Deception and Truth

Lies and misdirection are recurring ideas throughout five of the six stanzas in the poem. The first indication of this is in the phrase “Your senses spin” (Line 5), suggesting a feeling of uncertainty and instability that comes from incomplete truths. In the third stanza, the title character “opens her lips to speak […] She has more tongues to deceive” (Lines 7, 9); this immediately establishes deception as the undercurrent of the character’s speech. The implication is that meeting Medusa and her vipers face-to-face is to be confronted with a barrage of mistruths and half truths united in a common goal. However, the speaker acknowledges that these mistruths “Would be hard to argue” (Line 13), suggesting that there are deeper social truths hidden within them. It’s left to interpretation whether the “you” figure of the poem is being misled, or simply confronted with a new way of...