The True Medusa: Yu's Incarnation (Part 2)
The earliest ancient Greek written record concerning Medusa comes from the poet Hesiod, who lived in the 8th to 7th century BCE. His work Theogony is
Continue from The True Medusa: Yu's Incarnation (Part 1)
The earliest ancient Greek written record concerning Medusa comes from the poet Hesiod, who lived in the 8th to 7th century BCE. His work Theogony is widely regarded by scholars as one of the earliest textual sources on the subject.
In approximately lines 270–300 of Theogony, Hesiod mentions the three Gorgon sisters: Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa.
Γοργόνες δ᾽ ἔτεκεν, Σθεννώ τε καὶ Εὐρυάλη τε / καὶ τρίτη Μέδουσα λυγρή· θνητὴ δ᾽ ἦν αὕτη, / αἱ δ᾽ ἀθάνατοι καὶ ἀγήραοι.
"She bore the Gorgons: Stheno and Euryale, and the third, wretched Medusa. She alone was mortal; the other two were immortal and ageless."
You may notice that in this earliest recorded account, the ancient Greek author regards Medusa with compassion — she is not portrayed as a villainous figure at all.
Medusa understood herself deeply, which is precisely why she went to the goddess's temple and asked Athena to use her divine power to suppress the demonic force within her. For a person of noble character, being a demon is a source of profound shame.
Why did Medusa not wish to be a demon, yet find herself born into a demonic form? In truth, Medusa had also been a god in a past life — not a great deity like Athena, but a god nonetheless. It was envy that brought about her fate of being reborn as a snake-haired Gorgon in this life.
Envy is like a serpent coiled within the heart. Perhaps that is not merely a figure of speech.
Humans make mistakes, and so do gods. But in the celestial realm, envy is a grave transgression — unlike among humans, where one can harbor envy and go on living.
And so Medusa's life was both a punishment from the higher gods and, at the same time, a test.
This is also why Medusa became a priestess of Athena. Under the goddess's protection, the demonic power within her could be kept in check, while she was still able to walk among the mortal world in a human body.
She hoped that, with the goddess's help, she could diminish her demonic nature and perform good deeds to offset it.
At that time, a great battle between good and evil was unfolding — and the forces of righteousness were struggling to overcome the forces of evil.
Athena, being the goddess of war, naturally joined the fight. But the battle had reached a dire impasse.
Medusa, exiled to her desolate island, heard of this. She went before the goddess and declared that she too wished to help.
Athena agreed — but she never imagined that the way Medusa chose to help would be to sacrifice herself, offering her own head to be mounted on the goddess's shield.
Being a demon had brought Medusa immeasurable suffering. Demons have a destructive nature that drives them to harm humans, but Medusa refused to act on it. During her years of exile on the island, whenever the demonic power surged within her and the urge to harm others arose, she would turn that harm upon herself instead.
Only the blade of Perseus could sever Medusa's head — and it was Medusa herself who asked Perseus to do it. Yet this became the story of Perseus as the heroic monster-slayer.
Perseus, the demigod hero, was one of Yu's Secondary Souls, which is why the entire event left such a deep impression on him — for he had not acted willingly when he severed Medusa's head.
For a god to act, they must obtain the consent of a god higher than themselves. And so Perseus brought Medusa before the temple and sought Athena's permission. It was refused.
But Medusa, her mind made up, threw herself onto Perseus's blade. Her resolve was absolute. This left Athena stricken with grief.
Many will know that in the eyes of the celestial realm, suicide is considered a transgression, as it disrupts the divine arrangement of a life's course. Yet because Medusa's act was one of righteousness, her death was not counted as a sin — for two reasons:
First, in her effort to keep her demonic nature in check and prevent herself from doing harm, she had been inflicting wounds upon herself continuously — acts which themselves amounted to a kind of self-destruction.
Second, she had arrived before the goddess with barely a breath left in her. Athena, full of compassion, could not bring herself to take her life — but Medusa was already clinging to existence by a thread. Even had she not died by Perseus's blade, she would not have survived much longer.
The battle was ultimately won, with Medusa's sacrifice playing a decisive role.
When the higher gods learned of what had happened through Athena's account, they elevated Medusa's soul to divine status, and she became part of the Dragon God clan.
The Medusa of that life also tells us something about the higher gods' compassion toward her: they gave her a mortal body, while her two sisters were both immortal.
Had Medusa also been immortal, her suffering would have been even greater — for she would have had to battle the demonic force within her for all of eternity.
It seems that immortality is not always a blessing.
A demon, unwilling to harm others, gave up immortality and begged the gods to make her mortal — and in the end, became a god. Yet some humans, in their pursuit of immortality, have brought devastation to countless lives and turned themselves into demons. Is that not deeply ironic?
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