LIVE in London! Let's Talk About Medusa, Baby! w/ Cosi Carnegie

For the first time ever, Liv hosted a LIVE ticketed event at The Common Press bookstore in London, UK, alongside Cosi Carnegie (of Cosi's Odyssey). They discuss Medusa, in all her forms, live in conversation. If you're interested in seeing Liv speak live, let us know! Watch the video version here! https://youtu.be/IDoWw5C3rS8 Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 1:13Speaker 02

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• 2:17Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host Liv, here with something incredibly fun and exciting. And it might also require you to travel over to a different app if you are so inclined. So today's episode is actually the first ever very official live podcast recording that I've ever done. I have done some live events here and there, but nothing I would like really consider, you know, something that I've done when I'm in my stride right now, you know, with the quality and the knowledge that I now have.

• 2:57Liv Albert?

  But I got to record a live episode in London last month, which, I mean, incredible London, UK, for us Canadians, I realize I should keep clarifying that. You know, I hope to do Ontario soon, but I will start with Toronto. But I was at this event, I did this event in London last month. It was hosted by friend and past guest of the podcast, Kossi Carnegie of Kossi's Odyssey. And we talked about Medusa. Kossi asked me some really great questions and it was really nice back and forth, deep, deep about Medusa. I, you know, was my usual self, rambly and utterly obsessed with my investment in her.

• 3:42Liv Albert?

  We also took some listener questions at the end. The crowd was so, so great. It was so cool that everyone was there to see me talk about nerdy shit and was just as excited and maybe a little nervous as I was. It was really so fun. This episode here in the podcast app will be the audio only. When we get to the Q and A part, the audio's not ideal, but to the lead up, it's pretty great. However, we are also Simultaneously releasing this as a full video. We had a videographer there um who who recorded in like 4K.

• 4:23Liv Albert?

  The file was like 60 gigs. It might have taken like two days to upload to YouTube, which very much felt like I was living in 1999 again in the most hilariously enjoyable way. Um, so it's really high quality, really high production value, utterly amazing. Enormous thank you to Kazi again because Kazi sorted out all of this, put it all together for me so that I just kind of like rolled up and had this ready-made event. The event was at the Common Press Bookstore um in again London. It was really incredible bookstore. Highly recommend that if you're local to there, go check it out. Um, but just generally amazing bookshop. I'm really glad that we got to work with them. Just like real, real good vibes, real good vibes.

• 5:07Liv Albert?

  Um, and so the video is available on my YouTube. You can find a link in the episode's description. If you want to watch it, if you just want to listen, amazing, sit back and enjoy. And if you like this, if you want to see me doing stuff like this again in other cities, I would be really excited. Next up in terms of goals would be Toronto, so I could do something local. So anyone um who is local to Toronto or close enough that they're willing to travel, um, I would really love to hear if you're interested in coming to an event like this in Toronto. So comment if you're listening on Spotify or on the YouTube.

• 5:50Liv Albert?

  Um, please let, let me know. Tell me on Instagram, really, whatever. I just want to really get a sense of, of how keen people are. The London one went really well. So I'm excited to try it out and with any luck be able to do more of these. I have to be honest, right now I'm not in a position where I'm safe to travel to the US due to um my very open political nature and the current regime changes, for lack of a better term. So at this time, I can't consider uh locations in the States. But I really would love to do more in Canada. And so if any wonderful Americans are willing to travel into.

• 6:38Liv Albert?

  The land up north, it will remain a separate country.

• 6:42Liv Albert?

  Please also let me know. So just, you know, I'm gonna stop asking, but let me know if you're keen on this and otherwise sit back and enjoy.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for your patience and very kindly waiting out in the street while we got all of this looking like this. It does not look like this during the day, so thank you again. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Cosi, but none of you are here to see me. I'm very thrilled to welcome Liv Albert to her first ever London event, so let's give her a bit of a miss.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  So honestly, we're just gonna dive into it. We're gonna talk for a while and we'll like break if anyone has any questions for her or if they sort of come up during the chat. It's gonna be a very sort of free flowing thing. Try not to heckle if you can avoid it. If you can avoid it, but yeah, so save your questions until the end and then we'll break up for some mingling. And if you have anything you want Liv to sign or anything like that, there'll be time for that after. And she's brought some beautiful tote bags.

• 7:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and stickers and tins. I'm gonna try to get you guys to give me some money.

• 7:44Liv Albert?

  But no pressure.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  But no, no pressure at all. So let's just get into it. My first question is who or what was Medusa? Really basic one, but I want like a recap.

• 7:55Liv Albert?

  Do we think this audience needs me to?

• 7:56Speaker 03

  I want it. I want it. Just give me like a little bit.

• 7:59Liv Albert?

  But he says, uh, this is the problem is that you ask such a basic question. I did read these over.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  She okayed these, by the way, everyone.

• 8:07Liv Albert?

  And then now I'm gonna bother her about it. Well, I think we all know that Medusa is, I don't even know how to start with her because I have so many differing thoughts about what I want to call her, but I will just call her a creature, I suppose. We'll get into that later. But Medusa, Medusa to me is a creature from Greek mythology. And I say that because I stand by that she was born that way and we'll, we'll get into it. And as I have also done on the podcast, which I'm just assuming everyone has listened to. But that alone is slightly weird for me to assume. There's just so many people here.

• 8:44Liv Albert?

  So, but I think we go into the further questions because we're gonna. To get into deeper.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Okay, so she's a creature.

• 8:49Liv Albert?

  She's a creature.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Is kind of where we're at. And snakes are involved somewhere.

• 8:53Liv Albert?

  Snakes are involved somewhere, but often so are wings and like some snarling and kind of the ability to turn things to stone. But even that is like, you know, depending on the source, just how strong that is in her story. Like, I think we all know this idea of Medusa, but if you actually break down kind of what does and does not exist in the ancient sources, it becomes far more interesting and where. I know your questions are going to get us.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, the next one is talking about the evolution of Medusa in the classical texts and in classical art. Are you happier with that one?

• 9:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah, this is what I needed, because the issue is she's not just one thing. You can't just like say one thing. So the earliest surviving sources for Medusa would be Hesiod, who was, if he was a real man, then he was an incredibly misogynist man who lived in sixth, seventh century Biocia, if we believe that he was real. Just locked eyes with you. My God, there's other people who know the mythology. This is why I'm not going to look at people.

• 9:53Liv Albert?

  So

• 9:55Liv Albert?

  Medusa in that form, she appears in like three or four different lines and primarily just as this kind of, it's sort of this explanation for why Perseus, you know, is, is, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. But Medusa is born in the Hesiod, Medusa is born to these two creature gods, Phorcus and Kido, both of whom are these like really interesting, really primordial, really early in ancient sea gods, which says so much about Medusa and the Gorgons being born from them. And they were, in Hesiod specifically, they were always born as these kind of creatures. I think the word monster has this connotation that I don't love,

• 10:37Liv Albert?

  but we will get into it. But just being that they were not meant to be human, they were not meant to be anthropomorphic. They weren't like, they weren't like the other divinities who were meant to expect them to look like humans. And I think that's important because it changes over time and becomes sort of a really different idea. But I mean, in these earliest sources and To me, like the sort of truest form of Medusa, the most ancient form is she's just born this this creature who lives at the edge of the world um with her two sisters. And we know that she is mortal, but her sisters are not. And there's no reason ever given for that in the most ancient sources, which I also think is incredibly interesting.

• 11:19Liv Albert?

  And what we know about her is that um she, and this is the Hesiod quote in, I'm not sure which translation, but most of them use this phrasing, but that Poseidon lay with her. Uh but he's not even called Poseidon in that. He's called the dark haired one. And he lay with her, lay with, uh in a bed of soft flowers. And from that, all we really know is eventually down the line, she has his children. But those children aren't born until her head is removed from her body. And it becomes this really big question about like, what was actually going into that? Now flash forward like five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred years. Looking at you, you should have the answer. Um seven hundred years, let's say, to Ovid,

• 12:02Liv Albert?

  who's writing in the Roman period and whose work, the Metamorphoses, kind of fundamentally changes how we see Medusa in a way that I think is interesting and kind of annoying. Um but what what Ovid tells us about Medusa is that she was born beautiful. He doesn't say what that looks like. He does not clarify that she is human or otherwise. He says that she was born beautiful. And in this version, um her experience with Poseidon is very explicitly assault. He really spells it out in that way, but it's assault that happens because, or rather, it happens in Athena's temple. Now, a lot of people will tell you that Medusa was a priestess of Athena because it happens in the temple.

• 12:43Liv Albert?

  There's no evidence for that. Um and so it happens in the temple. And then because of that, we have this storyline where Athena punishes Medusa for that um and transforms her so that she then, uh or rather, her beautiful hair, her once beautiful hair is transformed into snakes. And then we get this idea that again, which is is pretty throughout, though not always so explicit, that her gaze will turn people to stone. And I think it's really interesting to compare these kind of like, and again, like, we're talking at least 600 years in between these two sources. And it's really easy to forget that when we're talking about Greek mythology. We think of it as this like singular kind of thing.

• 13:28Liv Albert?

  But as I love to say on the show, like, there is more time between Hesiod and Ovid than there is between Shakespeare and now. So you can get the, just how much can change in a story and an adaptation of a story, a reset, like retelling of a story in that amount of time. And what it kind of ends up happening is that then we see this idea of Medusa as this, it's so hard. I don't like the idea that she then becomes this kind of monster who is therefore like bad and not beautiful. The Ovid stuff to me really complicates everything in a way where I think what's most interesting is to consider her as this being that is just born that way and there's no punishment involved.

• 14:10Liv Albert?

  She does still have this experience with Poseidon, which I read in the Hesiod as sexual assault as well, but it isn't explicit. And that's primarily because Hesiod isn't really explicit about like any kind of, not even just consent, but like women as human beings with agency. Like, he doesn't really care about that. So there's a lot of people who would say like, oh, well, then it was consensual. And you're like, on what planet is just like women being like these creatures in a story who have no say in anything? Does that automatically mean it was like just fine and loving? But meanwhile, it's like this idea of like this dark hair, the dark haired god of the sea who is also as a god of the sea.

• 14:51Liv Albert?

  He's inherently violent. And I'm just rambling about all of this, but I think it's still true.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  It'll definitely answers my question.

• 14:59Liv Albert?

  Right. This is what I do. Um, but it, I, to me, it like screams of this violent encounter because this is a god of the sea. The sea is inherently violent. They knew that from day one, just as we know it now. The sea is a really scary place. And so the god of something that's scary is typically can be read as this violent god. Not to mention that like most other encounters we have with him and any mortal or divinity are non-consensual when they are explicit. So to me, it's this idea that she still has this experience and she kind of, she's just a survivor of it broadly. And it does end up resulting in these children, which I know we'll get back to Pegasus and Crisayar, but.

• 15:41Liv Albert?

  I I find it to be, I'm like jumping ahead of myself so completely, but I find it to be just way more impactful to consider Medusa as this creature that always looked like that and didn't have this kind of like ugliness inflicted on her by a goddess. Um, I could keep talking, but I think we'll go to another question.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Let me, let me redirect you slightly.

• 16:04Liv Albert?

  Great.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Something that I've always been really curious about is, and kind of if we go back to the archaic period and we think about the imagery of the Gorgon and the way that it functioned, like in art and architecture. So the Gorgon, the head of a Gorgon, is it Gorgonion? Gorgon?

• 16:21Liv Albert?

  Gorgonia.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  That, what you said.

• 16:23Liv Albert?

  Gorgonia is plural, but.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Those. And they serve this like fascinating apotropic function for the Greeks. And then how do you reconcile the idea of her as this fearsome monster with the fact that the faces of Gorgons were used as a protective sort of mechanism for the Greeks?

• 16:43Liv Albert?

  Thank you. You guided me directly into the question I wanted.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 16:46Liv Albert?

  Which is that I think that that's kind of the point. And that's why I find the alternate readings of her that we get from Ovid to be really disappointing because the Gorgons are this apotropic device, like they are this protective kind of talisman. They appear, they appear everywhere, but what's really interesting is they're often on armor, like they're, you know, the, the specific Gorgonia is on Athena's, either her aegis or her shield, either of which are these protective devices. But then the, just these individual Gorgonia appear in so many different places, but really often on, on armor and on, on shields and things.

• 17:27Liv Albert?

  And that's both in like, like actual artifacts that exist. Like I went to the British Museum for the first time and they have this like bronze like calf and it has armor on it and there's a, a Gorgon on the knee. Um, but even in like the Iliad, you find lots of instances of these Gorgonia appearing on individual people's shields and things. So they're, they're really used as this protective device. And to me, that just completely aligns with this story of. Medusa as a creature who could defend herself. And that's what I find to be most kind of impactful about her is that she she defends herself

• 18:11Liv Albert?

  in, I mean, against Perseus certainly, or I mean, obviously, he takes her head, but then uses it as defense in that same kind of way. And we now consider this idea of it being this fearsome thing that she was, you know, that that I guess that that her, when she was living, she was turning all these people to stone as some, you know, actual, like, intentional harm inflicted on people. That's kind of how we're led to read it rather than this protective aspect, like, you know, she is a defensive mechanism to me rather than offensive because she is a shield, she is, you know, this, she's kind of like, she's like a reflection, right?

• 18:55Liv Albert?

  She's like, will, you know, an enemy is coming at you and the Gorgon is what kind of stops it. Um, and so to me, that completely fits with this original idea of her being this creature who was living at the ends of the earth. She was not encountering people, she was not harming anyone or really doing anything, just kind of protecting herself and her sisters. And then when her head is taken, it serves the same purpose in a obviously kind of dark and unfortunate way. But to me, that makes so much more sense than this ovid idea of it sort of being a punishment. Um, because I think that they do just serve this explicitly like defensive position.

• 19:39Liv Albert?

  And I mean, I probably will get deeper into this, but I I read it more as this idea that we're supposed to be, that we think we're supposed to be afraid of them. I think that's just men being afraid of creatures that they couldn't have sex with, to be perfectly frank. Like, I think that's how Medusa ended up becoming what she is, is this, this, she's a fearsome creature when really what she was was a creature that nobody wanted to bang, which is dark and horrible, but I think so much more interesting than this idea that she had to be like transformed in order to like protect. protect her or as punishment for for something a man did like I would much rather believe this idea that she was just this creature who first like I mean Percy is a specific instance like clearly he doesn't want to go have sex with her but I think

• 20:23Liv Albert?

  that she represents that idea she represents the idea of a woman who is capable of saying no and then that gets turned on its head by the patriarchy surprise um into being this thing that we're supposed to be afraid of that she's dangerous she's gonna hurt you and it's like no she's only gonna hurt you if you come at her she's only gonna hurt you if you're the attacker

• 20:46Liv Albert?

  that was kind of an answer to your question

• 20:47Speaker 03

  that was definitely an answer because it just got me thinking about you know exactly what you were saying it there's something about the act of beheading her and remove like ending her life that means that she can then be repurposed once she's like fully objectified and dead but on to what you were saying about whether or not was it women who don't want to have sex with men

• 21:09Liv Albert?

  yeah

• 21:09Speaker 03

  well

• 21:10Liv Albert?

  or capable of saying no

• 21:12Speaker 03

  well on that note you know we have to talk about Athena

• 21:16Liv Albert?

  yeah

• 21:16Speaker 03

  we have to talk about Athena so I want to know what you think about the particular version that has Athena transforming her from a beautiful woman into the snake head

• 21:27Liv Albert?

  yeah

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Gorgon and the fact that it's Athena

• 21:29Liv Albert?

  well Athena is an agent of the patriarchy

• 21:31Speaker 03

  yeah

• 21:31Liv Albert?

  we're allowed to love her for what she represents I love that there is a goddess like her I love that like I do love Athena people have been mad at me before which is why I say that just because I complain about the actions of some of the gods doesn't mean I don't respect them um is he getting defensive um no I think I mean Athena serves this really explicit role in so many myths which is that she is quite literally this agent of the patriarchy she is the hero's favorite goddess she is her father's favorite goddess she is you know we've we've Zeus turns her birth story into something where he did it alone when in fact he ate her mother and then gave birth to her because of that

• 22:14Liv Albert?

  but we get this idea that he was like he you know parthenogenesis Like created her out of nothing, or just out of himself, which is of course nonsense. And even the Greeks could figure out that was nonsense, but then they still found a way to be like, "No, no, this goddess came from a man and there was no women involved." And I think that that really shows in how she behaves in a lot of places. But specifically, like, it's Ovid who does this rewrite of her. And one thing people also love to forget is that Ovid, one, was not a Greek, and two, was not writing Greek mythology to be like, the sto- like, he was not writing Greek mythology. Mythology is something that is then, is developed culturally and specifically that developed

• 22:59Liv Albert?

  from this like oral storytelling tradition that I talk about way too often. And, and becomes this kind of cultural, like, knowledge. Whereas Ovid is coming in, and again, he's taking a 700-year-old story, and he is writing it into something completely different. He's writing it into a series of stories about metamorphosis, about transformation. And so inherently, in order to use Medusa's story, he has to give it a transformation story, which it does not inherently have. Which is why we get this idea that she is transformed into the creature that we know her as from the earliest sources. And so it, it just makes sense that Athena would be the one to do that.

• 23:44Liv Albert?

  I don't really necessarily think that it fits, I do think it fits with the Greek idea, but less than in this version that Ovid gives us. Like, to me, that is a really specific kind of a rewrite, which is also Minerva, we should say, right? Because it is Ovid. And Minerva, for all that, like, the base level and probably even my own, my own book of Greek mythology, you can correct it if you buy it. But, you know, all these kind of, like, simple to the point.

• 24:13Liv Albert?

  Greek mythology books or websites or anything will tell you that like Minerva is the Roman name for Athena, but that's not really true. Minerva is the Roman goddess who best aligns with the Greek Athena. There are things that were that go into Minerva which were likely inspired by or which align with Athena, but she isn't Athena. She's much less of a warrior goddess and she's much more of like a woman's goddess and a like crafts woman, um, which is really interesting, but it also fundamentally like changes her from the Athena of Greek mythology. So I think it's important and I think it does fit her, but all the same, like it is really important that that story is not from a Greek source.

• 24:56Liv Albert?

  And maybe one day, you know, somebody's gonna dig something up and it's going to be in a Greek source and we're all gonna have to change our minds, but for the most part, it doesn't really fit with the Greek idea. And so to me, it just becomes this one really Roman, I mean, Ovid was also writing when Augustus was coming in and he was pulling a Mark Zuckerberg and just like putting all of these morality laws onto Rome and ruining everything. Um, it's quite literal, like Mark Zuckerberg has styled his own terrible haircut after Augustus. He is a dweeb of the worst kind. Um, but he was putting all these morality laws, he was instilling this really new kind

• 25:39Liv Albert?

  of world in Rome. I won't pretend like I know a ton about Rome, but that part is pretty true. Um, and so it says a lot that we have this goddess who is coming in and explicitly punishing a woman for getting assaulted by a god. To me, it just, it's so, it's so Roman that, I mean, it does, it, yeah, I, that, that does answer, I think, the point, but if you have more.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  I just have a quick one.

• 26:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah, please.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Is it Athena or Minerva who helps Perseus kill her?

• 26:07Liv Albert?

  It is Athena, which, because I think, well, it's Athena, well, it is Athena, but Athena helps all the heroes, so it doesn't really stand out. I mean, it does because the, that's a good point to bring up because also the killing of Medusa is really unique. People, and again, like this kind of, a lot of these kinds of, um, just the introductory mythology stories, and again, I'm sure I'm guilty of that, I'm not trying to pretend, I'm just better at it now. Um, but, these stories often present Medusa as like, just another story of a hero defeating a monster, right, in the same vein as Heracles and the Nemean Lion, or, or, um, the Hydra, or, you know, even Theseus and the Minotaur.

• 26:51Liv Albert?

  But, Medusa does not actually fit any of those same kinds of ideals, like, she is a monster, but there is no point at which we believe that she is harming anyone, or that it is beneficial to anyone except Perseus, by extension Polydeutis, like, the story goes that, you know, uh, Perseus and his Perseus and his mother Danae land, uh, there's a lot of drama before this, including a shower of gold. Um, but they eventually land on the island of Seraphos, and there's some drama, the king, Polydeutis, wants to marry Danae. Perseus doesn't want this, she is his property, as his mother!

• 27:33Liv Albert?

  Um, and she doesn't want, he doesn't want to do that, and, um, you know, there's I'm gonna forget some of the details, but essentially, Polydeutis just wants Perseus dead, so that he can marry Danae. And, so when, um, there's like, another, uh, wedding, and people are giving gifts, and so Perseus is like, "Oh, I'll appease this king, like, what do you want as this gift for, like, another person's wedding?" It's a whole thing. Um, and, and Polydeutis is like, "Oh, don't give me a horse like everyone else is giving me, go, get me the head of a gorgon." And that's the only reason that we have for why Perseus goes to kill Medusa, and so, it's, you know, it's nothing like these stories of a monster terrorizing the lands, despite what misogynists on the internet will tell you, and have told me in Twitter.

• 28:15Liv Albert?

  Um, but it's nothing about, she's not terrorizing anyone, there is no evidence that she hurt anyone, or that she had done any damage. She just happened to be a gorgon who could be killed. The only reason she's picked over her sisters is because she functionally can be killed.

• 28:43Liv Albert?

  Today's episode is brought to you by Quince. You know the ones. I've been raving about them for ages. But now is the time of year when you might consider gifting Quince to the people in your life. There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet that you love and you know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. So this holiday season, think Quince. Quince, you know, makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim, the kind of pieces you'd be just as happy gifting as you would be to unwrap. You all know I love all of the stuff I have from Quince.

• 29:25Liv Albert?

  I'm actually traveling in Greece right now and I have my go-to woven leather bag. I seriously use it everywhere. That's why it's with me here. It's beautiful and it's practical and it's from Quince. And I actually have a parcel to pick up when I get back home, which has some goodies in there. I got this pair of corduroy high-rise pants. I'm really excited to try those out as soon as I get home. And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag. So give the gift of quality this holiday season.

• 30:06Liv Albert?

  Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Let's Talk About Myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

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• 31:44Liv Albert?

  And, and so we get these retellings very often by men who get this idea that like, she's just another monster on this long list of like the heroic deeds of dudes. But in fact, the entirety of it is just for another man's just trying to get Perseus killed. He just, polydeptes figures that this will kill him, and then that's it. He doesn't want Medusa for anything other than to get Perseus out of the way. Um, and so I think it's really interesting that like Athena does help, because I remembered where your question came from, even when my brain did the whole thing. Um, but Athena, you know, Athena does help along this, but she's helping him on this like heroic quest. The quest is not necessarily to kill the monster.

• 32:25Liv Albert?

  The quest is to do the thing he needs to do in order to save his mother and like, you know, fix things on the island. Medusa's death is unfortunately incidental, and so I think it is, it's still Quite different from Ovid, it, to me, Athena in that respect functions just in the way that she does for Odysseus. Or, I mean, I'm gonna blank on every other time, but she's helped a lot of heroes do a lot of dumb stuff. Uh, and so to me, it's less of that, like, woman on woman, it's less, she's not necessarily like, committing any kind of violence, she's just helping a hero, which is just sort of what she does as, again, the agent of the patriarchy. But in this really different way from Ovid, which is like so gross and just generally terrible.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  Hmm, gross and terrible.

• 33:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Well, you mentioned some other monsters, and this takes me to my next question, which is all about feminine monstrosity, which I think you and I have spoken about for four hours previously.

• 33:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  So the-

• 33:22Liv Albert?

  May or may not have been recorded, I don't even remember.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Honestly, whether it was an episode or not, I don't know. Um, but that list you just rattled off, none of them were the kind of feminized monsters that we have in Greek mythology. So we have, for example, Skilla, who you know I love, and the Sphinx, who are both these feminized monsters who eat men. They are very specifically devouring. And then we have Medusa, who's so different from that, so I just wanted to know what you thought about the kind of man-eating feminine monster in comparison to Medusa, who exactly as you said, like, doesn't really do much to anyone else. She's just chilling in her cave by most, yeah.

• 34:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I think, I honestly think for the most part, that it is a fairly modern invention to consider her a monster like all of those others. I don't think that there is much evidence in textual or, or, um, like artifact, uh, like material sources or surviving things, very poorly phrased, but you get what I mean. But like, you know, I don't think that there's, I don't think that there's much- Evidence in the sources or all of the Gorgonaya that survive in hundreds and hun- like there's thousands of of Gorgonaya that survive. And I don't think that there's any evidence that that she did serve as that kind of monster. Like, there's a handful of pottery.

• 34:44Liv Albert?

  Where he's killing her, but at the same time, she's pretty sympathetic in most of those.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  She's asleep in some of them.

• 34:53Liv Albert?

  And and even like, you know, in in the earliest surviving pieces, we don't even have this idea that he used like the shield as the reflection to do it. Like, that comes later, too. Like, he just snuck up on a woman and killed her in her sleep. And then her sisters realized and chased him out of there. Like, it is simply a heartbreaking story. And that's where, again, I think we get to this idea of women who were capable of saying no. In whatever way, and like whether or not it was like a physical word or like actual her saying anything, or it was just the sheer nature of. Looking at her would turn you to stone. That meant she could say no. That meant she could defend herself against the a predatory man. In whatever way that came about. And I that still, I do think.

• 35:39Liv Albert?

  That in a lot of ways, like, all of that is true. And simultaneously, I do think that she does fit in some ways with Skilla and Karybdis. And I will, because you said it that way, I'm gonna remind everyone that I have an episode with Kossi that because of you, we named it. I just, I forget what the beginning is, but definitely there is a line in the subtitle that is Karybdis, the gaping hungry hole.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  I'm not commenting on that.

• 36:04Liv Albert?

  She definitely didn't give me that. Or remind me that essentially, Skilla and Karybdis is Odysseus passing between a bitch and a hungry hole. Because Skilla is like a dog woman. Like, it's amazing.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Blame Homer, just to be super clear.

• 36:17Liv Albert?

  Misogyny is like oozing out of this story. And which is why I do think that they still have a lot in common with Medusa in the way that I think. That overall, in varied ways, I think all of these, those particularly feminized monsters. I think they still represent women that men couldn't have sex with. Because i- i- you know, they're they're a different level of it, and they're very Homeric in that way, where I think it's a little bit less, I think. I think in the Odyssey, it's a little bit less obvious, but then the use of them later becomes like real way more. Obviously kind of feminized and scary. And it becomes more of like the point rather than in the Odyssey, there's sort of just kind of like that wild moment and they're great. I mean, they're long time, my favorite.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  They show up briefly, but.

• 37:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah, um, but I do think that overall, like over the general. Progression of mythology, they gen- they do represent kind of that same thing where just these women that. Could say no, and therefore were monsterized, were turned into these like really scary things that men should stay away from. Um, because it's really scary when you don't get what you want when you're in a world where. Everything is you get what you want, like women are property. And so. This idea that women who could live on their own, like Medusa and her sisters, and who could stand up for themselves and defend themselves. Like that is a scary thing. That is a threat to the patriarchy in a really real way.

• 37:44Liv Albert?

  And this is all stuff that I figured out kind of writing that I wrote a. Very long introduction to a book of short stories about Medusa and it sort of broke my brain, literally and figuratively, but. Um, it's just, it's so interesting to kind of break that down. And I almost went into a whole rabbit hole of like. Even looking at like. The word nymph and what we think of as nymphs now. Whereas nymph just meant like girl in a way, like not like Cory, but it's like another word for just girl. And then we get nymphomania and you get this idea that the nymphs are ju- are like, which for one nymph. Now we say nymph for all of them, like, you know.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Just like a cover roll.

• 38:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but that word didn't really apply to who we think of as nymphs now it like. There was all the individual ones, right? There was like the oceanids and. The, um, I'm going to forget literally all of the other ones, you know, there's the tree nymphs, there's the different types of water nymphs, all of this. But they didn't use the word nymph in that way. They each had their own name for all of them. And then we instead, we get all these stories. Where the gods are sleeping with all of these like minor divinities, these women. And they get away with it. And then down the line, we as. People turn the word that just originally meant like girl. Into this like sex pot idea and then you get nymphomaniac and it's like.

• 39:09Liv Albert?

  It's all coming from this really dark place. I couldn't get that into the book, but I did.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  But you're getting it out now.

• 39:16Liv Albert?

  I just think there's so much darkness that you can kind of pull out of that type of stuff. And it's sort of like, once you start seeing it, it's like, oh, God. It's also terrible, but interesting.

• 39:27Liv Albert?

  But yeah, so the monstrosity of it all, like I just think that that's what so many of these women become in these stories, but also. Like again, I don't necessarily think that they were so monstrous back then, like the word monster didn't. I mean, one, there's not like regularly even using the Greek for monster. I don't think to describe them. That's very modern how we would do it. Like they're just a Gorgon. They are a divine creature in the same way that, you know. A Minotaur is a divine creature, but it is a, I mean, we think of it as a monster because he was killing people, but even still, I mean, we could debate.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  Was it his fault? He was stabbed in the labyrinth.

• 40:00Liv Albert?

  Exactly. Um, but we, you know, today have this idea that the heroes did good things, that the heroes defeated monsters when. In the, the ancient sources and in the general like mythology of ancient Greece, the heroes. Were doing a lot of things, but no one was expected, expected to believe that they were good, that they were morally right. You know, that wasn't the point. And I think that that ends up getting lost in how we end up seeing them. And then you turn. These creatures or the Gorgons into these like terrifying monsters because you have to have Perseus a good guy. He can't just go kill a woman while she's sleeping with her sisters. That's not a good look. And so we consider, we get these ideas of this monstrosity.

• 40:42Liv Albert?

  And it's why the, the Ovid version bums me out so much, but specifically why. And I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of you, if not all of you have seen these, but every once in a while it goes around this idea that Athena wasn't even punishing her.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  This was my next question.

• 40:59Liv Albert?

  Well, I'm getting right into it.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Get stuck in.

• 41:01Liv Albert?

  We get this idea that Athena wasn't punishing Medusa as it is explicit in Ovid. But that she was like saving her from future assaults by making her unappealing to men. And to me, that is the biggest ick. Like. Imagine thinking that, I mean, it's like, what was she wearing? Right? It's like, well, how short was her skirt? When in fact, it's like this man came up to her while she was sleeping. And, and like, but Ovid makes it this idea that Athena, you know, or sorry, I'm now.

• 41:36Liv Albert?

  Jumping around, muddling myself. But this idea that that this rereading of Athena as as some kind of savior of a woman because she made her unappealing to men there so that she wouldn't be assaulted again like. It to me, it's a far less kind reading of Medusa's story, and it is far more kind and truthful to the more ancient, the actual Greek sources. To say that Medusa was born a gorgon. Gorgons might be monsters, but we weren't necessarily meant to be afraid of them. We unless you're the aggressor because they are simply women who could defend themselves. And fundamentally, that's all that we do have in the ancient sources. These were.

• 42:22Liv Albert?

  Female creatures who could defend themselves, but they were born looking like they look. And of course, there are countless different versions of like how we can picture a gorgon. Some are weirder and scarier than others. But scary is subjective and monstrosity is subjective. And I think that when we think of them as like this gross scary monster. You know, that is, it has these misogynist undertones that I don't think people realize when they are, you know. Medusa has become this really feminist symbol, and I think that's. Good and powerful, but I I just subscribe to the idea that she's a feminist symbol born that way, that she was born a gorgon who could defend herself, who could say no. And obviously had a terrible fate because of that.

• 43:07Liv Albert?

  But it that's just who she was rather than this idea of her becoming something icky to men. Yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  I always find the argument about Athena so difficult when you look at Arachne. That immediately just. Yeah, stops me from buying into him.

• 43:24Liv Albert?

  And Arachne is the other place, if I recall, where Medusa is mentioned again. Um, and I believe it's slightly different. Oh, now I wish I remembered what it was, but because Medusa appears twice in Metamorph. So I believe the first one is the in the Perseus's story, but then I think later she is mentioned again in Arachne's tapestry of these women who were wronged by the gods. And I don't even think like, I mean, I think Ovid generally writes a lot of really interesting things about women and and so I don't even necessarily want. Like I'm not even, you know, saying that what he did was problematic. I think our reading of it is problematic. And when we believe, when we consider Ovid as like a source for Greek mythology, that's what's problematic. Like he was writing a retelling.

• 44:08Liv Albert?

  He was writing a retelling like anyone does today, but it wasn't meant to be a fictional retelling. It was like Shakespeare doing. You know, one of his many, many king plays where it's like you're writing about a real person, but we don't believe that. I do have an English degree, but all of that is getting lost in my head. One of his king plays, we don't, we're not meant to believe, oh, let's say Julius Caesar.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, there we go, there we go.

• 44:30Liv Albert?

  One of his kings, there's just so many kings. Um, and I'm in London is much funnier to say that.

• 44:37Liv Albert?

  Um, but yeah, the, you know, the, we don't believe that the Julius Caesar of Shakespeare was fully the Julius Caesar of history. And it's exactly the same thing between Ovid and the Greek myths broadly, not even Hesiod specifically, just Ovid, you know, he's writing so much later. He's writing an adaptation and that's interesting as a completely different thing. It's just not necessarily like an accurate reading of like what the Greeks consider to be Medusa.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  Well, on the topic of classical reception, I wanted to ask you about this sculpture that went viral.

• 45:10Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Which flips the role.

• 45:12Liv Albert?

  Sorry, I didn't even let you finish.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Before, does anyone know the sculpture I'm talking about? I'm getting some nods. Okay, incredible. So it's this beautiful, very big, Liv hates it, but very big sculpture. Where you have a naked kind of humanoid Medusa with the snaky hair and she's holding the severed head of Perseus. Why don't you like it?

• 45:30Liv Albert?

  I don't like it because I think that she is intentionally masculine and is stunned by a man.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the objectification, the fact that she's naked. I'm like, is that strictly necessary?

• 45:41Liv Albert?

  I think that she is like, she, I mean, I don't want to say masculine in a way that that's like derogatory. I think it's important that like.

• 45:49Liv Albert?

  I mean, we all know my thoughts, it's fine.

• 45:53Liv Albert?

  But I just think that like, I think that if it had been done by, I mean, I don't know, I don't, yeah, I just don't like it.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  You would feel better if it was done by a woman, you'd be happier with it?

• 46:03Liv Albert?

  Well, and I think that at its absolute, at the absolute core of why I don't like it is that it doesn't look like anything from Greek, like, from ancient Greece. It just looks like a woman with snake hair holding a man's head. And like, that's fine, but I don't think like as a feminist symbol, it's particularly interesting. And I also, yeah, and not least because it's done by a man, but that's maybe because I'm getting more and more misandrist every day.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  Well, fair enough. But in the vein of reception specifically, that sculpture was done in 2008, but it actually went viral in 2018. Do you know the meme I'm talking about? So someone reposted it and said, be grateful, all that we want is equality, that we don't want revenge or something. And it's just her holding the head and that, I'm like, and that was a tweet by a woman and I'm like, okay.

• 46:52Liv Albert?

  And I do think it was, I think that at the time, it really, it did make a real good point. I mean, it came out for, because of the Me Too movement, and I think it, it really did serve a purpose. So I think at that time, and at, in that format, it made a really impactful point.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  And being received sort of by women and for women.

• 47:12Liv Albert?

  Yes, exactly. So I think that it, yeah, it's, it's, it's really a personal dislike too aesthetically, I don't like it. Like, it's not, I'm not, that is the major part for me is I just, it doesn't look Greek at all.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it definitely doesn't look Greek. So I've got a few more questions here, but I just wanted to have a little break and get a sense of how many questions there might be in the audience for Liv. Because if there's a lot, oh, I can keep going. Okay, we've got one. Okay, maybe we'll take a few and then we can come back to this.

• 47:42Liv Albert?

  There's more to it.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Okay, let me check the time. Yeah, we've got time. Pete, do you want to kick us off?

• 47:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, so you just made me think of something else. So the first thing is Medusa, unlike maybe Skye and Shurif just seem kind of locked in their time, Medusa seems to be constantly evolving in our perception. And one thing I need to mention is Clash of the Titans. She's completely reinvented as this stinky warrior.

• 48:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 48:08Speaker 05

  What do you think is about Medusa that endures that we can reinvent her? But also, that statue does wind me. Do you have a record with Perseus statue? And it's depicted as he has slaughtered a young woman. Her body is crumpled and there's no monster there. He actually looks like a very proud murderer. So, I really, I suppose the question is about what is that enduring thing that happens with Medusa that we feel like we own her in different ways?

• 48:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  Also the Versace logo.

• 48:45Liv Albert?

  Oh yeah, no, she's everywhere. Versace crooks in castles. Not that I know anything about that brand.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  I don't know what that is.

• 48:50Liv Albert?

  I mean, all I know is that it's a brand that uses Medusa. But it looks really similar to the Versace, which is also funny.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 48:56Liv Albert?

  Like, very similar, yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  So the enduring power of her is a symbol that evolves over time?

• 49:02Liv Albert?

  See, I think, and maybe this is gonna become me as a broken record. I like, every once in a while, I'm like, I'm just reminding myself that you all do listen to me. And this is not shocking to anyone, I hope. Um, because I think I can sound like, or slightly ridiculous otherwise. But I honestly think that the reason that Medusa endures in this way that no other monster does and evolves in such a way is that

• 49:28Liv Albert?

  she has become a creature that men could imagine themselves having sex with. Like, I think that she's become this creature that became sexualized. And it's hard to track exactly when there's, you know, there's like, in ancient Greek surviving things, you know, we have some pot. A lot of the time, a gorgon as this scary monster is just the head. And typically, it's also not necessarily like labeled explicitly as Medusa. Like, contextually, we know that the gorgon head got placed in Athena's shield after Perseus killed her. But that story isn't necessarily... Sarah Lee is old as all the Gorgons that appear everywhere.

• 50:13Liv Albert?

  You know, we don't know which came first, the story or the Gorgon. And we do also have a lot of pottery, like you were saying that where she is sleeping and he's sneaking up on her like on tiptoes with a knife. And then there's others where, yeah, her crumpled body is lying and he's holding her head and her sisters are racing after like screaming in horror. And so we get like in the ancient Greek world, I think that things like that were them grappling with a story that was already evolving. Like my kind of theory is that the Gorgon as a, as an image, kind of as a trope visually came first.

• 50:56Liv Albert?

  I like to think that it might have come from um the Mesopotamian story of Gilgamesh and there's this monster Hambaba. That has really a lot of similarities in the iconography. And there's also this idea that that Medusa, the story comes from the West, comes from like where the sun sets. She lives on the edge of night, they say. And and so she is from the West, but the iconography has a lot of tones that definitely look much more like they're coming from the East and from Anatolia, from from Mesopotamia, ancient Iraq, all of the, all of that area, which we know that so much of Greek mythology was coming from those traditions and then evolving.

• 51:40Liv Albert?

  And so my theory is that the image came first, the story came later to explain it. They had these Gorgonia that appear everywhere. And like they are some of the most common, you know, images that you can find from that from ancient Greece broadly, but particularly archaic period and things like that. So I think the story evolved to explain how a head ended up in a shield. And if we have this idea, I mean, I think it makes sense for why only one of the Gorgons is mortal. Like, why could only one of them be killed? Well, because a head had to end up in a shield. So one of them had to be killable so that that could Happen, um, that's only, or you started out, the question started out so differently, but I think that's where

• 52:26Liv Albert?

  that's coming from. And I think that the, then that story evolved to be the story that we have. And then from there, we have all of these sort of slow, I mean, we have a lot of the Renaissance where they would humanize her in a lot of ways. Caravaggio's, um, Medusa is like painful and beautiful and so interesting.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Marble.

• 52:47Liv Albert?

  Bernini's marble, like

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Beautiful.

• 52:50Liv Albert?

  Be weird.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  Where is it?

• 52:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's here, but it's really awkward. Anyway, it's like adaptation of Bernini's marble.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Not safe for work.

• 52:57Liv Albert?

  I mean, it is enough. Um, yeah, uh, I think that there was a lot of that kind of happening. I think in there, they, those artists from that time period kind of picked up on her. And then also though, like we get people like Freud coming in and they're like, oh, the snakes is genitalia. Because to Freud, literally everything was genitalia. I, I had to read Freud's whole thing about Medusa for this book. And like, it's quite literally that the absolute TLDR is that he believes that Medusa comes from when a young boy first sees female genitalia. And in apparently to Freud, the first thought is

• 53:41Liv Albert?

  that the dick has been cut off. Like there's no other thought and therefore the fear is that you see Medusa and you fear your dick getting cut off. And it's utterly unhinged, but like that is

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Two plus two equals sixty.

• 53:54Liv Albert?

  Honestly, this man, I don't there's more, but that's, that's what I can remember.

• 54:00Speaker 03

  We can have another event for you to slag off.

• 54:03Liv Albert?

  Oh my god. I, the bit I wrote about that made me real happy because I think I just got to start a whole paragraph with like, as someone who doesn't have a penis, I know I can't make a full, you know, a judgment according to Freud, but I still think it's ridiculous with some smarter than that, but it was funny. Um, but no, I think that, that like, there's just so much going on where it's like, we get this idea, then they're, they're humanizing her in that sort of period with. Paintings and sculpture and things like that. And then I think, you know, I don't want to say that I could track any of that happening. But when, by the time Clash of the Titans comes along and we're dealing with this, we've got Freud who's come in and said everything's about dicks. And then we've got, you know, all of this kind of humanizing of her. And

• 54:48Liv Albert?

  we have so many people who have made her really pretty and feminine, even if she's usually it's just her head. And then, you know, the Clash of the Titans comes in and makes her like a kind of a sexy monster, sort of, but she's also like half snake, which is explicitly not from mythology. That's a kid not if it's anyone. But I think that I, I mean, this is now sounds like I don't have a great argument for it. But I still think that it all represents just this fear of women they can or can't have sex with in these varied ways. Or like if they want to, I think that there's a point where men decide they want to with Medusa. And then so they have to make her really scary because they've decided that they've sexualized this creature, but she could kill them. So

• 55:30Liv Albert?

  then they have to make her like an enemy to be killed. There's just, I think there's a lot of layers and I probably need more psychologists working with my head, and Medusa, but probably mine.

• 55:55Liv Albert?

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• 56:38Liv Albert?

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• 56:51Speaker 01

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• 57:22Liv Albert?

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese is made with 100% fresh beef, cooked when you order it. Add hot crispy fries and an ice cold Coke, and hopefully, a lot of napkins. All for $8. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  I think we've got another... Oh, we've got a few questions. Can't quite see who that is. Is that you, Sebastian?

• 57:59Speaker 05

  It is me.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  OK, go. Go.

• 58:02Speaker 05

  I was interested in what you were talking about with Medusa's gaze. Like, I feel like there's something very... Because we talk about the male gaze all the time, but it's the female gaze that is dangerous with Medusa. And you have Zeus, who wears the aegis, and there's, you know, the gaze of the Gorgon is a... It's an offensive weapon to people. What is it about the female gaze that is so dangerous or powerful to Greeks, do you think?

• 58:33Liv Albert?

  Well, I do... For one, I think it's defensive, even still. Like, I think she's always used as a...

• 58:39Speaker 05

  As a shield.

• 58:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's always... It's either... It's always some form of defense. And... But the thing is, and this is where I... I think it's hard to kind of pick this stuff apart because in the Greek sources, like, in terms of text sources, we really don't have a lot about her transforming people to stone with her gaze. Like, that really... Comes later, like I think we're meant to understand that that's happening. But it's not a major story point in in the Greek sources that survived pre Roman period. And so I think what again, what's kind of happening is that they're reckoning with the image that's there in all of these ways and trying to understand how that happens. And so I think.

• 59:25Liv Albert?

  I mean, I want to say it's like so much of the power of of the female gaze, but I really do think that what is going on is just like a number of things with the iconography that's kind of preexisting and become this really important thing simultaneously with the story that they've been developed around it and all of which kind of just drills down to, you know, they're in order for this head on a shield to be defensive, like it does kind of have to have this. This power and I think, you know, it it it's like using the word petrified is kind of the the the perfect way like it's you're just supposed to be scared um into sort of.

• 1:00:07Liv Albert?

  What's the word I want? Basically, I think I think that it it's more similar to animals in nature that have that as a defensive mechanism, you know, the the the creatures that have wish I had a good example of this, but you know, there's so much in in nature where they have like a false face on like a butterfly or something or you know, like there's there's so much of this kind of natural um defensive nature in nature. That was terrible, but you know, like so many animals have kind of developed that type of thing. Defensive means for themselves. And so to me, I think it's more akin to them, the Greeks kind of

• 1:00:49Liv Albert?

  understanding how certain animals could develop those kinds of functions and sort of applying it to a face. I don't know, I I wish I had a smarter answer about the the gaze because I mean, obviously, there's so much to do with the male gaze, but I also just think that men were the the men who were kind of in that realm of what we now know from ancient Greece, not to say that people weren't thinking about it back then, but in terms of what then survives for us today, I honestly don't think the men were giving the women enough credit to even like develop those stories. I would love to know like what women thought of of Medusa and Of the Gorgon and things like that, but yeah, I think I'll stop rambling now, but it's an interesting question.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  I think we've got a few more questions. I can see a hand, but nothing else. Is that Elodie? Hello.

• 1:01:37Speaker 03

  I'm gonna lean around.

• 1:01:40Liv Albert?

  So, because I know a lot less about ancient Greece, but was it used the same as the Romans? But because I always find it fascinating that puses in so many doorways as to kind of protect the house from evil. Just thinking what you were saying about it being defensive with the Romans, it is kind of explicitly defensive. Was it, was it used the same in ancient Greece, actually, don't know? Uh, yes, but I think more so on, um, like on body, on their bodies, like on armor and shields. Yeah. And then they were like.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  And drinking cups.

• 1:02:09Liv Albert?

  What?

• 1:02:09Speaker 03

  Drinking cups.

• 1:02:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah, lots of pottery and they're lot, they're like a lot of, um, what's the word? It's not acqueria, is it? Like the.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  Acqueria?

• 1:02:18Liv Albert?

  No, like, um, like the piece, like the, well, extra bits of, uh, on architecture. There's word for it.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Anyone? End bit?

• 1:02:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but like I was thinking, I've seen it on tiles. Yeah.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Liv Albert?

  No, exactly.

• 1:02:34Speaker 03

  If anyone remembers, shout out unprompted, please.

• 1:02:37Liv Albert?

  Them to be your tongue too. I literally have a tattoo of one of them, so I normally.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  Oh, I think Martin's about to Google it.

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  End bit on thing.

• 1:02:47Liv Albert?

  Anyway, but I did, it's interesting that the Romans then came along and, and yeah, like took it and sort of put, applied it more to their homes and things. Like, I think they kind of got the same idea and then, you know, as the Romans would often do, like made it work for their purposes. Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Well, it's weird to think about the face of the Gorgon at the bottom of the Kylax. So once you're already kind of pissed, she's like, wow, like, was she trying to protect you or freak you out?

• 1:03:13Liv Albert?

  Well, and I think that's kind of part of it too. Like they're meant to be scared, but it's not meant to be like scary. Like it's that kind of idea of fear more as, um, I don't know, this reaction is less about the, the.

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  Like a psychological exercise.

• 1:03:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's not like the imminent danger, you know, like, like other, the monsters we might think of. Yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  There any more? Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:37Liv Albert?

  So, thinking about what you were saying about the Gorgons being unbannable, and specifically thinking about the Sounds so much, sorry, it's so different in the accent. It's way, it makes me feel way sillier for saying unbannable, but yeah.

• 1:03:57Liv Albert?

  Specifically regarding like the Ovid, where she's a young woman and she turns into a monster. How much is that ageism and kind of aging out of being unbannable? Thank you, thank you. Because, so I think that there's something going on with the Ovid there as well. Yeah, definitely, because she is this like young, beautiful woman. But I also, I mean, I think there's a lot to be said for, yeah, the aging out as well. Maybe less so with the Gorgons, but I think it's a really important point because the initial step before Perseus gets to the Gorgons is he has to go to the Grey Eye. The Grey Eye are the ones who can tell him where the Gorgons are.

• 1:04:39Liv Albert?

  And they are another like trio of divine women who have been demonized in this truly bizarre way. Like their name means the grey ones. And so, modern interpretations will have you believe they're old hags. They look like they're hags.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Are they the ones in Disney Hercules?

• 1:04:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah, well, Disney's Hercules conflates them with the fates.

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 1:05:01Liv Albert?

  Visually, they're the, yeah, visually they're the Grey Eye, but then with the, like with the, and with the eye and the sharing of a tooth, which fine, is kind of gross, but doesn't necessarily mean that they're like these old ugly hags. But yeah, then they mix it with the fates with the cutting of the, yeah. Disney Hercules is great, but not the point.

• 1:05:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, I do think there's still a good, there's a lot to be said there. And so whether or not like it can be directly correlated to the Gorgons is something. Definitely when Ovid comes along and makes those weird kind of, yeah, the sort of young and beautiful bit feels like a real stretch. But the Grey Eye being in line with the Gorgons and they're also They're they're born of the same gods, which is really interesting. They're they're also these like born of sea deities, but only live next to the sea, not in it. And they are so explicitly now seen as these like old and ugly. But again, it just means gray. Like there is actually other places in the sources where they're also like um conflated with swans. They're like meant to be swan-like in some way. We don't really um know

• 1:06:05Liv Albert?

  how that is or what that would really look like to be like kind of swan women. I don't, but Aeschylus calls them that and like I think at least one other source. Um but there's a lot to be said there as well when it comes to this like fear of an aging woman, an independent woman, like all of these women who appear in this story as these kind of like beings to overcome are all explicitly women who live alone without men.

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  And who can no longer produce children for them, right?

• 1:06:36Liv Albert?

  Well, or just like we're no longer like sort of appealing in the way, but there's no like attempt to produce children thankfully, but Yeah, other than Medusa, which is of course a whole other, yeah. Sad mess, but it's an interesting question. Yeah, yeah. You, I've seen you a couple of times.

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  Um what links would you see between the story of Medusa and other related things that are related to Gorgon's nature and literature? Like the Gorgon's like wail scream or the Gorgon's blood?

• 1:07:06Liv Albert?

  Oh, okay. Well, the Gorgon blood I'm deeply obsessed with right now, but I don't have like a ton of like, I don't have like a fully formed thought on it. The Gorgon blood appears in one play. Uh, the Ion and it's Euripides and it's magnificent, surprise, surprise. Uh, but specifically it's really interesting because it seems to be a different Gorgon. It seems to be, he doesn't, he doesn't connect it to the story of Perseus or um or the Medusa that we know. He, he says that this Gorgon was killed on the battlefield of the Giant Tomaki. Um, so on the Phlegrian fields in Italy is like when

• 1:07:49Liv Albert?

  the gods fought the giants. Um, and specifically just in this one bit of this one Euripides play. He says that a Gorgon was killed there and the blood um was preserved and it's something like.

• 1:08:04Liv Albert?

  There's sort of two different types of blood, and one, like, from one side of her body or the other. And one is healing and one is deadly. It's like a poison. And I think there's probably a lot going on in there, which aligns to the fact that Aristotle believed that menstrual blood was corrosive.

• 1:08:27Liv Albert?

  Something he could have easily tested. And so I think there's something going on there with this, like, fear of women and bleeding and like... But again, I think it's really interesting that it's so explicitly not Medusa, and it's not the Gorgons that fit into any other surviving source. And I think it's a good example of, like, just the way that we don't know anything about Greek mythology. Like, we think we do, but like, we really... But that's a huge question. And it doesn't really, you know... It's just a reminder, I think, that there's... That we're talking about, like, 800 years of writing and all of these different regions that were not unified, and they didn't have a unified language or anything. And then we are now trying to pick apart, like, what on earth they were thinking.

• 1:09:11Liv Albert?

  And I think we never will fully understand. But it's really interesting to think about. But yeah, that's a very good point. I love the Gorgon blood. I'm like...

• 1:09:19Speaker 03

  I was reading about that tonight.

• 1:09:21Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's so weird. And it's just Euripides.

• 1:09:24Speaker 03

  Of course it is.

• 1:09:25Liv Albert?

  And then the ion is so specifically interesting too, because the ion also is the only thing I've ever read in, from ancient Greece, that treats sexual assault by a god as a traumatic experience that would result in PTSD. And that alone, to me, is like...

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  That's why Euripides is the best.

• 1:09:45Liv Albert?

  That's why Euripides is the best.

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:09:47Liv Albert?

  Look, I have a bag. They're for sale.

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  I think we've got one up the back.

• 1:09:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Liv Albert?

  So I've got the point that you just made about how we can never really know what they were actually thinking. I think that's really visible in Ovid, who is very, sort of, referential. And I don't think he's actually trying to come up with any kind of definitive source. Makes reference in the text of things being something that's been handed down and being pieced together. But what he does say from Hesiod, I think, correctly if I'm wrong, is the idea that when Medusa dies, Pegasus is born from her death. Yes.

• 1:10:33Liv Albert?

  And that is something that, the idea of women being, or the feminine being something that births. And also relating to the Gorgon blood, because I think it might come from her blood. How does this sort of, and also the fact that these creatures can no longer have children, that actually Medusa does give birth to something from her death. How does, how, what do you say about that? I think what do I think about it is the greatest part of, or the best way to phrase that question, because there's no like answers, but it is such an interesting thing, because yes.

• 1:11:16Liv Albert?

  So Pegasus and a man named Crisior, who is like promptly forgotten in most mythology, doesn't really appear anywhere.

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  He's a giant with a golden sword?

• 1:11:24Liv Albert?

  Sometimes, but some, well, I mean, yeah. But also like, it's just like a statement. And when he's born, he's like a full afterthought. It's like, the flying horse Pegasus was born and Crisior.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  He was also there.

• 1:11:38Liv Albert?

  He was also there. But to me, that too, like, really connects back to what I think is coming from Hesiod, which is that the experience with Poseidon was violent. Like, the children are only birthed when her head is cut off from her body. Like they're, they fly, or Crisior doesn't fly, I don't know how he gets out of there, but Pegasus flies out of like the stump of her severed neck. There's even pottery where this tiny horse is like... Like flying out of this poor woman's neck, like it's wild. And, and so I think that there's, I mean, I would, I would have more anything definitive to say on that.

• 1:12:17Liv Albert?

  But I just think it's such, it's like further evidence to the, the nature of her story as this very, both like tragic, but also really creative process, I guess. You know, she, she does have these children who, I mean, at least in the case, Pegasus goes on to be pretty important. Um, and just so the fact that they are born in that way, I think really emphasizes like the importance of her, but also this weird thing that happens with Poseidon, which I do want to call assault. But you know, it isn't, it's a, it's just sort of a, to me, that's more evidence that like, obviously it was terrible.

• 1:12:56Liv Albert?

  Like that, you know, they're the only births in, in Greek mythology that come out of that level of violence.

• 1:13:03Speaker 03

  Dionysus.

• 1:13:05Liv Albert?

  Well, but even Dionysus is not.

• 1:13:07Speaker 03

  Not the same.

• 1:13:08Liv Albert?

  Quite as bad.

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  Not beheading.

• 1:13:10Liv Albert?

  No, it's not straight beheading. And it's like the, the idea with Dionysus is that he would have been born anyway. Whereas with Medusa, it's pretty clear that it wouldn't have happened without her being beheaded.

• 1:13:28Speaker 03

  Do you think there's anything maternal in it? I mean, I'm just thinking about Echidna as the mother of monsters. And to your point about the kind of generative, procreative power of women, even when they are monsters, even when they are dead, there's still this emphasis on not what can we get from them? But a little bit, what can we get from them and their bodies?

• 1:13:48Liv Albert?

  Well, I think that there's probably something to be said for this being something like intentional by Poseidon. You know, because every time a god sleeps with a woman, no matter how it happens, a child is always produced. And, you know, like anything in myth, we don't have any kind of explanation for why that is or isn't, or sort of, you know, any kind of why, that would be cool. Um, but I think there's something to be said for the fact that this is one instance where the birth happened. It's like they're torn from her kind of like in this really, I don't, I want to have like some insightful thing to say to it. But I think it's just, I mean, there's probably something deep in there, but it's just sort of generally terrible.

• 1:14:32Liv Albert?

  But it says a lot, I think, about her power and her, her. General creative power, the fact that she was sort of capable of this. But yeah, I don't, yeah, that's a great question and I don't have a great answer.

• 1:14:47Speaker 03

  Do you want to open?

• 1:14:48Liv Albert?

  Nope.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  Sorry. No, you go.

• 1:14:49Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:14:51Liv Albert?

  You could perhaps link it, um, sorry, this is my thought, you could link it to your idea about the Gorgons as these like absolutely, um, non-sexual, non-feminine beings. That it's only after she's been defeated that she could become the mother and fit into that role. That's stereotypical. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 03

  I like that.

• 1:15:13Liv Albert?

  That's really interesting, yeah, because it's sort of this idea that they don't, yeah, that they don't necessarily fit that, that like typical woman or matriarchal kind of like, you know, women in ancient Greece tended to serve one purpose and that was to make men. And so I think it is, yeah, that it, that's really interesting to can, to think about the ways she sort of doesn't fit that role until, yeah, until she's sort of gone. Yeah, I, I like that. Thank you.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  Taking a mental note.

• 1:15:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Speaker 03

  I was thinking, uh, like the whole, um, the clash of Titans of it all. If, uh, like a, like maybe a TV series like Chaos were to actually do the myths, um, more respectfully, how would you like them to show Medusa?

• 1:16:04Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 1:16:06Liv Albert?

  I think, so this is my, this is such a disappointing answer, but it's how I've decided or determined that I, this is always my answer about modern Medusa reception, which is that I don't want it. And that's a person, very personal decision, like I've found there's something in her story to me that I don't.

• 1:16:27Liv Albert?

  I don't like the speculation, and again, that's personal. Like, I respect it. I'm glad that people are kind of playing with her story and creating new things from it. But, I mean, for example, like, I was, um, originally this, so the Medusa piece that I wrote for is this book called Medusa, Old and New Greek Tales, um, something like that. And... That's the one! Thank you. Does it say, is it? New and ancient Greek tales. Thank you. Yeah, that's the one. Great. They didn't end up getting them in that one, but they have the other books here, so, uh, if we're gonna deal with it. It's pretty. It has red edges. It's gorgeous.

• 1:17:08Liv Albert?

  Um, I did see it for sale in the British Museum gift shop the other day, which was pretty big for me. Um, so, you know, they have it there. Um, but, the, when I heard about that book for the first time, it was really interesting. I had, like, a handful of friends send me the call for submissions, to be like, "Oh, my God, Liv, like, you love Medusa. I'm sure you want to write a short story for her." And I immediately looked at it and was like, "No, no. Like, no, I don't think I could fictionalize her. I don't think I could, because to me, the thing I want to do is pick apart everything about her that does exist from the ancient world, and I just want to, like, I don't know. I, I just want to tear it all to pieces and shove it in my brain in some way that'll make it more understandable."

• 1:17:53Liv Albert?

  But in this way where I've just found, like, I don't, I don't like sort of the reimagining of her, so I would, like, welcome it to others, but I find, I don't like to speculate, because in my head, she just, like, is this too, she's too much of, like, one original thing. I'm gonna end the story, which, clearly, because that was, that was an ADHD moment. To finish, I learned about that book and was like, "No, I couldn't write a short story." And then the next day, they emailed me, asking if I wanted to write a 28,000-word introduction on her. And I was like, "Yes, I do. Yes, yeah." So it went immediately from, like, "Oh, I couldn't fictionalize her," to, "Oh, my God, they want to pay me to just dig into the actual ancient sources?" So, instead, that's what I did, and I'm honestly so proud of that work, um, because I really

• 1:18:38Liv Albert?

  was able to kind of trace her from... Throughout all of the ancient Greek sources that we have in the ancient mythological, but also into like the weird ways in which she has been changed and used even in the ancient world. So I'm gonna, there's one story that is in that book and I think it's from Diodorus Cicus. I always forget, but it's a very late source. And actually, no, it couldn't have been him. Anyway, there was this handful of people in the sort of generally Roman period, but still very much ancient world, who really liked to rewrite famous myths from Greece and try to like understand the reality behind them.

• 1:19:23Liv Albert?

  It's really interesting and bizarre. So somebody says that the story of Medusa and the Gorgons is not, you know, this fantastical tale as it appears in Hesiod, but instead it's this story of this very real race of warrior women who lived in ancient Libya, it says. And he says they were like the Amazons. You know, they were these really powerful warrior women, ruled by women, only queens, generally really impressive. And then goes on to say that the story of, you know, them dying and generally why we don't still have this race of warrior women is that when Heracles was going around,

• 1:20:06Liv Albert?

  it just, I forget what their phrasing is, but the idea is that like Heracles was going around and like basically inflicting like a male-dominated society on that world. And he found those women and then just killed them all because women couldn't rule. And it basically just like says that. And you're like, well, okay, great. Like just wanted to say the quiet part out loud. Like this idea of why we don't have those stories or, you know, this person's like, well, it couldn't possibly be that these women were, you know, that powerful. It was just, no, Heracles just went along and killed them because he just needed to. Or whatever it is, there's this, there's a lot of kind of these weird attempts to understand this, them in general.

• 1:20:48Liv Albert?

  A lot of it ties to Libya, but ancient Libya, so it's just generally kind of North Africa. But they also say that the, somebody says that the, when Perseus was flying over, because, because the Gorgons were meant to be on this edge of night. They're like the farthest west. You can kind of imagine that like the west of Africa is, that's the westist. That they go in the ancient Greek world. Um, and so they sort of lived generally there. And that when Perseus was flying over Africa with the severed head, her blood dripped and landed in Libya. And that's why Libya has so many snakes, they say. And so, you know, there's all of these really interesting and sort of odd attempts to understand this story and where she came from, but I don't know how I got on to that.

• 1:21:33Liv Albert?

  You mentioned the book, but thank you or showed me the book. This is ADHD slash, I can turn on this personality in front of all these people, but also so much social anxiety, so I'm just gonna ramble so much. Um, do you want to have any other questions?

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  I think we've got time for one more.

• 1:21:49Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  Are you gonna go?

• 1:21:50Liv Albert?

  Um, hi, uh, I was wondering, do you think Medusa had like a role in ancient Greek society? Like, do you think she was used to warn people that, um, like this will happen if you, to all women, like if, uh, you don't produce children, this is, you'll get punished for it? Or do you think she was someone that they could have looked up to or go to in terms of being? Oh, I won't, okay. It's a great question. I, I'd love to think of what Medusa could have been to ancient women. I think in terms of what we know, it's, I, I like to think more of a Gorgon specifically, not just Medusa, because I do think also the Gorgons were sort of the iconography that we have.

• 1:22:33Liv Albert?

  I think again, Medusa kind of ties back to this attempt to understand the iconography that already existed. And that's why we get this like singular one with a name. But I think that the Gorgons broadly, hopefully, were looked on by women as this kind of less so, more, uh, like, uh, like I think hopefully they were something that was more positive, where again, we're looking at a woman who was able to defend herself. And maybe was not, you know, always appealing to men or whatever these things are. But I, I don't know, I wish I could speculate more. I'm too obsessed with like the ancient sources and what we do actually know or don't know. Um, but I definitely want to believe that, that the Gorgons generally were.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  Were something that brought kind of at least some kind of comfort to people. I mean, they were meant to be protective. So hopefully, women also felt that that applied to them and not just like the men with their armor.

• 1:23:27Speaker 03

  I think that's a great note to end it on. So thank you, all of you for coming. Thank you to the Common Press for having us and thank you to Liv Albert.

• 1:24:33Liv Albert?

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