The World’s Most Famous Love Match: Andromeda & Perseus

First off, I just need to say straight away that the soft sm in all the Andromeda art rivals the crucified Christ in imagery. The young bound body of both of them, offered up to sacrifice, is hugely thematic and could be discussed at length, but this blog has another topic. These female and male sacrificed bodies here cede ground to Andromeda’s unstable racial or ethnic identity.

When Andromeda fell victim to human sacrifice, she was rescued from that scapegoating and then fell in love with her rescuer. Andromeda’s sacrifice was turned into an African love story, the love story of Perseus and the Ethiopian Princess Andromeda.

Perseus famously rescued Princess Andromeda by using Medusa’s head as a weapon against Poseidon’s monster, Ceto. Andromeda married her heroic rescuer and they lived on to be among the most famous love matches in all our legends and myths.

The sacrifice and rescue of Andromeda is a deeply popular legend. There are numerous paintings of the young and beautiful Andromeda stripped and chained to seaside rocks. Out of the sea, Poseidon’s monster Ceto emerges to rip Andromeda from her chains and devour her limb by limb. 

Meanwhile, Perseus arrives flying through the sky. Perseus is normally shown holding up Medusa’s head, which has the power to kill through petrification. That is, Medusa’s head can turn into stone anyone who looks at it. It is interesting that the sea monster falls within Medusa’s power, just like a person. Normally Perseus is also riding the winged horse Pegasus. (for more on how Medusa gave birth to Pegasus read Reborn Athena). Alternatively, Perseus might fly by power of winged slippers that were on loan from Hermes.

Here’s the twist: in most of recorded myth, Andromeda is an Ethiopian princess.

Paintings, however, almost invariably render Andromeda with glowing white skin that pops against the stormy skies and roiling waters.

In contrast, there are three prominent paintings of Andromeda and Perseus where Andromeda is pictured as Ethiopian.

Two of the paintings, shown above, are from the seventeenth century. The third, is from the contemporary tweens author, Percy Jackson, in his book, Greek Myths [at the top of this post]. The contemporary aesthetic of this illustration for Percy Jackson’s volume not only pays tribute to African beauty, but also reflects the exponential increase in the power of horror. Compare this sea monster with those from the earlier paintings of 1600 – 1920s to appreciate this change in register.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., wrote about the blackness of Princess Andromeda, remarking in his erudite manner, that “W.E.B. Du Bois, the father of Pan-Africanism… used Andromeda as a metaphor for Africa in the climactic chapter of his 1947 book, The World and Africa... ‘We owe it to Africa and ourselves to release Andromeda and place her free and beautiful among the stars of the sky,‘ Du Bois argued… ‘The stars of dark Andromeda belong up there in the great heaven that hangs above this tortured world.’”

If the African and the European identities of Andromeda are not enough, the beautiful Andromeda has also been claimed over the centuries as a native of the ancient city of Jaffa, in present day Israel.

The interchangeable race of Andromeda is part of a deeper truth of societies and the role of female sacrifice. There is no color bar on the religious call to subjugate young women. Every town has its Andromeda who falls victim to sacrifice. Girls are all too often lost, abandoned, or even offered up by their parents, and devoured by monsters. This is true in our current world via all the various types of abuse or femicide, whether through banal acts of abuse, domestic violence, or so-called honor killings, or serial murders of prostitutes. No group of women is immune to the prospect of female sacrifice. Neither is the sacrifice of young women always so literal, so thoroughly fatal.

In the classic legend, Andromeda and Perseus fall in love and live so happily that they literally turn into stars when they die.

However, this love match was built upon Andromeda’s lack of choice. She did not choose to be sacrificed and thus need rescuing. Neither did she choose to marry Perseus. Rather, Perseus negotiated the marriage with the King and Queen before he went to rescue Andromeda. The price of Andromeda’s freedom from Ceto, was to live in Perseus’ embrace, as his wife. Luckily for Andromeda, Perseus was a young handsome demigod (son of Zeus with the mortal woman Danae).

Andromeda’s vulnerability and her beauty renew endlessly with each generation of young women all across the world. I take the story of Andromeda’s sacrifice to be grounds for global solidarity among women interested to allow her make her own choices, to live her own life. The sacrifice of young women is still very current, but let’s face it, this practice needs to end. Waiting for a Perseus to come along is not a good strategy in the 21st Century world. It’s better to build up our own power.