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Theseus Slays The Minotaur
King Minos had long hated the people of Athens, for they had killed his
son when he took all the prizes at the Athenian games. To prevent King
Minos from waging war against them, every nine years the people of
Athens had to sacrifice seven young men and seven young women.
Beneath King Minos’s palace at Knossos was a labyrinth, a maze of
passageways. At the heart of the labyrinth lived a Minotaur – a
fearsome creature, half man and half bull, who fed on human flesh.
When the Minotaur was hungry it bellowed so loudly that the whole
palace shook.
Theseus, the son of the King Aegeus of Athens, was a brave young man.
He vowed he would slay the Minotaur. Try as he might, Aegeus could
not change his mind. Theseus was determined to kill the monster so no
more innocent people would die. So, when the next victims set sail for
Crete, Theseus took the place of the seventh man.
King Aegeus vowed he would watch the horizon constantly. “On your
return my son, replace the black sails with white ones and I shall know
immediately you have been victorious.”
As they were paraded through the streets, King Minos taunted the
prisoners. When Ariadne, King Minos’s daughter, saw the handsome
and brave Theseus it was love at first sight. She decided to help him kill
the dreaded Minotaur.
Under cover of night, she visited Theseus in his prison cell. “Take this
ball of twine,” she said. “Tie one end of it to the gate of the labyrinth
before you go in so you can follow it and find your way out again. If you
go now you will be able to kill the Minotaur while it’s sleeping. All I ask
is that you take me back to Athens as your bride.”
Theseus did as Ariadne instructed. He made his way slowly though the
foul smelling passageways, all the time unwinding the string. He could
hear the snores of the Minotaur and set off towards the noise. A few
minutes later however, he could hardly hear it. The path had doubled
back and he was now further away from the centre than when he
started! Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of its lair.
There in front of him was a grotesque figure. It fixed Theseus with its
eyes and pawed the ground with its foot. Then it lowered its head and
charged. Theseus was tossed high into the air. Lying winded on the cold
slabs, being trampled beneath the beast’s huge hooves, Theseus
thought he was doomed. Finding a strength he didn’t know he
possessed, Theseus grabbed one of the beast’s horns and wrenched it
off. He plunged it into the folds of flesh again and again. A stream of
blood gushed from the wound and after what seemed like an age, the
monster sank to its knees. It let out a gurgling gasp and crashed to the
ground. Dead!
To his horror Theseus realised that in the struggle he had let go of the
twine, his lifeline. He scrabbled around in the pitch dark. Time and time
again Theseus thought he had found the twine only to discover it was a
long wiry hair from the Minotaur. Just as it seemed all was lost he
found the end. Theseus retraced his steps until, to his enormous relief,
he found himself back at the entrance.
Ariadne and Theseus freed the other prisoners and together they made
their escape from the island of Crete. No more innocent Athenians
would die. Theseus was a hero.
On their way home, they stopped at the island of Naxos. Theseus sent
Ariadne for supplies and while she was gone, he set sail without her.
He had no intention of honouring a promise to marry his enemy’s
daughter. Unfortunately, in his haste to get away, Theseus forgot his
promise to his father to change the sails.
When the ship came into view, King Aegeus was distraught to see black
sails. Devastated at losing his only son, the king threw himself off the
cliffs into the raging waters below.