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Updated: June 25, 2025
The fable of the Minotaur is now seen to be no mere wild and monstrous imagining, but a reflection, vague and grotesque as seen through the mist of centuries, of customs which did actually exist in the palace life of Knossos, and were very probably parts of the religious practice of the country.
Later Athenian writers of a rationalizing turn endeavoured to bring down the noble old legend to the level of the commonplace by transforming the Minotaur into a mere general or famous athlete named Taurus, whom Theseus vanquished in Crete.
No, for a just comparison we shall have to reach back to history and fable: David and Goliath; Theseus and the Minotaur; or, better still, Cadmus and the Dragon! And it was Cadmus, likewise, who afterwards sowed the dragon's teeth. That wondrous clear and fresh summer morning of June the seventh will not be forgotten for many years.
Like the tribute that once upon a time Greece sent to the Minotaur of Crete, the Philippine youth embarked for the expedition, saying good-by to their country forever: on their horizon were the stormy sea, the interminable wars, the rash expeditions. From fifty thousand families to fourteen thousand tributaries in little over half a century!
Here the Minotaur roamed, and was fed with human victims. Theseus resolved to deliver his countrymen from this calamity, or to die in the attempt. Accordingly, when the time of sending off the tribute came, and the youths and maidens were, according to custom, drawn by lot to be sent, he offered himself as one of the victims, in spite of the entreaties of his father.
Aeneas hastened to deposit his aged father in a heap on the gravel and ran after the Sylvan Nymphs; Theseus gave the Minotaur a respite; Themistocles was bending over the dying Spartan, who was coming to life; Venus Pudica was waltzing about the diagonal basin with Antinous; Ascanius was playing marbles with the infant Hercules.
If he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be tormented by his abominable aspect. But King Minos, who reigned over Crete, laid out a vast deal of money in building a habitation for the Minotaur, and took great care of his health and comfort, merely for mischief's sake.
Traditions varied as to the fate which awaited the lads and damsels on their arrival in Crete; but the common view appears to have been that they were shut up in the labyrinth, there to be devoured by the Minotaur, or at least to be imprisoned for life.
"Well, whenever I come across one of them by chance I seem to hear a voice repeating, 'To-morrow we die to-morrow we die to-morrow we die. And I seem to see something inside of them with teeth and claws fastening on pleasure. It's it's like a sort of minotaur, and it gives me horrors. And yet I might go to it." Mrs. Mansfield said nothing for a moment.
False Minos now may knit his baffled brows, And in the labyrinth by thee devised His brutish horns in angry search may toss The Minotaur, but thou and I are free! See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day, Thy glory and our prison!
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