Tears for Medusa

In the center of Medusa's lair was a statue of her father...

As Apollo's golden chariot disappeared below the western horizon, dragging Helios in its wake, the skies above Greece blazed violet and gold in a final celebration of the day even as the darkness of night marched up from the eastern horizon. Artemis began her own journey across the skies, carrying Selene behind her. That night a stranger came to the city of Cisthene by way of the sea. He left behind a life dedicated to Ares, and set out to build a new one dedicated to peace. As he took his first good look at the city, a shadow fell across his face as an owl darted past him; seemingly urging him onwards to enter the city. The sacred bird of Athena, goddess of wisdom. The man interpreted this as a sign that he was making the wise choice in coming here, and set out to build his new life.

He first found work as a fisherman, praying each morning to Poseidon and leaving offerings so that the god might spare his wrath and maybe, if the mighty god of the sea was feeling generous, bless him with a bounty of fish. In time it became apparent that the man either lacked all talent for fishing or Poseidon did not hear his prayers well enough. Either way he set aside the fishing line and moved on with his search for stability.

Next he tried his hand at mercenary work, as he was still young and strong enough to put those many years of battle to good use. This venture was far more successful than fishing, for he had already a considerable talent for violence. Yet in all his time fighting other people's battles he had never acquired a great love for killing, no matter how many drachmae he could make doing so. Each life he took made him all the more aware of his own mortality, and each new scar he acquired during his days fighting drew him ever closer to the call of Hades, and the endless fields of Asphodel he so deeply dreaded. So, with a heavy heart and a few new scars, he looked for work elsewhere.

Though he looked for it far and wide, gainful employment eluded him for over a year. He spent much of that time as drunk as humanly possible. Dionysus had always been kind to him after all, and he had plenty of sorrows to drown himself in by that time in his life. Plenty of dead brothers in arms to reminisce over. And plenty of coin earned from his mercenary work. Why not indulge? Why not forget? Why sobriety, he asked of the gods, and why not madness? The skies over Greece remained as devoid of answers as the bottom of each wine glass, but he kept drinking just to be sure. By the end of his drunken odyssey the wine ran dry around the same time the drachmae did, and he was tossed out on his ear with little to show for his time in Cisthene aside from a hangover and a fresh batch of battle wounds.

He was taken in by a kindly farmer next. The only man he had met who had lived and lost as much if not more than he had. Together they toiled in the fields for several years under Demeter's watchful eyes. Growing food for first the people of Cisthene, and through her ports the whole of Greece, to fill their bellies with was a far nobler venture than filling the bellies of Greece's enemies with sharpened metal. It soothed him, and in Demeter's embrace he found a kind of peace.

Spending most of the day in the fields, and most of the night sleeping more soundly than he ever had, left him with little time to think on his regrets. He spent his leisure instead learning to carve. First wood, which he had already been whittling during all the years he spent soldiering. Then clay, to help his good friend the farmer around the farm making vases and urns and replacing anything that broke. And eventually stone after a terrible earthquake shook apart the floor of the farmer's home. Now he was no artist by any means, at least not then, but his work was precise and his help valued. He took no small amount of pride in knowing that he had repaid the kindness shown to him by the farmer. His nightmares of Asphodel and the ones he had slain that awaited him there began to wane with each passing harvest. Wine became something he drank with dinner rather than with both hands. For the first time in his life the stranger felt at peace with himself and comfortable with his place in the world. His gratitude to Demeter did not go unnoticed.

Perhaps as a reward for this time he spent in the farmer's fields, living humbly and worshipping her every day whether he knew that was what he was doing or not, Demeter saw fit to speak with Aphrodite on the stranger's behalf, and the goddess of love took pity on the weary stranger. She plucked from the island of Lesbos a woman who had prayed to the goddess many times in search of love and sent her on a serendipitous outing across the water to Sarpedon; the island upon which Cisthene rested. Athena sent the stranger a sign in the form of her owl alighting upon the farmer's wagon to urge him to accompany his friend away from the fields and into the city that day.

They met in Cisthene's market, both reaching for the same object. For many years they would jokingly argue what that object was. An apple. A bolt of cloth. It mattered little. After their eyes met, whatever it was they had been thinking of before slipped from their memory entirely. Aphrodite would laugh if she heard someone use the phrase 'love at first sight,' for love was something that required as much patient tending as any flower or crop, as much strategy and cunning as warfare, and as much temperance as anything cooked in the fires of her husband's forges. Love did not fall upon someone like a bolt of lightning or crash upon them like the sea. It grew, it changed, it required guidance and attention. It had a life of its own. So if one wished not to make Aphrodite laugh, they would never say that two people fell in love immediately. But even she knew the power that could spark between two people upon their first impression. There grew between the stranger and this woman a spark deep passion that time, and their devoted attention, first bloomed and later tempered into what Aphrodite would call love.

That first day they met, the stranger swore to his friend the farmer with resolute certainty that the woman from the market must have been a sea-nymph for such was her beauty. The farmer would grow quite tired of hearing him say as much, though he would never try to dampen the man's spirits. In turn the woman's friends grew equally tired of hearing how 'her prayers were answered by this stranger whose rough exterior hid a gentleness only she could see.'

At long last the stranger had finally received a blessing from the gods, and he made sure to provide his thanks in generous offerings to Demeter for his enriching career in the fields, Aphrodite for whatever magic she had to weave in order to introduce him to his future bride, the Morae (fates) themselves for everything he underwent that brought him to this point, and Athena for sending him an owl to guide him to Cisthene in the first place.

For a time the gods were pleased. Yet, as with many of Aphrodite's most cherished romances, their time together was sadly brief. A few blissful years, a short marriage even Hera herself could find no fault in, and the length of a single pregnancy before it all ended as most things do in old Greece. In tragedy. It seemed that the stranger blinked and their time together was over. He cradled his newborn baby girl even as he sent his wife to Hades with enough drachmae for the oarsmen, Charon, to see her safely across the River Styx.

The stranger, who was less a stranger to the people of Cisthene and more a father now, had a difficult task ahead of him. He had seen far too many lone fathers squander their children's brightest years by being too deeply sunk in their grief to pay their child any mind. From his time indulging in Dionysus' dominion, he knew how susceptible he might be to become such a father. This was not the fate he desired for his daughter, so he strove to become a man she could be proud of.

And so the father became a sculptor, calling upon the skills he had been quietly acquiring all his life but that had only truly awoken here in Cisthene. Most of his work was architectural, and as Cisthene was still expanding there was great call for his skills. He helped build more than one temple to the gods, and took great care with each of them for each time he looked at his daughter he knew he had much to be grateful for, but it was just the one he would be remembered for.

The temple of Athena.

His second greatest achievement, that temple was. It sat upon a hill overlooking both the city and the sea. A statue of Athena rose proudly before it, spear raised in defense of Cisthene, and inside was another (smaller, but no less magnificent) statue of Athena's owl.

The owl was watchful, and saw all that transpired in the city of Cisthene. It saw the father raise his beautiful daughter to be kind. Wise. Strong of body, mind, and character. A paragon of Athena's values. Aphrodite's envy. The beloved daughter of Cisthene whom everyone in the city had a soft spot for after the tragedy that befell her mother and all the great service her father had brought over the years.

The owl bore witness as the father gave the very best childhood he could to his beloved daughter; the beautiful Medusa.

When his daughter came home one day to excitedly announce that she was to become a priestess of Athena he could not have been more proud. It seemed once again that the fates had conspired in his favor. An owl had led him to Cisthene, an owl led him to his wife, and now the statue of Athena's owl would watch over his beloved daughter. The father spoke to his friend the farmer with such elation that the farmer could only laugh and congratulate his old friend.

And so it seemed that the gods of Olympos were smiling upon Cisthene.

Less than a year. That was how long it lasted before a terrible storm swept up from the ocean and found its way into Athena's temple. It claimed his daughter in unspeakable ways, and for its transgressions Athena chose to punish his daughter instead. She became one of the gorgons, but unlike the other two she maintained her mortality, and left in her wake a trail of statues that even her father could never have mimicked as she fled from the temple to places unknown.

When the storm calmed and the sun returned, days later, the father stood in the center of Athena's temple, its marble cracked by the fury of two gods whose whim had wreaked havoc upon his life.

"Have I not given enough?" He asked aloud of the very same statue of her owl that he had so meticulously carved.

"Have I not been both generous and diligent in my offerings of thanks to you, oh mighty ones? Half my life I spent by the sword in Ares' name. The other half I have dedicated to each of you in turn. I have given something to each of you. Apollo and Zeus, you have received my thanks many times for all the sunlight and rain that fell our crops. Demeter, you of all should know how devout I have been. Aphrodite, when have I ever missed so much as a day giving my thanks to you for my time with my dear wife? Hephaistos, have you and I not shared an amicable relationship at least, with all the tools I have needed to do my various jobs over my years? Dionysus, bittersweet has been my time with you, Dionysus, if any of the gods have received perhaps too much worship from me over the years of my life, I suspect it is you. Hades, I have given you my greatest and only love, and I have lined your fields with dead warriors. My point is that I have given you all... everything I have. A man should not be judged by the measure of what he is lacking, but by the measure of what he is willing to give in spite of it. I have given you all I have, Olymians! Yet... it would seem Poseidon has decided it was not enough. Is this because I was such a terrible fisherman? Surely there were other ways to punish me, Earthshaker. And you Athena, to you I have given my all! My time, my talent, my faith, my skill, and most importantly my daughter. My only daughter! A child, I gave you, and this is the thanks that I receive? Poseidon sweeps in here like a great tempest, soils your temple that I built for you, soils my daughter that I gave to you, and you punish HER for it! HOW DARE YOU!"

The very stone seemed to shake from the force of his fury. All the citizens of Cisthene grew quiet as an unnatural chill swept through the town that day. But his blasphemies were far from spent that day.

"HOW DARE YOU TAKE MY DAUGHTER! Have you not taken enough! Have you not taken all I have had to give and still demanded more? I would curse the lot of you unworthy gods, if I had but a fraction of the powers you so right-lessly possess. If I could climb Mount Olympos and tear down your thrones one by one, by the Styx I would do it!"

Thunder crackled across the sky, and for the briefest of moments it occurred to the father that for all his rage he was still a mere mortal man. The moment passed as swiftly as the fading thunder and the righteous fury returned. He opened his mouth to spit something far more venomous and heretical; something that would likely land him in Tartaros with the other monsters. Which may very well have been his goal as at least he might see his daughter again, should she be deemed truly monstrous.

But before he could summon his own doom into existence, his old friend the farmer arrived with many others at his back. Every one the father had helped and come to love in his time in Cisthene. They came to him in his time of pain and did their best to comfort him. It took time, but eventually he let himself be soothed, at least outwardly. On the inside he never let dull the spark of his anger and never again gave thanks to any god. In their absence he saw that the world still acted much as it had before, and he briefly doubted if they had ever acted in his life at all. Perhaps he had blindly followed some dumb barn owl out looking for food and stumbled upon a city because eventually he was bound to, it was an island after all, and took it as a sign. Perhaps it had been he and his wife alone who curated the incredible love they shared, and death had taken her from him by chance, for no other reason. Perhaps he was an old fool and the gods never cared for him at all.

Then again, perhaps not.

Over the following years news came to Cisthene of the dreaded gorgon called Medusa who turned all the men who saw her to stone. The people of Cisthene wept to hear of how the gods had cursed one of their own so harshly. Some said it was no curse at all but a gift that no man could ever again touch her.

Surely Athena, in her wisdom, would not punish a victim but instead grant her the power to punish those who might harm her further, yes? The father disagreed. The gods and goddesses had proven time and again that in their anger they are capable of truly monstrous things. Artemis, long heralded as one of the most virtuous goddesses, turned a hunter into prey and had his own dogs rip him apart for the unforgiveable sin of glimpsing her and her nymphs bathing naked in the woods. Too harsh punishment for such an accidental breach of etiquette, argued the father.

In the case of Medusa, he was obviously biased. What was done to her by Poseidon made the father curse the sea every time he saw it, it was a vile thing for which only the harshest of punishments should befall any who perpetrated it... but it should never be the end of love and intimacy for the victim. Athena had only deepened this terrible act when she cursed the woman to become a petrifying monster with snakes for hair, a state she would remain in for the remainder of her life. And for what? Further punishment for something that was already done to her without her consent. Vilifying the victim. Where was the wisdom in denying someone the chance to grow beyond what had been done to them. Instead of being a victim, once, due of Athena's intervention Medusa would be a monster forever. What Athena had stolen from Medusa, to hear the father tell it anyway, was the opportunity to heal.

Be it man or woman he would have preferred his daughter be allowed to find someone who treated her with kindness and loved her well, whose touch she never had any reason to fear.

When news came to Cisthene of Perseus's journey, blessed with gifts from so many gods so that he might succeed in slaying Medusa, the father very nearly took up the sword again and killed the boy himself. But one piece of information gave him pause. The location of Medusa's lair.

The man bid his friends farewell, and told them not to look for his return, and he made haste for his daughter's side. The farmer gave him a horse to speed him on his way, and the father passed Perseus (who was on foot) right by as he urged the horse to a gallop.

Outside the cave his daughter had been forced to make her home, the father of Medusa covered his eyes with a blindfold and wandered in, calling her name. After roaming through a forest of statues, he at last found her. He fell to his knees and begged for her forgiveness. He warned her of Perseus' approach and told her only some of the many things he had long wished were different and had so many times hoped he would be able to tell her. In place of her melodious voice all he could hear were the hissing of snakes, for Athena and Poseidon had robbed her of that too. She had no way to directly tell her father how she felt, or how good it was to see him, or how she did not blame him for what transpired.

Hearing nothing and fearing the worst, that she did not forgive him, her father told Medusa that he would fight Perseus for her, all she needed to do was hide. Medusa laughed (and this he heard even above the hissing serpents) and removed his blindfold with her head turned aside. She gestured to all the statues of men who had come before trying to strike her down.

She could defend herself, it seemed she was saying. The father looked upon this and despaired at first, remembering all the lives he had taken in war and knowing the weight of that burden had passed on to her.

Then he noticed other details around his daughter's home. A crack in the cavern's ceiling let in a flood of moonlight which illuminated her work. Flower crowns were draped across many of the statues. Candles and torches were placed around lighting an area of rock she had carved into a comfortable patio with couches made of stone and cushions of moss. She was her father's daughter after all. One statue stood apart from the others for it was not made from real men but from marble, though where she had found it was a mystery to him he would have to leave unsolved.

In the center of Medusa's lair was a statue of her father.

Larger than life, with a warm crinkly smile on his face, and fewer scars than he knew he had. He was kindly older man with laugh lines and gentle eyes. Strong, but comfortingly so, not intimidating. Not to her anyway. He saw himself as his daughter saw him and could not help but feel overwhelmed. In a world as dark and cruel as Medusa's must have been, to know that she never hated her father was a comfort he did not know he needed. It left him more speechless and humbled than he had ever been before.

When he looked over to his daughter and their eyes met, he saw shock on her face, but he felt no pain. He reached out his hand and she took it, and he said, "Thank you."

As he felt his body turning to stone he made sure she heard his last words before he let go and just let himself enjoy the moment of reconnecting with his daughter.

"I'm proud of you, sweet Medusa." His cheeks spread so wide in his last smile that cracks appeared in the stone the moment is closed around him forever. A tear streaked from his stony eyelid down his rocky cheek and rolled away. It was a tear of grief, yes, but also joy. He had been wrong, perhaps. She had healed. She had known she was loved. She had been a whole person, rather than the fragment of an echo of someone else's voice crying 'monster.'

In the center of Medusa's lair stood a statue that was once her father.

He had his hand outstretched to hold hers, which she had taken in his last moments and felt him squeeze in support, and a smile on his face so wide that it had cracked the stone that formed his cheek as the process completed.

When Perseus arrived with his mirrored shield and winged sandals to fight some horrible monster he had never met, Medusa still stood with one hand in her father's stony grip and the other on his cheek. When she broke away to fight the intruder, her father's hand crumbled apart and left a stump.

An owl swooped in from the crack in the cavern ceiling which let in moonlight, and alighted on the father's wrist. A drachma was clutched in its beak, and it placed it gently in between the man's smiling teeth before it flew away as Medusa turned to face her final battle.

What happened next we all remember.

Medusa's severed head became a powerful weapon first in the hands of her killer, who rode victoriously away from the site of her murder on the back of her child Pegasus, and later in the hands of the gods themselves. Sculptors would paint the likeness of her severed head on temples dedicated to Athena and Zeus for many seasons to come. But that was simply how she was remembered, not how she lived.

Medusa lived a happy childhood. She was on her way to embody all the wisdom and strength Athena herself inspired. She was also dreadfully beautiful. What was done to her by people who possessed far too much power, and how she was treated for it afterwards, were the actions of others. What she did with her life after being transfigured into a monster was no different than what any of the rest of us would do. She tried to survive and make the most out of the hand the fates dealt her. But in her final moments in this life she knew something no one could ever take from her. She was loved unconditionally by at least one person.

Medusa was mortal (monster or not) so her soul belonged to Hades, who was far kinder than some would have you believe. In the underworld she would be reunited with her father. Charon would demand no payment from her once he saw the symbol of Athena's owl upon her father's coin and would ferry the both of them across the River Styx. They would enter the domain of Hades and Persephone where she would meet her mother for the first time. The father shed ghostly tears at seeing how similar they both looked.

Persephone, whose mother Demeter had told her of the father's love of the fields, pulled some strings and had all three of them brought to Elysium, where they would spend their afterlives at peace. Life is often unfair, but that does not mean the afterlife must be more of the same.

Medusa and her father would go on to carve many statues together and redesign Persephone's palace every few decades for the fun of it. They never grow tired of hearing from new mortals the modern reinterpretation of her myth.

One day Medusa would decide to try for reincarnation, and she would re-enter the mortal world and go on to lead a normal life free from divine intervention and monstrous curses. She experienced all the peaks and valleys of life so often taken for granted, and returned to Elysium with much to share with her ancient family...

There is room enough in this world that the myth of the dreaded gorgon Medusa, bane of men, and the myth of Medusa, daughter of a simple sculptor and the victim of a terrible crime, can coexist.

Cry no tears for Medusa, the survivor. Weep for Olympos, torn asunder not by giants but by the rage of a million mortals whose lives were ruined by the actions of the all-powerful despots who sat upon its marble thrones.