Theseus and the Minotaur

In the days of King Minos, the island of Crete ruled the seas. Minos had a great curse and a great secret. The curse was a son who had been born to his queen Pasiphaë, half man and half bull, with a man's body and a bull's horned head. The boy could not be killed and could not be tamed. So Minos called Daedalus, the cleverest builder in the world, and Daedalus built a labyrinth, a building of stone passages so twisting that no one who entered could ever find the way out. The half-bull was put into the heart of the labyrinth, and there he lived. They called him the Minotaur. He ate the flesh of human beings, and nothing else.

Athens, far across the sea, had once killed a son of Minos. As punishment, Minos forced Athens to send tribute every nine years: seven young men and seven young women, drawn by lot. They were taken to Crete and put into the labyrinth, and the Minotaur ate them.

When the third tribute came due, the prince of Athens, Theseus, came back to the city after a long journey. His father was the king Aegeus. He saw the houses with sons and daughters mourning, and he asked what had happened. When they told him, he said: "I will go. I will be one of the seven." Aegeus begged him not to. Theseus would not be turned. He said, "I will kill the Minotaur. I will end this."

The ship sailed for Crete with black sails of mourning. Theseus said to his father, "If I succeed and come back alive, I will change the sails to white. Watch for white sails."

In Crete the young Athenians were brought ashore in chains and paraded through the city. Among the crowd that watched was Ariadne, the daughter of Minos. She saw Theseus and fell in love with him. That night she crept down to the cells where the Athenians were kept, and she came to him in secret. "I will help you kill the beast and escape this island," she said. "If you swear to take me with you, away from my father, and to marry me." He swore.

She gave him two things. The first was a sword. The labyrinth was supposed to keep no weapons in it, but she had hidden one for him. The second was a ball of thread. "Tie one end of this to the door at the entrance of the labyrinth," she said. "Hold the rest in your hand and let it out as you go in. When you have killed him, follow the thread back. There is no other way out."

The next morning the Athenians were led to the labyrinth and the door was unlocked. Theseus tied the end of the thread to the doorpost and went in first. The walls of stone twisted to right and left. The thread played out behind him. The smell of the Minotaur grew stronger as he went. He came at last to a wide chamber lit by a hole in the high ceiling, and there the Minotaur was, asleep on a heap of bones.

Theseus did not call out. He went in close. The Minotaur woke and rose up, huge and bellowing, and rushed at him. Theseus stepped aside and struck. They fought there in the silence of the labyrinth, and at last Theseus drove his sword into the Minotaur's heart, and the half-bull fell.

He gathered the thread in his hand and followed it back, winding it as he went, and step by step he led the others out. Ariadne was waiting at the door. She had unlocked the harbor gate and prepared the Athenian ship. They sailed away that night before Minos discovered what had happened. The sea went with them.

On the way home, the ship stopped at the island of Naxos. There, depending on which storyteller you listen to, several different things happened. Some say Theseus betrayed Ariadne and left her sleeping on the shore while he sailed on. Some say a god, Dionysus, claimed her for his own and Theseus had to give her up. Either way, when the ship came in sight of Athens, Ariadne was not on it.

Theseus, in his joy or in his guilt, forgot one thing. He forgot to change the sails. King Aegeus, watching from the cliffs of Cape Sounion, saw the black sails coming and believed his son was dead. He threw himself from the cliff into the sea. From that day the sea has carried his name. We call it the Aegean.

When Theseus came home, he found his father gone. He took up the kingship of Athens, with grief in him for what he had done and what he had failed to do. He ruled for many years. But the city remembered always the day the black sails returned.