The story Yu Menglong shares today about Medusa will overturn everything people think they know — please prepare yourselves.

The version most people are familiar with — in which Medusa is violated by Poseidon and then punished by Athena and transformed into a snake-haired monster — comes from Book IV of Metamorphoses (approximately lines 794–803):

Hanc pelagi rector templo vitiasse Minervae / dicitur. Aversa est et castos aegide vultus / nata Iovis texit; neque enim hoc impune fuisset. / Crinibus in serpentes mutatis horruit ora.

"The ruler of the seas is said to have violated her in the temple of Minerva (Athena). The daughter of Jupiter (Athena) turned away and covered her chaste face with her aegis; but this deed could not go unpunished. She transformed Medusa's hair into serpents and made her face a thing of horror."

However, this is in fact a slanderous account of the gods — the product of humanity's moral decline. There are two reasons for this:

Poseidon could not possibly have violated any god or human merely to satisfy his desires, for he would have been cast down by the gods above him if he had. And Athena could not possibly have punished Medusa for being violated, since Medusa had not acted willingly.

What truly happened was this: Poseidon came to Athena's temple to deliver a betrothal letter — a formal written contract of marriage — along with a token of his intention. He held deep admiration for Athena, and the two were of comparable standing.

In those times, the gods lived among human society. Athena would often disguise herself as one of her own priestesses and go among the people to observe their lives. It was on one such occasion that Poseidon recognized her — and fell in love with her at first sight.

Medusa and Athena looked remarkably alike. This resemblance was a grace Athena had bestowed upon Medusa, for Medusa was a demoness who had come to the temple seeking the goddess's protection — hoping to overcome the demonic power within herself, to be taken in, and to have that power suppressed through divine strength, so that she might be given a mortal form.

And so when Poseidon arrived at Athena's temple and saw Medusa dressed in priestly robes, he assumed she was Athena herself.

But he had mistaken her for someone else. The woman before him was Athena's head priestess — not Athena.

Medusa was frightened. Before taking her role as priestess, she had made a vow to devote her life to serving Athena and never to marry. And so she fled.

Medusa reported the incident to Athena, who was furious. For Poseidon to send a betrothal letter, he would have needed to first obtain the approval of the higher gods. A marriage between gods could only be completed under the blessing of the gods above them.

But the higher gods would never have approved this union — for Poseidon was already betrothed to Amphitrite.

Athena therefore refused him, in keeping with the gravity of divine nature and its reverence for chastity and moral conduct.

Poseidon's actions showed disrespect both to Athena and to his own divine standing. To Athena, who held the rules of order in the highest regard, this was a profound affront.

And for Medusa, it was an even deeper wound.

For in ancient times, the faces of female priestesses were not permitted to be gazed upon uninvited. They were the voices of the gods, and their status was one of great sanctity.

Poseidon had come to deliver a betrothal letter without the approval or blessing of the higher gods, had entered the goddess's temple uninvited, and had even mistaken her priestess for the goddess herself.

Medusa felt profoundly shamed. The way Poseidon had treated her left her feeling that her soul was no longer pure — that she was no longer worthy to remain in the goddess's temple. She asked Athena to exile her to an uninhabited island, to live or die on her own.

She begged Athena to restore her appearance to its original demonic form — ugly and fearsome — so that no male god would ever covet her looks again. (It is remarkable that what she herself requested came to be written by humans as a punishment inflicted upon her by Athena.)

In truth, Athena loved her deeply — how could she ever have wished to harm her? Medusa was her head priestess, the most loyal of all to Athena.

Though Athena was serious by nature, she was also deeply compassionate. She granted Medusa a pair of divine eyes — such that any evil person who met her gaze would be instantly turned to stone. She also gave her the crown of serpents for hair, to serve as protection: should any male god attempt to draw near, the serpents would strike first.

Athena then reported both her own affront and Medusa's to the higher gods, and requested that they sanction Poseidon.

At that time, Poseidon's character was deeply self-centered. Though he had accomplished many great deeds before, those merits may have offset his transgression to some degree — but they were clearly not enough to appease Athena's anger.

The higher gods therefore decided to exile Poseidon for a period of time. For a long while, Poseidon had no divine duties and could only wander among the mortal world. It was a difficult existence — though gods have no need of food or alms, to be stripped of one's divine powers and sacred instruments was suffering enough.

This was, in fact, the higher gods' way of grinding away his ego and correcting his habit of acting without regard for consequences. If he had truly been unhappy with his betrothed, he could have taken a far more honorable path — declaring his intentions openly to the higher gods — rather than going privately to a goddess's temple to pursue his feelings.

In the end, Poseidon's exile came to a close. He married his betrothed and had many descendants, just as the Greek myths describe.

And Yu tells us that many of the gods in Greek mythology were, in truth, members of the Western Dragon clan who had taken on human form.

The True Medusa: Yu's Incarnation (Part 2)

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