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Foreword M edusa
was one of the three Gorgon sisters, the only mortal one, whose looks turned
people to stone. She was seduced by Neptune the sea god, in the temple of
Minerva, goddess of war. Later, Perseus decapitated her, and put her head on
the shield of Minerva, which he had borrowed. Blood from the head, now
covered with snakes, dripped to produce the snakes of Africa. It
retained its power to turn the onlooker to stone. Medusa
was
the name of the French ship, whose wreck was celebrated in the famous,
scandalous picture by Géricault, as the raft, bearing crew members and
passengers, was left by the officers to drift for thirteen days while they
fled in the ship’s boats. Note The reference to Werner Egk was to his best known opera, The Betrothal in Santo Domingo, a plea for racial tolerance (with unintended resonance to the Haitian earthquake which happened after but not because of writing Medusa), and to Hans Werner Henze who wrote a piece, The Raft of the Medusa, in terms of class struggle.
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