![]() As a spiteful addendum, Athena turns Medusa’s beautiful long dark hair into a ring of live snakes, thus issuing a life sentence of isolation and despair. She hones in on two characters: that of Perseus, who has been tasked by Zeus to slay the monster Medusa, by cutting off her head, and Medusa herself – condemned to live on a deserted island, in a curse by the vengeful goddess Athena, following Medusa’s seduction by the sea god Poseidon, amidst the hallowed columns of Athena’s virgin temple. It is a bold undertaking, to take one of the Greek myths and re-tell it for the modern age, but Burton does so with clarity and gusto. ![]() It is a shocking image, and one which impressed Jessie Burton so much, that she vowed one day to write Medusa’s story, and, by implication, avenge her horrible fate. ![]() ![]() In Caravaggio’s stark portrait of Medusa, painted in 1597, she is captured at the moment of her beheading, blood dripping from her neck, her mouth and eyes stretched wide in horror, with the infamous snakes writhing around her head. ![]()
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