A Woman with Snakes in Her Hair

Medusa the Gorgon: Unravelled, Part 1

A monster, or a mirror?

She was the daughter of primordial sea gods.
An offspring of a deep and mysterious ocean.

She had two sisters.

All three were birthed by deities, three Gorgons. But only she "suffered a woeful fate"¹ and wasn't granted eternal life. The reason for that remains unclear, like many other aspects of this deeply intriguing story.

She was Medusa.
The mortal one.
The gorgeous one.

"She had the most beautiful hair…",² the myth goes.
I imagine it heavy and dark, smelling of salt and myrrh oil.

She was stunning, but not in a way that inspired artists and poets.
She had that wild, feral allure.
Think of young Angelina Jolie's kind of beauty.
The one that haunts and hypnotizes. The one that leaves men in feverish dreams, their mouths dry and hearts pounding.

But she was untouched.

No man or god has ever gripped her sacred body.

She was a priestess.
Tamed.

Under the vow of virginity, she spent her days in strict routine and discipline, serving at the temple of Athena, keeping it pure and impeccable.
Tending to the sacred fire…

---

That day should have been like any other.

At dusk, she was washing the divine altar. Her hands moved instinctively, fingertips gliding across the cool, silent stone.
She whispered ancient prayers her tongue knew by heart, effortlessly, without thoughts.

But then, suddenly, her lips froze, mid-motion.

An uninvited movement broke the stillness.

She heard something...

Deliberate, hungry steps.

The air thickened. His shadow draped the whiteness of the marble.

Did she try to run?
Did she call out?
Did she desperately pray to Athena?

We don't know. Her voice was never written down. In the myth that survived, there's only a single sentence stating that the god of the ocean, Poseidon, "ravished her in the Temple of Minerva."³

That's it.

As if we are reading what he had for breakfast.

So much left unsaid…

And yet, we already know what happened, don't we?
We have seen this scene play out across centuries, again and again, in stories and real life.

The silence after the scream.

The violation.

The rape.

---

But as terrible as it sounds, this is not the end of the catastrophe.

The deeper heartbreak is yet to come.

Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, the virgin one, the one who should have come to the rescue, the one who could find a way to punish Poseidon...

She did none of it.

Instead, she turned away.
And covered her eyes with a shield.

She didn’t want to witness it. But she didn’t act, either.

At least not until after the violation. As the myth goes, the crime couldn’t go unpunished.

So she transformed Medusa.

She turned her luscious hair into hissing snakes.
She made her mesmerizing eyes into a deadly weapon. ⁴

Medusa became a monster.

Still mortal.
But now lethal.

Anyone who would dare to look her in the eyes would turn to stone.

---

And this is where the myth shifts from a tragedy into something deeper, more complex, more mysterious.
Something that lures us in, that dares us to ask questions we may never fully answer.

Why did Athena turn away? Why did she transform Medusa?

The myth is both stingy and ambiguous at the same time, leaving space for different interpretations.

Did the goddess blame Medusa?
Did she curse her for the desecration of her temple?

It wouldn’t be the first time a woman’s beauty was held responsible for the uncontrollable actions of men or gods.

Too beautiful to go unpunished…

But Athena is a goddess, you say.
She should have been on her side, the girl’s girl, right?

What if she was?

Maybe she turned away to avoid taking part in the crime, disgusted by it.

Was the transformation Athena’s way of protecting Medusa by making her terrifying? Was this the revenge for every future man who would try to hurt her?

The untouched one now became untouchable.

A terror itself.

---

In the aftermath of these events, Medusa left the temple.
Or perhaps she was banished.
Either way, she no longer belonged to the civilization.

She vanished beyond the border of the known world, into the realm of wilderness.
Into chaos.

Her sisters followed her.
Out of love.
Out of sisterhood and compassion.

Medusa’s story could have ended here, right? It would be a story of the tragic fall of a beautiful woman.

Violated.
Betrayed.
Exiled.

But it wasn’t enough.

Her head was needed.

So in the same ancient world, far away, another woman was quietly raising a boy.

A boy destined to slay her.

---

Perseus.
A demigod.
The son of the mighty Zeus.

‘‘Only Medusa was mortal; for that reason, Perseus was sent to fetch her head.’’ ⁵

The other Gorgons were beyond the reach of death.
But not her…
She was vulnerable from the start.

Sure, we could follow the classic path now: the hero’s journey.
There is a monster to be slain.
And there is a boy who needed to become a hero.

We could tell that story like most ancient myths and Hollywood movies do.

But what if we don’t?

What if we tell the story of his mother, instead?

The story of another woman whose voice is missing from the myth.

And we should tell it not just because of the lack of it, but because that silence eerily echoes Medusa's.

---

Danae was a princess.
A mortal woman.
The king’s only daughter.

Her mother—never mentioned. (A body used to carry children. A name the myth deemed unnecessary.)

I imagine Danae’s early years.
Her mom was there. Maybe tired, maybe nervous. But she was there.

Her father, however…
She longed for him. For her Pappa.

Sometimes, at the end of the day, when his head was heavy with wine, he would call for her.
And she would rush to his chambers, her bare feet tapping over the cold stone.

She couldn’t wait to rub her small, fluffy palms over his beard.
It felt like the back of a fig leaf.
Soft and scratchy.
All at once.

But his eyes would always confuse her. Faraway. Watery.
They would always make her feel like something was missing.

Still, she treasured those rare moments.

Then, one day, it all stopped.
He never called again.

It wasn’t that she didn’t try to make sense of it. It was just too complicated, too painful to think about, yet impossible to forget.

The truth she couldn’t know then was that he wanted a son.
An heir.

But what truly changed everything was a whisper of an oracle.
A prophecy so terrifying that it made him gasp for air every time he thought of it.

---

That day should have been like any other.

She woke up to the usual hum of cicadas beyond the stone walls.

However, something was different.
Danae felt a strange warmth between her thighs.
She reached down, and scarlet blood bloomed against her fingertips.

The first blood.
Like the first breath.

She called for her maid, her voice fluttering with unknowing excitement.

But the maid’s face froze at the sight of her bleeding.

And then, the sounds came.
A low murmur of footsteps approaching, closer and closer.
And then rough, unkind hands seizing her, taking her away.

Did she beg her father for mercy?
Did her mom fight to save her?
Or did she surrender to the familiar feeling that she has no control over her life?

We don’t know that either.
It was never important for the story.

We just know that she was imprisoned.
In a cold bronze chest.

By her own father.

“Acrisius built a brazen chamber under ground and there guarded Danae.”⁶

He didn't fear wars.
He didn't fear gods.
He feared his daughter's womb.

The prophecy said: If she gives birth to a son, he will kill the king.

So he put her away. Where no man could reach her.

Where she could stay untouched.

But gods have their ways, don’t they?

---

This god didn't have to ask.

He didn't knock.

He just entered, silently.

Zeus, the god of the sky, came to Danae not as lightning nor as thunder.
Not even as a man.
But in the shape of golden rain.

This unstoppable, thick liquid slipped through the cracks of the chamber.

Streaming toward her.

Inevitably.

Thirsty for her body.
Reaching for her pores.

And that was enough to make her pregnant and keep her on the course of the fated script.

Was she terrified?
Did she pray for it to be over?
Or was she relieved when something—anything—finally broke the silence of her isolation?

You already sense it… We don't know.
Because again, there is no place for a woman's voice in these myths.

Just facts.
Just things that happen to them.

"But Zeus fell in love with her and came to her in the form of golden rain, and she bore Perseus."⁷

Like that’s all there is to be said.

She gave birth in silence.

And I wonder…

Did she ever feel like the mother of a miracle?

Or just the vessel of a god’s will?

---

When her father saw the child, he did what he knew best—he sealed both her and the baby in a wooden chest and cast it into the sea.
Into the wilderness.
Into chaos.

Does this ring a bell?

If Medusa could look in the mirror, she would see Danae.

Both punished for something they didn't choose.
Both violated in silence.
Both cast out from the world they belonged to.

In another universe, these two women might cross paths and sit together over diluted wine, talking their hearts out.
And they’d feel like they’d known each other forever.
They’d feel like sister.

Sisters in pain.

But in the myth, one had to be the vessel for the death of another.

Both transformed through god's touch they didn't ask for.

Just stepping stones for a man's greatness.

---

So why and how did Perseus slay Medusa?

The chest carrying Danae and him was washed on an island, under the protection of the gods, or a mysterious compass of fate.
A kind fisherman found them.
He raised the boy as his own and gave Danae safety.

Now, her story could have finished here, like Medusa's after the exile.

But her pain was still needed.

The fisherman had a brother, a king, who became obsessed with Danae.
Yet, she wasn’t interested.

Maybe she was done being taken?
Or, most probably, her silent ‘no’ was necessary for her son’s quest.

The king who wanted Danae feared Perseus.
So he devised a plan.
Pretending he was getting married to another woman, he demanded a gift from every man: a horse.

Perseus didn’t own a thing.
But with raw, reckless pride of a boy who just felt his bones stretch into the shape of a man, he boasted he would give him anything.
And that…. that was what the king was waiting for all along.

The head of Medusa, he smirked.

He already saw Perseus dead.
And Danae his.

So now, Perseus is pulled into the journey he didn’t really ask for.

But not alone.
The gods are on his side.
And he is led by no other than Athena.

This broke your heart a bit, didn’t it?

Athena herself gave him the mirrored shield, so he could look at Medusa without turning to stone.
Probably the same shield she covered her eyes with not look at Medusa being raped.

And the other gods paraded, too, gifting the boy all kinds of enchanted weapons, conjured to kill a monster.

A being who dwelt far from the human world.
Harmed by others.
Harming no one.

Perseus came in her sleep.
He crept from the back.
And cut off her head.

Did his hands tremble a bit?

And that is, my dear, the myth we inherited.
With some bitter aftertaste in our mouths.
And a lump in our throats.

I don’t think we can help but wonder…

In what world is a hero born after one woman has suffered, and another powerful female being is killed?

Sit with that one for a while…

But then…

Listen…

What if Medusa was never killed?

What if she was never slain?

What if she was always more powerful than that?

…

---

This is the first part of a two-part Medusa series. (Read the second part here.)

Next time, we will break down the most prominent mentions of Medusa in the Greek and Roman myths—the versions that made it through the filters of ancient poets, patriarchal pens, and time.

But myths are never just what they appear on the surface. They have deeper roots, older faces, and truths too wild to tame.

So let’s remember what was before.

We will journey beyond the polished marble temples and dusty papyrus rolls.
We will delve into the sea foam, the caves, and the ancient rites.

We’ll meet the Medusa for what she always represented.

Subscribe if you haven’t. Stay close.

But till then, I’d like to hear from you.

What does the word Medusa mean to you?

What memories, images, or feelings does she awaken?

Where did her story touch something tender, or stir something fierce—rage, grief, or recognition?

If you feel called, write a few words below.

With love,

Helena

1. Hesiod, Theogony, 278

2. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4.794–803

3. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4.773–803

4. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4.773–803

5. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 2.4.2

6. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 2.4.1

7. Apollodorus Bibliotheca, 2.4.2