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According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary Medusa (or Gorgo) in Greek literature is “a terrible monster” slain by Perseus. He, in turn, is defined as “a mythological hero” who with the help of the gods fulfils his dangerous mission of finding and decapitating this dangerous creature whose glance turns living creatures to stone. Subsequently, he uses the petrifying head to rescue the beautiful Andromeda from a sea monster, avenge his enemies, and save his mother, Danae, from the clutches of the wicked Polydectes. Not so, says author Natalie Haynes. In her exciting, witty retelling of the famous legend derived principally from Apollodorus’s Bibliotheca II, Hesiod’s Theogony and Ovid’s Metamorphoses IV, Medusa is the victim while Perseus is an arrogant, spoiled brat (p. 113), a “vicious little thug” (p. 114), a callous murderer with “a nasty little temper” (p. 304), inept to a remarkable degree (p. 185 and pp. 252 ff.) and “the kind of person who doesn’t learn anything” (p. 356). He is shown to be totally lacking in initiative and ultimately becomes a source of gross irritation to the divinities Athene and Hermes who have to help him every step of the way (pp. 175 f.). It is difficult in reading this highly enjoyable book to disagree with Haynes’s logic. Medusa fully deserves our pity. Abandoned by her parents, Phorcys and Ceto, to the care of two gorgons who initially consider eating her, raped by Poseidon and cursed by Athene with snakes for hair and a deadly gaze, she has done nothing to deserve her fate, while Perseus embarks upon his career of murder and mayhem merely in order to save his mother from the attentions of a king who would probably tire of her after a short while and send her back home with rewards for her services. Furthermore, in the course of the narrative we are introduced to a number of peripheral stories concerning the principal characters in the central legend, for example, the daughters of Cecrops and the mythical origins of the olive. The narrative is well written, raises important questions (p. 272), and, by the use of a form of stichomythia in the chapter entitled “Herpeta”, offers the reader a taste of literary techniques associated with Greek drama. There is much humour throughout, for example, the author’s comment that Perseus would have done better to stay in his village on the island of Seriphos catching fish for the rest of his life and upsetting no-one, though “the fish probably wouldn’t have liked him much, I suppose. But no-one thinks about fish” (p. 113). Overall, it is a pleasure to read an entertaining book which brings such legends to the general public in an era bereft of this genre of literary culture ever since our Philistine politicians of the 1980s and 1990s excised the classics from the school curriculum and closed down many university departments specialising in the subject. I have only a few minor criticisms to make. On page 135 “grow” should be “grew”, “who” is used for “whom” on pages 183, 199 and 336, “and” is redundant before “nor” (e.g. p. 328), and the story, to my disappointment, was not brought to its conclusion At the outset the baby Perseus and his mother Danae are sealed in a chest which is thrown into the sea by Danae’s father, Acrisius, to prevent the child from fulfilling the prophecy that he will kill his grandfather. Yet we hear no more about Acrisius who, according to Apollodorus (II, 4), was accidentally killed by a discus thrown by Perseus during games held at Larissa. In classical mythology it is indeed difficult to avoid one’s fate propounded in prophecy. Read full review
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