The Minotaur

An angry, savage freak of nature.  It is a symbol that serves as the beast inside all man. Behind the myth, there is a reality. It deals with human sacrifices, bestiality, and the remains of a actual labyrinth.

The story of the Minotaur could be said to have been the horrifying tale told around the campfire in ancient times.   He is the mutant child of a human female and male bull.  In the kingdom of Crete lived King Minos and Queen Pasiphae. They lived happily at the apex of power. Every year it is customary for the king to sacrifice his prize bull as a offering to Sea God, Poseidon.

However one year, a calf was created that was so beautiful, so perfect, so pure that King Minos did not want sacrifice it to the God.  So instead, he cheated Poseidon, by sacrificing a lesser bull in place of his prized possession. Poseidon angered by this treachery decided to punish the king and teach him a lesson that he would not soon forget. Poseidon casted a spell on Minos’s wife Pasiphae. She was to lust for the bull that Minos loved so much. Long story short, nine months later the Minotaur was delivered unto this earth.  Possessing the body of a supernatural man, the head, legs and tail of a bull. The Minotaur was a stigma on King Minos’s reputation.

Even though he could not kill this beast, because it was his wife’s son, King Minos decided an alternate route to erase the Minotaur from the history books. A labyrinth. To complete this task, Minos called upon Daedalus, Crete’s master architect and engineer. It was so complex that even he barely escaped with his life intact. Due to a conflict between Athens and Crete, Athens sacrificed people to the labyrinth of the Minotaur.

On the third time Crete demanded tribute, Theseus traveled with the others. Theseus had one sole purpose. To destroy the Minotaur and save Athens from this disaster.   The hero’s plan was to take string and let it drop onto the ground so that it would be easier to find the way out or to backtrack. However, with a monster of this caliber, the hunter becomes the hunted. One by one the beast hunts down his prey, leaving the best meal for last. A meal to play with.  Finally Theseus caught up with the Minotaur and slayed the beast.

"Minotaur GREEK MYTHOLOGY." N.p., 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. <https://sites.google.com/site/basicgreekmythology/monsters-and-creatures/minotaur>.

MMIX Encyclopedia Mythica. "Minotaur." Encyclopedia Mythica: mythology, folklore, and religion. MMIX Encyclopedia Mythica, 30 Mar. 2001. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. <http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/minotaur.html>.

Pierre Burnel, Ed, Wendy Allatson, Judith Hayward, and Trista Selous. "The Minotaur in Classical Mythology." Welcome to English « Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. N.p., 1996. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rukeyser/minotaur.htm>.