It is a prejudice that I think we can already see in Herodotus that there is something prized but also irredeemable about a Gorgon’s head, and in particular Medusa’s mortal one, and it treads a narrow bridge between arrestingly beautiful (illustrations of which coalesce around neo-spiritual work) and grotesque (a few of these, but classically, Caravaggio). And though I recognise that the preceding references are already unwieldy it would be impossible not to mention, (in passing), the utility of the sublime which I think helps to bridge the slippages between gorgeous (I see now, close to Gorgon) and terrible, which are adjectives used (at times interchangeably) to convey the Medusa.
Indeed, from another angle, the purpose of these masks was two-fold and hinged most especially on perspective, so that it might permanently ‘‘make an ugly face’ at you if you are doing wrong’ but ‘for you if you are doing right’. It is in this connection that one might also understand why Medusa, or more generally the Gorgon, was used in buildings as a symbol of protection (one which I suppose was intended to ward off a culpable mens rea by turning it to stone).
What are we to do with the conundrum of a deceased relative, a woman-in-law who in life was experienced, let’s say, as a labour of Herakles (perhaps even his greatest)? What to do, for example, with the legacy of blood and gathering in and outsiders, or for another example, with questions of loyalty to a gorgon’s descendants who you might encounter only another handful of times in your (or their) life? And perhaps I have conflated my illustrations here, since the origin story of the Medusa is not one of creation; and perhaps I am blending these ideas with Medea (although it is said of our Gorgon that she was nothing if not an excellent mother) which is perhaps to do her an injustice. And I too can understand (now in adulthood) the complexity of what it means to be gathered in, but imperfectly, or left on a familial margin.
Recently, for instance, I am included in the death notice for my partner’s father (gathered in) but left awkwardly in the third pew at the service (imperfectly) two pews from my partner, but beside his son who has, until recently, been an estranged one (where out hovers at both of our backs, I suppose, as a draughty reminder). There is a kind of human frailty in the familial failures to adequately integrate women or gather them in (painfully excluded from the family Kris Kringle but required to prepare a platter to feed fifteen). This line, which I grant seems unlikely, between exclusion and obligation, is in practice pervasive and as palpable as anywhere in the mundanity of gifts and platters for a religious holiday (which however conveys, with exquisite precision, the extent to which one will ever belong among other people). And though a baby may cement a transition or subsequent arrival for women in families, it is neither a certain path (if we take Medea as our lesson, or indeed, my relative) and all I can say is that it would be well to stop looking in all the wrong places for acceptance, which in truth is always attended, to a greater or lesser extent, by limitations.
And I am forced to concede that there is only one female relative permitted a kind of perfection by those who encountered her (which would only occur in memory, or idly, perhaps, in a small regional cemetery), my dear Aunt Miriam, for whom four (I imagine very difficult) days on this earth were the span of a whole lived lifetime. And such was its brevity, that it is the sort of life one might reify, or regard as both minute but perfect, this tiny twin whom my mother maintains had the prettier name, and which was I suppose a small justice, since it was my mother who something divine, or medical science, or just blind fortune, allowed to prevail. And that Miriam was never confronted by the question of belonging or the inconveniences of gender – but rather was missed by her mother and also (for many years) by her twin, who apparently sought Miriam out for quite a few years before she even knew for certain that a twin had been lost to her – is a consolation I think, (though if life is the greatest of privileges, then only a slight one).
And if seen in this light, there isn’t a woman who has lived a life more capacious than Miriam’s, who is not, among certain quarters, vilified; or the subject of nightmares or desolate memories. And whether it be an injustice is hardly the question, nor where they belonged nor if they were accepted. And it is worth asking how a symbol of horror might also work as a symbol of protection. For instance, in reconsidering Harrison’s remarks on doing right, then it must be conceded that by dehumanising Medusa as ‘most evil’ she also makes a slight omission – since the Gorgon will surely protect those who do right by her (though this is, naturally, as measured from the Gorgon’s own oblique subjectivity). And there is room enough on this earth, and I suppose also in heaven (or wherever we might go after life), for one to simply utter a prayer to a merciful god (if there is one) that they might keep our Gorgons safe, to be sure, but far away from us. And there is surely enough room also, to achieve a kind of forgiveness that we might bestow upon anyone who seeks (but does not succeed) in carrying our head as a trophy from Libya to Khemmis (or Akhmim), unless we are ourselves a paragon of perfection. Unless we are, ourselves, Miriam.
