MEDUSA III
I left the pharmacy. I was feeling nauseated, shaking. I got out water, took a pill, and looked at the sky.
A snake is looking at me from the sky. She curled up around a copper goblet, and is looking from it. Squinting. Either from neon or from trickery. “Are you drinking my poison?”, she asked me.
I am, of course. Do you want some?
I pour water in her glass. Now I am your Hygieia, who gave water to your ancestors and fed them by hand. After all, we are sisters, we have one great mother, one blood.
Asclepius, the father of Hygieia, was very lucky: who is he without the blood of the Gorgon? He didn’t refuse and accepted from Athena two goblets with the blood of a murdered woman. An okay gift, isn’t it? Why not take advantage of someone’s murder? Would’ve been okay had it been done for donorship, but he did it for fame…
The blood that flowed from the left side of Medusa brought death, the blood from the right side cured the sick and brought the dead back to life.
I wonder, snake, from which drops were you born?
Ovid, that drama queen, of course, made a mess of everything. Medusa’s birth wasn’t aesthetic enough to get into an ancient tragedy. It’s easier to think of a horse and a giant, jumping out of a severed head, than to admit that we all, both gods and people, go through the same birth ordeals.
Medusa was giving birth to a daughter.
Perseus killed the midwife.