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Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics Podcast
Medusa

Medusa

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics vor 5 Jahren

The real story of the famous snake-haired mythological woman?

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27:46

"Rock star classicist" and reformed stand-up Natalie Haynes is
obsessed with the ancient world. In these series she explores
(historical and mythological) lives from ancient Rome and Greece
that still have resonance today. They are hilarious and tragic,
mystifying, revelatory. And they always tell us more about
ourselves now than seems possible of stories from a couple of
thousand years ago.

Today Natalie tells of Medusa, she of the snaky locks and stony
glare. Medusa is truly terrifying, but she wasn't always a
monster. She was once the most beautiful of the Gorgon sisters,
turned into this hideous version of herself by the goddess
Athene, after being 'seduced' by Poseidon. Which may make her -
literally - the original monstered victim.

Natalie is joined by Professor Edith Hall, who says that Medusa
is not just a victim or a monster. She's a beloved sister and
mother (to winged horse Pegasus and hero Chrysaor). Her
lithifying gaze gives her something in common with Midas but
there's a difference in how we are invited to view them: we fear
her and pity him.

Illustrator Chris Riddell draws Medusa as he talks to Natalie,
contemplating how she managed her serpentine hair (a
hairdresser's nightmare, presumably) and whether some kind of
super-sunglasses might help out with the problem of turning
everything she looks at into stone.

Producer, Mary Ward-Lowery