The Labyrinth and the Minotaur
In Athens, there lived the inventor Daidalos. He was an ingenious man who invented sails for ships, amongst many other things. No task was too hard for him, with his only competition being from his young nephew. Jealous at his nephew's ability, Daidalos took him on a walk one day, and pushed him over the steep rocks of the Acropolis. After this heinous act, he fled to Crete with his son Ikaros, where King Minos ruled.

In his earlier days, King Minos struggled with his brothers for the throne. Minos had prayed to the god Poseidon for a white bull, as an indication that the gods favoured him, and that he would sacrifice the bull as a sign of his subservience. However, when the white bull finally rose out of the sea, Minos instead sacrificed the best of his herd, while keeping the white bull for himself. Angry at the mortal's defiance, Poseidon made the king's wife, Queen Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull. The Queen, as an act of desperation, summoned Daidalos and asked him to get the bull to make love to her. Not wishing to offend the Queen, he made a wooden frame of a cow, and had Pasiphae lie inside, with which the bull mated.

When King Minos found out, he was livid, and sentenced Daidalos to imprisonment, but Pasiphae was pregnant, and Minos had to hide her. Therefore, he had no choice but to enlist Daidalos' help once again, in exchange for his freedom, to hide Pasiphae from the world. Daidalos created an underground maze, in which passages ran like a spider web of tunnels. A labyrinth, whose secret only Minos and Daidalos knew.

So the pregnant Pasiphae was put into the centre of the maze, and there she bore a child- half bull, half human. It was the Minotaur, and its bellowing could be heard from time to time, from deep within the maze. No one who went in ever came out, for the Minotaur fed on flesh.

After the completion of the labyrinth, Daidalos wanted to leave. Minos barred Daidalos from leaving Crete, for fear he might let out the secret of the labyrinth. That night, Daidalos made wings for himself and his son, Ikaros. He fashioned the wings out of feathers stuck together by wax. The following morning, they rode on the first up currents of air as the sun warmed the earth, and flew away from Crete. Unfortunately, Daidalos' son, Ikaros, flew too near to the sun, and the wax in his wings melted and he plummeted towards the sea. Daidalos was distraught, but he flew on and finally landed in Sicily.

Back in Athens, King Aigeus was childless, and was wary of the many factions after his position. He seeked advice from an oracle, where the priest told him not to unfasten a wineskin's foot until he reached the Acropolis, or he would cause his own death. Not knowing what to make of it, he went to visit his friend, the King of Troizen, to see if he knew what it meant. Along the way, he visited Corinth where his friend Medea was furious because her husband had obtained a mistress. She told Aigeus if he gave her shelter in Athens, she would bear him a child, to which Aigeus readily agreed.

When he finally reached the city of Troizen, King Pittheus was overjoyed to see him and held a banquet in his honour that night. Wineskin after wineskin he drank. He had forgotten all about the oracle's advice. In a drunken stupor, he went to bed that night only to find himself sleeping with King Pittheus's daughter, Aithra. Ashamed of what he had done, he left the city in the morning, but not before burying a sword and a pair of sandals under a rock. He told Aithra if she bore a son, to tell him about the items when he was old enough. If he could lift the rock, he should go to Athens, and be welcomed as his heir.

Aithra did bear a son, and she named him Theseus. Throughout his childhood, Aithra refused to divulge who his father was, saying that he was a son of Poseidon. When Theseus did come of age, his mother told him about the rock. The rock was heavy and all who tried it were unable to lift it, but Theseus managed to lift it, and he set off for Athens with the sword and sandals, to find his father.

Next: The Slaying of the Minotaur >>