Dusame in the Mirror - A Story Poem of Medusa's Cousin by Ssal Nogard the Poet

Dusame in the Mirror is about a lady who sits perpetually at a vanity in the middle of nowhere and looks into her mirror. That’s why the story begins

In a land deep of reflection
Actually, when she sits too long, she gets leg cramps, ergo:
There sits a maiden, sometimes standing 

She cannot look anywhere else (even when she is standing up stretching) but can see the reflection of what is going on around her through the mirror. Seeing everyone else have fun, she would like to as well but cannot. She’s stuck to her mirror or else. Or else what?

The key is the second part, delineated by asterisks and squigglies, which I love so to use as a section break: *~~*~*~*~*~*~ (Actually, I used to only use asterisks but upon hitting the carriage return, Microsoft Word kept automatically formatting the asterisks into a page-wide like of square dots, very irritating I’m sure you agree.)

The only famous Gorgon in mythology (that I know of) is Medusa. Hence the “immortal hair” in

Her sisters two at least as fair
Gorgons both: the immortal hair

Recall that although Medusa was so ugly that the sight of her would turn you to stone, although she once was, according to some versions that have cropped up through the millennia, a ravishingly beautiful maiden.

"In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid(Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a ravishingly beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," but when she was caught being raped by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the enraged Athena transformed Medusa's beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone. In Ovid's telling, Perseus describes Medusa's punishment by Minerva (Athena) as just and well earned." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa For more about Gorgons: For more about Gorgons, click here.

Yeah, that’s pretty fu**** up but it’s you guys telling these idiot stories, lol. Note that her two sisters are gorgons with immortal hair. Medusa is the only one of her sisters who is mortal, and thus killable by Perseus. (Recall that Athena gave Perseus a magic shield that doubled as a reflecting mirror so he could behead Medusa. Yeah, women don’t get ahead because they work against each other. What did Medusa ever do to Athena anyway?)

Some more recent versions have Medusa changing with the darkness.

And when the sun spit shriveled rays,
Her hair turned in a vastly maze
of dark and emerald ablaze
that met none of her awesome gaze--
       chimera called Dusame. 

I like this version better because it gives her a break from always being ugly.

If you rotate the letters in her name (I forget the word for that little trick), Medusa becomes Edusam, Dusame, Usamed, Samedu, and Amedus. Edusam sounded too masculine. Usamed and Samedu sounded too Arabic and that wasn’t the vibe I was working towards. Amedus sounded too similar to Amadeus.

Dusame, unlike her original counterpart, appears to have a conscience. Instead of turning men into stone, she refuses to look at anyone and instead looks only into the mirror.

The mirror looks for her instead
of her own eyes, to which it fed
forbidden sights behind her--led
her to such things as she would wed
       fastly to her eyes. 

It gets old of course, looking into the mirror. In one version of Medusa, Medusa was so vain that she boasted that she was fairer than Athena in Athena’s own temple. (A Cute Children's Retelling is here.) I think this version was confounded with the story of Andromeda, whose mother, Cassiopeia, made the famous Boast of Cassiopeia about Andromeda’s beauty so that Andromeda had to be sacrificed on some rocks that fell into the ocean. (The rocks didn’t actually fall, they were in a formation of a cliff.) Anyway, Perseus, who happens to be flying by on Pegasus, who sprung from Medusa’s body after he decapitated her, saves Andromeda. All good and happy.

In my version, the conscience-stricken Dusame would love to go out into the great fun world to have fun but she cannot. Suitors actually come, or are they there to kill the Gorgons?

They come to see the sisters three,
heroic with a certainty,
that in their curse they bear gladly
are free to wave most luridly
at suitors all who fast decree
       to slay the sisters famously. 

It never ends this way, only
more turned to granite cruelly
not from fate but intensity
of finding more and differently. 

For Medusa’s gaze does not lose its potency in death and would be a great weapon in battle. That’s what “turned to granite” means, turned to stone.

That means if you kill her and want to use her stony gaze as a death-instrument, you have to kill her with her eyes OPEN. I bet you never thought about that, huh? I guess the men who come are not suitors in the literal sense. They might be if the Gorgons weren’t so dangerous, but some men like them that way, I’ve heard. ;-)

Notice also that there are no less than TEN, count them, TEN lines that rhyme. That's why I liken this to Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven: Once upon a midnight dreary while I wondered weak and weary over many a curious volume of forgotten lore. Suddenly there came a rapping as of someone gently rapping, rapping on my chamber door...I did that from memory so forgive any errors.

So, one day, a suitor comes

Two steps forward, whistling lowly
He has come to see the holy
of the Gorgons, changing solely
       at the break of eve. 

The only one that changes is Medusa, her sisters were born Gorgons and are thus immortal. Medusa was changed into a Gorgon and went to live with them, as they are the only ones that can withstand her petrifying gaze (besides other immortals, of course). This nice suitor wants to be a hero like all the others and intends to cut off Dusame’s head as a trophy and weapon of mass destruction:

Looked through the glass but for a flash,
He lifted sword and made to slash
her slender throat a deep red gash 

But can he do it? Not very nice considering how Dusame is considerate enough to keep from killing all the mortal men that come to woo and/or kill her. I guess you’ll have to read and find out!

Dusame in the Mirror Page

Again, I would like to note that I am totally against analyzing literature of any kind, but if it helps you to read it, I will be a sell out. I would also like to write full-time, so if you would like to see one of my screenplays on the big screen one of these days or find a book of mine in the bookstore, or meet me at a book signing, lulz, please spread the word, many thanks! =-)

Many other poets have found Medusa as an inspiration. Here is Sylvia Plath's poem on Medusa. Kinda' like mine better because it rhymes, lol. However, as an artiste (with an "e" at the end), invidious comparisons have no place in real art, wink wink.

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Like Poe's the Raven? Check this out! It's "Dusame in the Mirror"

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Dusame in the Mirror 

   by Ssal Nogard

In a land deep of reflection 

stands a mirror of perfection.

In it sees the soul’s subjection 

clearly against all objection 

       hardened into stone. 

There sits a maiden, sometimes standing

all within her view commanding 

vast and wide an understanding 

       of sights seen in the glass.

Through the mirror fair she looks, 

stealing thoughts, akin a crook;

with a glance she never brooks 

       the edges of the glass.

This creature lady has a ken

that sees the ills within and when

she sees the ills it comes forth ten

       more thousand fold as hard.

The mirror looks for her instead 

of her own eyes, to which it fed

forbidden sights behind her--led

her to such things as she would wed 

       fastly to her eyes. 

But if a look into this glass

from any eyes besides the lass, 

of verdant hair and eyes that pass 

   the gleaming of the moon, 

Would see the same as in a plain 

made looking glass. And so contain 

nothing of the brass insane-

       ness thrashing to look out. 

Through days that spun of languid splendor 

Ceaseless grew her glassly wonder. 

Could not god and could not thunder 

take her glass and her asunder. 

      

~~~~~*******~~~~~*****~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~

Her sisters two at least as fair 

Gorgons both: the immortal hair 

that flamed by day and slunk through lair, 

by night, of green and serpent rare 

       The sisters of Dusame. 

They had the hair, they had the flame 

but never did they look the same. 

They’d not her eyes and could not blame 

     the shadows in the glass. 

Why so for one who sits and sees

by glass while two can look with ease 

at sights delightful as they please… 

For she was never on her knees,

and so she never could appease

her gods with prayer or small decrees

of sycophantish, squealing pleas.

For triflings none, she wanted ease

on par with that of this and these

immortals flying in the breeze.

But to the gods she paid no fees

and so she sits with their disease

       for never needing them. 

Thus, by day was changed a girling, 

solid skin and all-a-curling, 

hair that shivered, and a-pearling

       eyes that shone a shade of sterling,

Hardness more and hardness yearning

       bleakly for a break.

As such the mortal in her showed

no greater in her glass abode,

where all she sat and oft was told

of things not hers nor to behold.

Yet in the corner of her eye 

her sisters dance until they cry 

of things so lovely yonder high! 

and things so holy yonder nigh--

that from her lips she slips a sigh

       of things she cannot see. 

~~~**~~~***~~~~~~~~~~~~**~~~~~~~~~~~

They come to see the sisters three,

heroic with a certainty,

that in their curse they bear gladly

are free to wave most luridly

at suitors all who fast decree 

to slay the sisters famously.

It never ends this way, only

more turned to granite cruelly

not from fate but intensity

of finding more and differently.

Two steps forward, whistling lowly 

He has come to see the holy 

of the Gorgons, changing solely 

       at the break of eve. 

He sits to see the fair Dusame,

whose beauty deep is known by name.

Whoever so could win a claim

of sight and hair and so her tame,

yet live through such a ghoulish game

of sight, hair, and forbidden frame.

He catches sight far in the glass 

seductive lines and heinous mass

of things unseen, he lets it pass-- 

       those moments in her eyes. 

Her sisters smiling, sidling close 

to see their pilgrim and to boast… 

Instantly she turned a ghost 

       of shadows and of sighs. 

Dusame had seen him by the way 

and she had wanted him to lay 

his hand upon her---but she stayed 

and in her struggle did she sway 

       so that she nearly looked. 

Dared not to look, or even turn 

her body sick. A shudder yearned,

and in the instant that she spurned 

his call, it tripled her to burn

       still harder in the glass.  

~~****~~~*****~~~~~~******~~~~~~*****~~~~~****~~~~~

And when the sun spit shriveled rays, 

Her hair turned in a vastly maze 

of dark and emerald ablaze 

that met none of her awesome gaze-- 

        chimera called Dusame. 

And the mirror shines a clearer 

glow, and clearer with the sheerer 

lines of things outlined and nearer, 

made over big and over dearer 

       to the watcher called Dusame. 

How can she look and make him stone, 

her gaze that blights through look alone

from lightened eyes and depths they shone, 

       blazed into hard reflection. 

Looked through the glass but for a flash, 

He lifted sword and made to slash 

her slender throat a deep red gash 

       and saw her look away. 

She looked a look of guileless peer,

reflection and a window clear 

both of soul and desire dear. 

       She looked him through and back. 

He lowered blade and fought to spy

the wonder in the glassy eye 

but knew that look that would belie

the tendency to magnify 

       what was within the glass. 

“Your look is one of death,” he said 

and for this man would have your head. 

I cannot deviate my stead 

       fast intent to run you red.” 

“My look is death,” she said, “if only 

in your shadowed, dank and lonely 

crevices you speak--atone! Be 

       sorry--of things… ungod.” 

“Then all,” he said, “no doubt succumb

Better to be struck mute and dumb 

in mind and soul and so in sum 

       than risk a thought that strays. 

“And you Dusame, how do you fit 

into this frame you never quit 

so calmly do you peer and sit 

       extracting our misdeeds” 

“I sit unscathed as I can do no

wrong or right and thus I grow 

no further than my frame and so

I sit and dream of things I know

       not of and wish I did 

                                    --a little.” 

       sighed the sad Dusame.

On bended knee he took her hand

and gave her tears that rifely ran 

and seared her skin like desert sand,

       blinding her to see. 

Her eyes grew wide, her hair died lank 

she gazed at him once more and sank 

her head onto the mirror’s bank 

       and gazed at it no more. 

He lifted her and turned her face;, 

unseeing kissed her eyes with haste 

and set her back onto the chaste 

     smooth surface of the mirror.

He sheathed his blade, and set to go, 

his body limp and hanging low, 

in desolation for a foe 

who was not--And, will never know 

that he saw her more clearly thro’ 

       the eye glass of Dusame. 

And yet he steals her stony gaze 

cast from the glass to surely raze

The look, once seen, it always stays 

      the mortal called Dusame. 

~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~**~
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