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Medusa's Lair ..................................................

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Medusa
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GraveDigger......................


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« Reply #26 on: June 16, 2009, 05:29:10 am »

Hey Deve's

Just for you lov.............................my name-sake !


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Medusa, originally a beautiful young woman whose crowning glory was her magnificent long hair, was desired and courted by many suitors. Yet before she could be betrothed to a husband, Poseidon (Neptune)  found her worshipping in the temple of Athena (Minerva) and ravished her. Athena was outraged at her sacred temple being violated, and punished Medusa by turning her beautiful tresses into snakes and giving her the destructive power to turn anyone who looked directly at her into stone.

In both Greek and Roman mythology, Perseus, attempting to rescue his mother Danae from the coercive King Polydectes, needed to embark on the dangerous venture of retrieving Medusa's head. With the help of Athena and Hermes - magic winged sandals, a cap, a pouch and a mirror-like shield, he fought her and beheaded her by viewing her image in the mirror of his shield rather than looking at her directly. From her decapitated head sprang the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor, who became king of Iberia. Medusa's sisters, the Gorgons, chased after him, but were unable to catch him because his magic cap made him invisible.

Perseus was then able to use Medusa's head as a weapon during other battles (which included rescuing Andromeda), but he eventually returned it to Athena, who then placed it at the center of her Aegis as a symbol of her power, and her own capacity to turn her enemies into stone.

Historically, before ancient Greece, Medusa was worshipped by the Libyan Amazons as a Serpent -Goddess, and associated with the destroyer aspect Anath (also known as Athene) of the Triple Goddess in North Africa and Crete. The name Medusa (Medha in Sanscrit, Metis in Greek and Maat in Egyptian) means "sovereign female wisdom."  This online Medusa paper discusses the Libyan and Near Eastern conceptions of Medusa.

Some scholars believe that the Greek and Roman Medusa myth, as told by Ovid, expresses the vanquishing of the great goddess religions as the male gods Zeus/Jupiter and Poseidon/Neptune gained power. Others view it as expressive of the subjugation of women's bodies and enslavement of their spirit by a violent and oppressive male-oriented culture, which viewed Medusa's life-giving, creative, primal energy as threatening.

Psychoanalytic interpretations of the Medusa myth focus upon Medusa's snake-like hair representing bleeding female genitals, and the frightening power of the wounded (perhaps "castrated"), devouring  mother over the fragile male psyche. Seeking his own manhood, the son must conquer his early identification with his mother and his regressive tendency to submit to maternal power and be swallowed up again by the womb. In order to avoid being symbolically castrated himself, and to be capable of mature sexual relations with a woman, he must first "behead" the mother archetype. Only then is he free to express his own power as a man, to form an equal partnership with a woman, and to eventually be helper to his own mother.

Thought you might find it interesting baby !

Quote
  (from Thomas More translation)

Beyond all others she
was famed for beauty, and the envious hope
of many suitors. Words would fail to tell
the glory of her hair, most wonderful
of all her charms--A friend declared to me
he saw its lovely splendour. Fame declares
the Sovereign of the Sea attained her love
in chaste Minerva's temple. While enraged
she turned her head away and held her shield
before her eyes. To punish that great crime
Minerva changed the Gorgon's splendid hair
to serpents horrible. And now to strike
her foes with fear, she wears upon her breast
those awful vipers--creatures of her rage.
 
 

(from Dryden translation)

Medusa once had charms; to gain her love
A rival crowd of envious lovers strove.
They, who have seen her, own, they ne'er did trace
More moving features in a sweeter face.
Yet above all, her length of hair, they own,
In golden ringlets wav'd, and graceful shone.
Her Neptune saw, and with such beauties fir'd,
Resolv'd to compass, what his soul desir'd.
In chaste Minerva's fane, he, lustful, stay'd,
And seiz'd, and rifled the young, blushing maid.
The bashful Goddess turn'd her eyes away,
Nor durst such bold impurity survey;
But on the ravish'd virgin vengeance takes,
Her shining hair is chang'd to hissing snakes.
These in her Aegis Pallas joys to bear,
The hissing snakes her foes more sure ensnare,
Than they did lovers once, when shining hair.
 
 

(from Mandelbaum translation)

Medusa was astonishingly fair;
she was desired and contended for -
so many jealous suitors hoped to win her.
Her form was graced by many splendors, yet
there was no other beauty she possessed
that cold surpass the splendor of her hair -
and this I learned from one who said he'd seen her.
Her beauty led the Ruler of the Sea
To rape her in Minerva's sanctuary
(so goes the tale). Jove's daughter turned aside
chaste eyes: the goddess hid her face behind
her aegis - but she made Medusa pay:
she changed that Gorgon's hair to horrid snakes.
And to this day, Minerva, to dismay
and terrify her foes, wears on her breast
the very snakes that she herself had set -
as punishment - upon Medusa's head.
 
 

(from Humphries translation)

She was a very lovely one, the hope of many
An envious suitor, and of all her beauties
Her hair most beautiful - at least I heard so
From one who claimed he had seen her. One day Neptune
Found her and raped her, in Minerva's temple,
And the goddess turned away, and hid her eyes
Behind her shield, and punishing the outrage
As it deserved, she changed her hair to serpents,
And even now, to frighten evil doers,
She carries on her breastplate metal vipers
To serve as awful warning of her vengeance.

http://www.webwinds.com/thalassa/medusa.htm
« Last Edit: June 16, 2009, 05:33:04 am by medusa » Report Spam   Report to moderator   Logged

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