#but Ovid's one isn't a tradition of belief its just literature | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sherdnerd · 1 year ago

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I stg if I see one more "Justice for medusa's TRUE story!" post I'm gonna kill someone.

(TW: Assault mention)

The medusa is assaulted by posidon then cursed by athena for being assaulted in her temple only appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, which is written as a purposeful subversion of Greco-roman myths. most are reframed or rewritten from just kinda a thing that exists or a black and white moral tale of why you shouldn't be hubristic to full on tragedies on the part of the person often getting their comeuppance or the monster. Heck in book 13 we get a love story starring Polyphemus, the cyclops from the Odyssey.

In general mythology, Medusa is just another monster. Ovid revises the myth to turn it into a tragedy. I absolutely love ovid's work, he does so many clever things with the myths, but for the love of the gods its the furthest from the real version you can get

#And yeah obviously its greek mythology so theres no set canon and you can kind of pick and choose tellings #but Ovid's one isn't a tradition of belief its just literature #its damn good literature but in terms of religion its like claiming good omens is part of the christian canon #classics #ancient history #tagamemnon #ancient rome #greek mythology #medusa #ovid #latin literature #ancient greece #mythology

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