WEBVTT - From the Vault: Medusa, Part 2 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:07.480 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:10.560 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.520 bringing you a vault episode today since we're out this week. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.080 This is part two of our series on MEDUSA. That's right. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.760 These were super fun episodes to put together, just trying 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.599 to to untangle the myth, uh, to understand what what 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.800 the myth is? You know, talking about everything from from 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:32.600 ancient works of literature to modern horror fantasy films. So 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.480 let's go ahead and enter the Gorgon's lair, and from 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.840 a stone beside, a poisonous fft peeps idly into those 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:46.040 Gorgonian eyes, wilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.640 of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise out of 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.200 the cave. This hideous light had cleft, and he comes 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.760 hastening like a moth that highs after a taper, and 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.360 the midnight sky flares a light more dread an obscurity 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:06.360 tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror. For from the serpent's 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:11.320 gleams of brazen glare, kindled by that inextricable error, which 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.840 makes a thrilling vapor of the air become a blank 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.680 and ever shifting mirror of all the beauty and the terror. 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:23.440 There a woman's countenance with serpent locks, gazing in death 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:31.000 on heaven from those wet rocks. Welcome to Stuff to 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:40.320 Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.280 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.920 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:49.440 part two of our series on the Gorgon Medusa. That's right. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.400 In the last episode, we largely just recounted what can 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.160 roughly be thought of as the canonical myth of Medusa 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.720 as it emerged from the classical era, based on a 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.960 few popular tellings of the myth from those days. Now 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.559 it's time to get into possible origins of the myth, 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.680 as well as various interpretations of the meaning behind it. 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.359 Some of the meanings we've attributed it over time, but 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.160 they're you know, there are also these cases where for 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.680 the underlying power of myth that just keeps us coming 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.200 back to reinterpret it. You know, there's just something about 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.359 mythology in general, but especially with the Gorgon. There's something 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.760 about the Gorgon myth that just keeps bringing us back 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.519 keeps forcing us to reevaluate it. Yeah, it absolutely cannot 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.119 be ignored. I mean, maybe it's because you can't look 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.760 at it without dying, that people can't stop looking at it. 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.760 It's like being told not to think about a taboo subject. Uh. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.840 And so, uh, it's clearly the image of Medusa is 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:52.919 one of the most obsessed over and revisited images from 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.760 all of Greek mythology. Yeah, and we're gonna explore a 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:58.280 number of the different threads there. I think one of 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.559 the great things about it is that all of the interpretations, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:03.800 I think pretty much all the interpretations were going to 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.400 discuss here, they certainly have uh you know, a strong 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.800 air of truth to them, like it feels right, and 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.520 yet none of them feel like they explain it completely. 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.919 There's always this sense of darkness and mystery uh, to 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.360 Medusa that we can't quite grasp, you know, And and 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:24.880 that's part of the this this part of the enigma 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.120 of it. Well, yeah, exactly. I think that's really the 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:33.000 appeal of these ancient archetypes, these archetypal stories and monsters. Uh, 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.600 it's that they don't mean one thing. Instead, there's something 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.720 that the kind of you know, there are a box 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.480 that can be opened twenty different ways, and depending on 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:44.920 you know which part of it you open, you you uh, 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.440 you unlock different treasures from within. Yeah. Absolutely, And I 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.000 want to remind everybody that one of one of our 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.520 key sources in this these episodes was a book by 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.400 David A. Lemming that's L. E. E. M. I n G. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:02.200 Titled Medusa in the Mirror Time from eighteen. So we'll 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:04.840 refer back to that a few different times here, but 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.800 we we also just recommend that book for anyone who 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.120 wants a deeper dive into the nature of Medusa. Now 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.640 we've got a really cool etymological lesson from your son, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.440 I believe. In between recording these two episodes. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.280 this was really interesting. So I mentioned that he was 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.440 reading a lot about mythology, uh. And I also mentioned 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.400 a cool comic book series that he was really into 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.040 titled The Olympians, And I neglected to mention the author 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.359 last time, but it's George O'Connor. He's written eleven of these, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.080 each of them themed around a different god or goddess, 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.360 and book to Athena concerns Medusa. I highly recommend those 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.360 to anyone who just wants, you know, a nice uh 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.480 visual representation of these myths for for a young reader 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.480 or just for them themselves. But another series that my 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:53.600 son was reading, these are all things like checked out 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:58.120 of the library digitally, uh, during this quarantine period. There's 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.599 a series called Science Comics, and he was reading one 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:05.760 titled Science Comics Dinosaurs, Fossils and Feathers. And the book 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.240 points out that one of the three um Gray sisters 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.120 we referred to in the last episode is dino. That's 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.440 d e i n O or d i n o, 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.120 which can be translated as dread. So. In eighteen forty two, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:25.240 paleontologists Sir Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur, derived from 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:30.120 the ancient Greek uh dinos, meaning terrible, potent or fearfully great, 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:34.840 along with sauros, meaning lizard or reptile. Now, I don't 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.920 think there's a stronger connection between the myth and the term, 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:43.640 but Science Comics took the opportunity to include an image 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.600 of the three Gray sisters in this book about dinosaurs, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.479 which was pretty awesome, uh, And I salute especially since 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.120 it brought you these two subjects and my son is 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.719 super into together in one book. Yeah, I never made 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.520 that connection. Even when I saw the name translated at 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.960 Dano or dina, however you say it it as meaning 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.000 like terror or dread, I didn't. I didn't make the 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.440 connection to the dread lizard. Yeah, so I I thought 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.440 when he first told me about it, I didn't believe 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:11.800 and I was like, what are you sure? And then 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:13.600 he showed me the page and yet there they are 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:18.000 just popping up in in in dinosaur books now, so 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.320 you know, good for them. Well, I say, let's jump 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.800 right back into uh to the head of the gore 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.160 gun and pick up where we left off last time. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.600 So the last time you mentioned that we basically gave 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.240 the outline of the myth. We talked about some of 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:33.520 its major variations. Um, but one thing that I think 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.160 we alluded to a little bit last time was the 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.640 idea that there have been attempts to sort of route 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.160 the myth in history to say, like, you know, there's 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.880 some magical elements to this myth, but basically it really 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.200 came from this actual historical event that happened. But I'll 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.960 just I'll just make up right now. Yeah, Learning points 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.280 out in his book that's several noted individuals throughout history, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:05.720 notably um Uh, Pla, fatus Uh, Diodorus of Sicily, Hosanias Uh, etcetera, 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.960 have attempted to sort out the historical quote unquote truth 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.240 of the myth. And this is kind of like geo mythology, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.200 the geomethology approach that we've discussed on the show before, 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.040 you know, wondering what a particular myth really is about 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.080 by seeking a literal version of the affairs of history. 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.880 With geomethology, it tends to break down to looking at 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.720 fossils for the answer, dinosaur fossils in forming the shape 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.680 of a dragon, that sort of thing. Now, digego mythology 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.560 is certainly a fascinating field, and we've discussed some wonderful 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.520 ideas concerning the origins of various myths and monsters, but 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.640 we also point out that it's often unbalanced to depend 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.800 entirely upon geomethology, because myths and monsters, you know, certainly 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.520 they can be borne out of you know, actual extent 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.880 or extinct animals whose remains or uh, you know, description 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.920 one has come across. But we also have to factor 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.760 in human belief, human fears, human creativity, and just the 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.680 layer upon layer of human culture that often builds these things. Yeah, 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.560 I would say, I mean. The thing about explanations like 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.200 this that try to seek a rational, real world inspiration 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.120 for some kind of mythological story or element we have, 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.280 is I mean, for one thing, it's it's usually going 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.960 to be highly speculative. You're you're just trying to find 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.360 a story that could fit the evidence. Rarely do we 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.760 have a case where, like from ancient history, we know that, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.840 oh we we believe this mythical dragon existed because we 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.679 found bones buried in the ground or something like that 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.920 that would give you a really strong clue what the 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.880 actual inspiration was. The simple way I'd put it is, 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.760 don't undersell human imagination, right, Like the fact that a 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.760 strange creature or character or sequence of events happens in 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.400 a myth doesn't mean that creature or character whatever has 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.120 to be based on, uh, the storyteller having once seen 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.360 something in the real world that shared this or that quality. 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.760 A lot of times we just make stuff up, like 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.880 we dream up weird things. We you know, the mind 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.680 mutates variations of things we've experienced in life. Naturally, it 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.880 happens in dreams without us ever having seen you know, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.120 like a bat with human teeth or whatever it is 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.560 that scared us in a dream. And so I think 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.080 we don't. Uh. While it's fun to speculate about this 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.000 kind of thing, we don't have to assume that myths 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.960 and all that are are based directly on anything that 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.480 happened in reality or that somebody saw. Yeah, I mean, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.640 and certainly there are plenty of examples where the geo 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.600 mythological approach or that purely historical approach can be very informative. 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:40.200 Monsters based on again previously extant species or specimens, descriptions 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.280 that make their way from distant lands. Um. And of 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.400 course many mythic exploits do have a basis, even a 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:51.360 primary one, in actual kings and queens and in heroes 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.840 that at one point in history may have been actual 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.960 mortal people before you know, the mythology and legend took over. 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.080 But but Living cautions that the rationalist approach quote provides 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.240 one sort of explanation of the meaning of the Medusa's story, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:10.079 but tends to ignore the power of the mythic elements. Yes, 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.760 so examples of this would include, like you know, ancient 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.040 historians saying, ah, so the story of Perseus and Medusa 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.000 really comes from Perseus being like, imagine there was this 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.520 guy named Perseus, and he was a pirate, and he 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.319 was trying to go to these islands in the Atlantic. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.080 One was that were each ruled by these queens who 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.160 were the gore Gun sisters, uh and and so forth 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.160 like that. I would say one problem with the rationalist 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.000 historical approach is that very often it seems to me 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.800 to just be making things up. So like, how to 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:46.440 simply making up a non magical fictional origin story for 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:52.599 a monster or character improve on the existing magical mythology? Yeah, exactly. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.520 And and ultimately is learning argues the power of myth 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.920 is deeper than history, and and we can follow that 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.040 in a couple of different actions. But first I thought 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.120 we might discuss the origin of Medusa. That is perhaps 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:10.520 most fascinating. And Lemmings book that of the disembodied head 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.720 of Medusa and the idea that it predates Medusa's body. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.720 And I realized that sounds like some causality wrecking weirdness there, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.440 which you know you can certainly encounter in in mythology. 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.080 But the more you think about this angle, I think 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.440 the more it makes perfect sense. And here's the basic premise. 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.000 The moment that really caps off the story of Medusa, 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.160 as we recounted in the previous episode, is Athena's incorporating 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:40.080 of her petrifying head into her own shield. Uh. That 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.840 that Gorgonian face becoming part of her own emblem. And 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.760 we know that Medusa's head and the Gorgonian head itself, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:53.640 these were common motifs on vice's sculptures and helmets, shields, etcetera. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.319 Were pieces of armor and uh, and not only for 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.480 mythic heroes, but for common soldiers as well. And what's more, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.960 this practice of utilizing the Gorgon's head pre dates the 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.320 more evolved versions of the Medusa myth. You know that 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.840 the real story shaped elements that we refer back to 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.160 again and again. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.080 I think it's hard to know for sure, but it seems, 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.640 based on the evidence we have that before the fully 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.800 formed story of Medusa existed, there was simply the Gorgonian, 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:29.480 the magical image a protective amulet bearing this terrifying monstrous 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:34.719 head with grinding teeth and a lolling tongue often tusks uh, 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.960 sometimes kind of gender fluid. It could be it could 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.239 be female, could be male with a beard, could incorporate 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.560 some kind of snake imagery in the hair, but often not. 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.320 It's just generally this terrifying face. So before there was 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.920 the character, there was the ritual magical image. Even in 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.480 Homer's Iliad, you know, one of the great literary sources 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.080 giving us access to early information about Greek myths, you 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.680 don't get the full Medusa story, you don't get a 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.439 full ledged character. Instead, you just get this image, recurring 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.640 the image of the disembodied head of the gorgon, which 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:12.120 Homer describes as a thing grim and awful to behold. Yeah. So, 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.200 so basically the idea is that Medusa pre existed is 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:21.320 a terrifying, petrifying disembodied head um. Like you said, sometimes 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.959 the gorgon was even bearded, and sometimes it was male. Uh, 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.760 and it was a common decoration. And then the persea 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.840 smith comes along, at least in part to provide a 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.240 backstory for the monster, to to literally flesh her out, 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.720 to give her a body so as to explain the 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.720 absence of a body. So if this origin is correct, 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.480 you know you can imagine cases where you have like 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.560 soldiers hanging around the campfire and they've all got this 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.240 terrifying head on their shields, and somebody's looking at the 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.800 shields and being like, I wonder, I wonder who that is. Yeah, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:54.640 I mean it's easy to imagine how a lot of 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.680 these things come come around. You know. Storyteller is just 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.920 sort of coming up with some thing to explain it, 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.120 incorporating it into some other story they heard. Uh, and 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.760 that monster was the Medusa, the very face on your shield, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.040 that sort of thing, or it's or you could also 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.960 compare it to what we do in the modern era 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.960 with we have say a terrifying we'll say, certainly a 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.600 more fleshed out intoday, but we have something like say 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.960 Hannibal Lecter, and people are like, oh, this character is great. Uh, 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.000 I want to learn more about him? What's his backstory? 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:27.480 Where do you come from? Can we have a whole 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.880 book that just explains where we came from? And? Uh? 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.000 You know so and you can. You can look at 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.680 examples of that numerous works, you know, and you make 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.520 something that appeals to people, people want to keep tugging 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.720 on that threat. Well, that's that's something I think a 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.120 lot of times gets out of hand and is can 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.680 be very unsatisfying because a lot of times people don't 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.440 realize that the scarcity of a beloved element in a 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:56.240 narrative is exactly what makes it so beloved. Like, you know, 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.440 Hannibal Lecter in the original Silence of the Lamb's movie, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.120 I know it's not he was a character and other 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.720 stuff before that, but and you know the Jonathan Demmi movie, 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.520 I would say he's especially effective as a character because 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.600 he's in the movie so little. He's you know, he's 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.360 got less than twenty minutes of screen time or whatever. Yeah, 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.640 I would agree, yeah, and certainly in in both both 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.880 the Book's Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. It's 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.520 very that's very much the case. He's a key character, 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.680 but he's not your primary character. You're not spending just 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.720 oodles of time with him. The mystery remains. And so yeah, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.160 you say, oh, I want a whole book about Hannibal Lector, 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.280 I want to know his whole backstory because he's so cool, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.080 is so interesting, so mysterious, And then you get that 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:39.960 and it's like, Okay, I mean the same thing that 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.360 people are like, I want a Boba Fette movie, Like 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.720 is that going to be as good as you think 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.000 it is, yeah, exactly, but to bring it back to Medusa. 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.360 So I think this idea that the the image of 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:56.440 Medusa's severed head could in fact pre date the fully 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.120 formed myth of Medusa's life and and you know her 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.400 origins and uh and her role in the Perseus story. UH. 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.720 Like that ordering is is interesting to consider because again 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.600 it's something that's difficult to prove conclusively, but it does 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.000 appear to be going on with a number of things 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.240 in the history of myth and religion around the world. 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.640 This was a point often made by the people known 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:23.560 as the Cambridge Ritualists. In Lemming's book, he identifies specifically 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.560 the scholar Jane Harrison as one pushing this idea that 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.120 many myths that we have access to today very likely 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:37.400 emerge as a response to rituals and practices rather than 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.400 as the cause of them. And of course this would 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.000 match up pretty well with the ordering of evidence that 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.440 we have in the history of Medusa. Not that there 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.640 was like a myth of Perseus and Medusa which gave 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.880 rise to the use of Medusa emblems on shields and 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.000 armor and money and stuff, but exactly the inverse, that 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.720 there was a tradition of displaying a fearsome gorgon head 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:03.120 on objects as a kind of ritual protective magic, and 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.760 you know, to scare away the bad demons, to frighten 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.360 your enemies, and so forth. And over time, these rituals, 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:13.520 the art, the spells gave rise to a myth to 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.920 explain it, Who is this scary head? We keep stamping 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.439 on things? Where did she come from? And then as 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.040 the myth changes, grows more complex and develops along with 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.320 the cultural values and interests over time. So in that 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:31.520 the myth of the gorgon's head is so ancient that 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.040 Liming points out that it's its origins likely reside outside 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.000 of Greece entirely. Now we should remind ourselves that that 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.480 this is quite common in myth and religion. An idea 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.760 or a deity from one culture grows into or is 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.280 absorbed by another. For instance, gray eyed Athena is said 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.480 to have sprung from Zeus's head, but we can be 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.200 sure that she did not emerge wholesale from the Greek imagination. 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.359 Is is her roots seemed to go back through the 0:17:55.440 --> 0:18:00.680 various powerful goddesses of Proto into Indo Europeans sumere in culture. 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.120 Living gives the specific example of Aphrodite uh and her 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.720 likely connection to a nana and ishtar in ancient Sumerian Babylon, 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.000 and Leming points out a few different traditions of Gorgonian 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:18.520 heads that predate Medusa. Heads that gaze out at us 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:23.520 with the steel faces and petrifying eyes. Uh. There reminds 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.520 me a lot of the kind of lion face one 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.280 makes in in yoga. But also you see similar faces 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.920 that are made snarling faces that are made in various 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:37.280 forms of dance or you know, bodily performance. As a scholar, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.520 Tobin Cibers described it, that's the emblem of of the 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.960 stupefying look and and some of the examples that Leming 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.480 points out. There's the Mesopotamian demon whom Baba uh quote, 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.240 when he looks at someone, it is the look of death. Yeah. 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.399 And I think with whom Baba you get a similar 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.359 dynamic to Medusa, where there's this tradition of ritual imagery. 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.240 It's this kind of like emon head that has some 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.399 kind of ritual magical power and as as displayed on objects. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.520 But also, of course Himbaba appears as a character in 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.159 the mythology shows up in the epic of Gilgamesh as 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.480 as a villain that must be destroyed, right, and destroying 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.440 they do. They in fact, they decapitate the monster, which 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.720 is key in all of this as well. There's also 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.800 the God Best of Egypt household protector God with possible 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:29.200 sub Saharan origins, and despite the Egyptian dependency on side 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.679 profile imagery, Bess is always depicted facing out towards the viewer. 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.280 I want to come back to that. And additionally, some 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.720 early Greek versions of the bodied Medusa apparently have the 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.639 look of a pre existing head motif having been basically 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.280 stamped onto a body, like you know, kind of kind 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.120 of coming back to this idea of like let's let's 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.600 just let's match this up, let's let's let's provide a 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:52.920 body for this, and it's just kind of like almost 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.359 like the ancient Greek version of very rough photoshop that 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.560 one might encounter. Yes, some of the ancient Greek Medusa 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.119 imagery almost seems like, you know when people do that 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.200 like bad on purpose ms paint drawing of something, where 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.960 they like like take a square of somebody's head and 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.960 pasted onto a weird stick figure. Yeah. Yeah, And but 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.399 I think it also kind of speaks to the idea 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.040 that these things were too like the head of the 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.879 Gorgonian head was like a distinct image, a distinct pre 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.760 existing image, and therefore the incorporation of it with the 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.399 body would would be inherently rough and imperfect, and you 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:28.960 would only get a true joining of the two later on. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:31.879 But but I want to come back to this idea 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.879 of of the Gorgonian head staring directly at the viewer 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:42.000 of the art. But but in in modern like cinematic interpretations, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:43.800 we see this as well. In fact, we see it 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:49.399 fantastically in Ray Ray Harryhausen's Medusa that we encounter in 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.679 the original Clash of the Titans. There is at least 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:55.520 I think there's there are a couple of sequences, but 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.720 there's one scene in particular where she breaks the fourth 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.640 wall and stares to rectly at the audience. Yeah, it's 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.359 like the Great Train Robbery, you know, Yeah, or like 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.400 Good Fellows when Joe Pesci shoots the gun at the camera. Yeah. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.520 Like I think, all you know, those are examples of 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:11.600 of things that are in the tradition of the Gorgonian 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.520 head as well. Yeah, but I feel like Harry Howsing 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.359 in particular with with Clash eighty one. Yeah, you know, 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.800 he and he and or the filmmakers. I think they 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.199 realize that it's not a gorgon unless it breaks the 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.159 fourth wall and does look directly at the audience. And 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.920 this is key because the Gorgonian head is in all 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.399 of these examples pure apotropaic magic. Yeah, totally. I mean 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:38.280 apotropaic magic is one of the most interesting subjects to me. 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.240 I I love thinking about this stuff. So apotropaic magic 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.399 means magic that is used to ward off evil or 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:48.880 threats or something like that. Uh. You know a classic 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.399 example that we'll get to more later. You know the 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.000 types of talisman's that you could have to ward off 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.399 the evil eye. That will come up more in a 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.359 bit here. But yeah, I love this idea. Lemming brings 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.360 this up human and the idea that in ancient art 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.480 if you look at a lot of the representations of 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.879 humanoid figures, humans and gods and stuff from the ancient 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.600 Near East in the Mesopotamian region, a whole lot of 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:17.560 it has UH figures depicted in profile facing to the side. 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.320 Think about ancient Egyptian artwork, and a lot of ancient 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.760 Greek artwork that you're gonna have heads facing to the side. 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.720 The Medusa figure and the other apotropic monster figures such 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.840 as Humbaba are going to be depicted in defiance of 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:36.480 this art that often looks directly at you. And it's 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.479 almost as if the art is seeing you back. You know, 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:41.959 you're looking at it and it's looking at you. And 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.080 I think that the weirdness of this may have to 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.399 do with these ancient taboos about the evil eye, about 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.160 being looked at. That like having a piece of art 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.200 that stares directly into your face as you look at 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.240 it is in a way inherently threatening, whether the creature 0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:59.639