Theseus and the Minotaur, Part III

Greetings, Greek mythology fans!  Theseus has just killed the Minotaur!  Phew!  But, oh no!  He's still inside the Labyrinth created by that most daedalian and clever inventor, Daedalus!  But wait!  He still has the key to get out!  All he has to do is follow the golden glowing thread all the way back to the great double bronze doors where the 13 other children await his return.

I will not trouble you with the byzantine, winding, anfractuous, perplexing,  twisty-turny, dare I say topsy-turvy trip back to them.  Suffice it to say, Theseus finally makes it back, after grabbing a horn of Asterion, the great Minotaur, for himself, and safely arrives back to the doors.  The children all breathe a sigh of huge relief, begin to all talk at once, but Theseus is tired, and tells them to hush.

He knocks thrice upon the huge doors, and Ariadne, his new bride, opens the doors, and off they run, quickly and silently, to the ship with the black and white main sail, and off they sail before King Minos and Queen Pasiphae are even aware that they are leaving.  For how could they escape the inescapable?  No one pays any attention.  And so off they go, free, alive, smelling the fresh air of the open sea, so, so different than the close smell of death within the lair of the horrible Minotaur's now tomb.

Ariadne smiles upon Theseus, but he, alas, broods.  What could be wrong?  Hasn't he done the heroic thing?  Hasn't he saved them all?  Does he not have a beautiful princess as a wife?  Does he not have the incredible trophy of the horn of the Minotaur?  Yet he frowns.  Perhaps he is merely tired, thinks Ariadne. Perhaps he is homesick, for it is now the middle of September, and they have been gone since the 6th of April.

One day, at long last, Theseus is smiling.  He walks up to Ariadne and tells her that he is tired of  the ship, and needs a break from the children, who are making way too much noise.  He tells Ariadne that they have not yet had a chance to have time to themselves, to have a proper honeymoon.

     "Lo, see yonder island, my love?  Shall we weigh anchor and just the two of us spend a few days alone together upon the island, which looks so pleasant?" asks Theseus.
     "Yes, my beloved, that would be wonderful," beams Ariadne, delighted at this sudden turn of events.

And so they disembark from the ship, leaving the children with the sailors.  Theseus is in such a good mood! Finally, after much talk of love they settle down for a nap, or so Ariadne thinks.  Theseus waits until Ariadne falls asleep under a beautiful oak tree, and then he quickly jumps up, runs off to the ship, and tells the captain to set sail. The captain looks puzzled, but Theseus gives the command once again, in the name of his father King Aegeus, and off they sail.

A little while later, as the sun is heading towards the horizon, Ariadne wakes up, sees that Theseus is nowhere to be seen, and calls out for her love.  Silence answers her, and then the calling of birds.  She runs towards the shore, a panic of suspicion rising within her, and finds not the ship.  She screams, runs to the nearest tree, and hangs herself.

Ah!  There is an alternate ending to this myth, much the better.  For the island was Naxos, the isle of Dionysus, the god of wine.  Dionysus hears Ariadne calling for her love, and so he himself answers, falls madly in love with Ariadne, and marries her himself. What a turn of events!  To be married to a man who really does not love you, and then the next day to be married to a god who really does!  Ariadne, abandoned, now becomes Ariadne the beloved of a divinity.  Maybe change, which appears bad, really isn't so bad after all.  At least in some cases.

Theseus, meanwhile, is really most pleased with himself.  He begins to gloat over his success ... the Minotaur horn shines in the setting sun, and he is heading home.  In fact, Theseus is so pleased with himself these days that he forgets to do something of paramount importance.

King Aegeus, the father of Theseus, has arrived once again upon the cliff where he has been looking for the return of his son and the other Athenian youths, hoping against hope that Theseus indeed has slain the Minotaur.  It is the morning of October the 8th, over 6 months since the ship has set sail to Crete.  The day is dawning, and as he looks out with hope upon the horizon towards the south he sees a ship!  Could it be the ship of Theseus?  Is the white sail up?  Is he alive?  Can he relay good news to the families of those children who were sent off to be eaten?  At first he cannot look, but as the sun gets stronger and the light gets brighter and the sun gets closer he, he cannot believe ... it's the black sail!  Aegeus, in despair, jumps off the cliff into the sea to his death, thinking that all has been lost.

For Theseus, of course, had forgotten to turn around the sail to the white.

*Interesting Fact*  The ancient people of Crete were known as the Minoans, named after their king, Minos.  A cretin, on the other hand, is someone who is stupid and foolish, and has nothing to do with the island of Crete.

*Interesting Fact* The Aegean Sea, that sea that lies between the countries of Greece and Turkey, is named after King Aegeus.  When a word is created from someone's name, it is called an eponym.  There are all kinds of mythological eponyms, such as Europe, the Hellespont, the Pillars of Hercules, daedalian, hector, etc.

**Book Corner**
       Want to learn a little more about historical Crete and the legend behind the Labyrinth and the Minotaur?  Take a look at In Search of Knossos: The Search for the Minotaur's Labyrinth. 





Interested in English vocabulary and its Latin and Greek roots?  Take a look at
www.wordempire.com, a site which describes the most comprehensive dictionary available based on English derivatives that come from Latin and Greek root words.