Heroes

by Stephen Fry

  Yes, yes, you are right, Theseus, this is all a little far from the point, but I must tell this story in my own way. Minos has a wife, Pasiphae – she and Daedalus are very close. Some even suggest that they … Well, let us say Minos is a difficult husband and no one would blame Pasiphae for looking elsewhere. She is a proud woman, daughter of the sun god Helios, no less, and imbued with great powers. She is the sister of Circe and Aeëtes and an aunt, therefore, of Medea. There’s a story that she became so annoyed by Minos’s unfaithfulness to her that she secretly added a potion to his wine which caused him, in the act of love-making, to ejaculate only snakes and scorpions, which was most painful for all concerned. But what she did next took everyone by surprise.

  One day Poseidon sent a white bull from the sea. Oh no, I am still not quite in the right order of things.

  You know the story of Europa?fn14 Who does not. How Zeus in the form of a bullfn15 carried the girl off from Tyre right under the eyes of Cadmus and her other brothers. They went to Greece to get her back, and in the course of his adventures Cadmus founded Thebes, of course, and his brothers all established dynasties too, Phoenicia, Cilicia and so on, but they never found their sister, who had landed with Zeus on Crete. Well, Europa bore the god a son, Minos, who ruled the island and became, after his death, one of the Judges of the Underworld. His son ASTERION ruled Crete and his son, MINOS II, the current Minos, took over. But Minos had brothers who objected to his claim. Minos, though, insisted that the gods always intended him to be king, and to prove it he offered up a prayer to Poseidon.

  ‘Send a bull from the sea, my lord Poseidon,’ he cried, ‘so that my brothers may know Crete is mine. I will sacrifice the bull in your name and venerate you always.’

  Sure enough, the most beautiful white bull emerged from the waves. So beautiful, in fact, that there were two disastrous outcomes. Firstly, Minos decided it was far too handsome an animal to kill, so he sacrificed a lesser beast from his own herd, which very much enraged Poseidon. And secondly, the bull’s astonishing beauty attracted Pasiphae. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. She wanted it. She wanted it on her, around her and in her – I’m sorry, Theseus, it’s true. I’m telling the story as it is known. There are those who say it was the angry Poseidon who crazed her with this lust – part of his punishment of Minos for failing to sacrifice the bull, but however it came about, Pasiphae became frenzied in her desire for the animal.

  The bull was, of course, a bull and so had no sense of how to respond to a woman’s advances. In the froth and frenzy of her erotic passion the lovestruck Pasiphae went to her friend, and perhaps ex-lover, Daedalus and asked if he could help her have her way with the bull. Without so much as a second thought Daedalus, excited perhaps by the intellectual challenge, set about manufacturing an artificial heifer. He made it from wood and brass, but he stretched a real cow’s hide over the frame. Pasiphae fitted herself inside, the correct part of her presented to the correct opening. The whole contraption was wheeled to the meadow where the bull was grazing. I know, my boy, it is gross, but I am telling you the story as the world knows it.

  Astonishingly, the depraved plan worked. Pasiphae screamed in a delirium of joy as the bull entered her. Never had she known such carnal ecstasy. Yes, laugh, mock and snort with derision as much as you like, but this is what happened, Theseus.

  Still not satisfied that Minos had suffered enough for his disrespect, Poseidon now sent the bull mad. Its untameable terrorizing of the island caused Eurystheus to choose it as the seventh task he set for Heracles, who came to Crete, subdued it and took it to Mycenae. This was of course the bull that escaped from Mycenae, crossed into mainland Greece and tore up the plain of Marathon until you, my splendid boy, tamed it and brought it to Athens, finally, to be sacrificed. Quite a bull, wasn’t it?

  But its story and the curse of it is not over, for what happened on Crete next was even more dreadful. In due course Pasiphae, the bull’s seed inside her, gave birth. What emerged was – as might be expected and thoroughly deserved – a monstrous aberration, half human and half bull. Minos was disgusted but neither he nor Pasiphae had the heart or stomach to kill the abomination. Instead, Minos commissioned Daedalus to construct a building in which this creature – which they named Asterion after Minos’s father, but which the world called the MINOTAUR – could be safely housed and from which it could never escape.

  The building Daedalus designed, which he named the Labyrinth, was an annex to his great Palace of Knossos, but so elaborate and complex was its maze-like design of passageways, blank walls, false doors, dead ends and apparently identical corridors, galleries and alcoves that a person could be lost in its interior for a lifetime. Any can enter, but none can ever find their way out. Indeed, the cunning of the labyrinth is that its design leads inevitably to the central chamber that lies in its very heart. It is a stone room where Asterion the Minotaur lives out his wretched, monstrous life. High above is a grating, which lets in some sunlight, and allows food to be thrown down to him. As he grew from infant-calf to man-bull (I should say that his lower half is human and his upper half is bull, complete with a full set of horns) it became clear that his favourite food was flesh. Human flesh for preference. A certain number of thieves, bandits and murderers are likely to be sentenced to death on Crete in the normal course of events and their carcasses go some way to satisfying the Minotaur, but every year he has a special treat. And this, Theseus, is where your father comes into the story – to his everlasting shame and dishonour.

  Minos and Pasiphae’s elder son Androgeus came to stay with me as a guest, as I told you, here at this palace in Athens. It happened to be around the time the bull that was the Minotaur’s father had escaped from Mycenae and was now terrorizing Marathon. Androgeus was a tediously vain and boastful youth, endlessly going on about how superior to Athenians Cretan men were at running and wrestling and so on. One evening I snapped, and said ‘Well, if you’re so damned brave and athletic why don’t you prove it by ridding Marathon of that damned bull?’

  He was brave enough, or foolish enough, to go and of course he was killed. The bull gored him, ripped out his insides then tossed him a full stadion’s length across the plain, so they say. Minos was told, wrongly I assure you, that I sent Androgeus deliberately to his death because I was annoyed at how easily he beat our home-grown Athenian athletes in the games, but that is nonsense. It was the boy’s boasting that provoked me.

  Well, in his grief and rage Minos raised a fleet and laid siege to Athens. We were totally unprepared. An oracle told us we would die of famine and plague unless we yielded and agreed to his peace terms.

  And this is where we have got to. Minos’s terms.

  He would generously forgo burning Athens to the ground if we agreed every year to send seven girls and seven youths by ship to Crete for them to be … there’s no nice way of saying this … for them to be fed to the Minotaur. In return for this tribute, Athens retains its independence and freedom from attack.

  Yes, I agree, it is a disgrace and certainly, you are right, it shames us all – but what else can we do?

  TO CRETE

  ‘I’ll tell you what we can do,’ said Theseus rising angrily from his couch. ‘We can act less like frightened goats and more like true Athenians!’fn16

  ‘That’s all very well for you to say, you weren’t there when Minos’s fleet stood in Piraeus harbour …’

  But Theseus was not interested in the past, only the future. It is one of the distinguishing features of heroes that makes them appealing and unappealing at one and the same time.

  ‘How are these fourteen sacrificial lambs chosen?’

  ‘I am proud to say,’ said Aegeus, summoning up what dignity and regal authority he could, ‘that like the true Athenians they are, they volunteer. Hundreds offer themselves willingly every year. We draw lots to choose the final seven for each group.’

  ‘One of the seven youths will be me,’ said Theseus. ‘And we shall select the other thirteen not by lots, bu
t by holding games. I want only the most fit, fleet, cunning and clever to accompany me to Crete and end this nonsense …’

  ‘But Theseus, my boy – consider!’ wailed Aegeus. ‘The conditions lay down that the fourteen must arrive on Crete unarmed. What hope can you have when you will be under guard from the moment you make landfall? What will it matter how fast, strong or smart you are? Why throw your life away? The system has worked for the past five years. It is not … ideal, and I readily admit that it reflects little credit on us, but defeat is defeat and …’

  Not another word would Theseus hear. He left the room and set to work right away on devising the games and tests that would select the cream of Athenian youth for the journey to Crete.

  Aegeus sighed. He loved his son dearly but he was beginning to wonder if, all those years ago, he had been wrong to let Pittheus persuade him to loosen his bulging wineskin … maybe this is what the oracle had meant about it all ending with grief.

  On a fine spring morning on the sixth day of the month of Mounichion,fn17 Aegeus sat nervously on his throne, which had been carried in a litter to the harbour wall at Piraeus. A small ship, enough for a crew of five and fourteen passengers, was being provisioned. The king, under a flapping canopy, busied himself issuing commands for the loading of some extra cargo.

  ‘There’s no harm in offering Minos gifts,’ he told Theseus. ‘He may have softened his heart. If he knows that my own son … my own son …’

  Theseus put a hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up. The gods favour boldness. We will all be back before you know it.’ He turned and jumped up onto the gunwales of the ship to address those gathered on the quayside to see them off. The families of the thirteen young people hand-picked by Theseus from all those who offered themselves were at the front, easily identifiable by their pale, drawn faces and the black mourning cloaks they wore.

  ‘People of Athens!’ cried Theseus. ‘Be of good cheer. We young people go with glad hearts and will return to gladden yours.’

  The thirteen behind him, all dressed like Theseus in sacrificial white and garlanded with flowers, raised their arms in salute and cheered. The anxious and stricken families on the quay did their best to cheer back.

  ‘Hoist sails and ho for Crete!’

  As black sailcloth was unfurled from the yards, Aegeus came bustling up to his son. ‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘I have given the captain instructions. I will be standing on the top of the Acropolis every day to watch for your return. If the ship returns empty, if disaster has struck and you have failed …’

  ‘… never happen …’

  ‘… then he is to fly the black sails, but if the gods have been pleased to spare you and the ship returns in triumph …’

  ‘… which is a certainty …’

  ‘… he is to hoist white sails. So that I will know. You understand?’

  The earnestness of the king’s demeanour amused Theseus. ‘Don’t you worry yourself, father. It will be white sails all the way home. Now, grab an olive branch to wave and try to look happy. We are ready to sail.’

  ‘May the gods bless you and watch over you always, Theseus my son.’

  Prayers to Poseidon were offered up, petals and grains of corn were tossed into the waters and the ship sailed.

  THE DUNGEONS OF KNOSSOS

  Aegeus had been right to suppose that the moment the party from Athens made landfall in Crete they would be taken prisoner. On the way over, Theseus had tried to imagine ways in which they could overpower any guards set over them and make a fight of it, but no stratagem suggested itself to. Their ship had been met in open water and steered into harbour by an aggressive Minoan fleet before they had even sighted the island.

  A small knot of jeering Cretans accompanied them from the docks at Heraklion to the palace dungeon where they were to spend the night. A group of children ran alongside hurling stones and insults as they approached the great gates of Knossos.fn18

  ‘The bull man awaits!’

  ‘He will grind your bones!’

  ‘You’ll wet yourselves! You always do!’

  ‘He loves the taste of Athenians …’

  ‘He’ll fuck you first, then eat you!’

  One of the young men started to whimper.

  ‘Sh!’ said Theseus. ‘They want to see you afraid. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Let’s sing …’

  In a voice more admirable for its strength than its musicality Theseus began to sing. It was the old anthem of Attica, the song that told the story of Cecrops and the founding kings of Athens. How Pallas Athena gave the people olive trees and contested with Poseidon over who should be the city’s guardian.

  Slowly and with gathering confidence the other thirteen joined in. The jeering children were unsure how to cope with this and fell away disappointed. A guard snarled at them to be quiet, but they only sang louder and more lustily. The gates opened and their voices echoed off the ramparts.

  Into the palace they trooped, tramping their feet in time to their singing. They were stopped at the head of a stairway that led down to the dungeons, but still they sang. The stairhead was protected by a locked iron gate. As the lead guard took out a large key and fitted it to the lock, a door opened in the gallery above and Theseus glanced up. A girl appeared in the doorway, perhaps drawn by the unexpected sound of singing. She looked down and straight into his eyes. Instantly Theseus felt a surge of heat shoot through his whole body. The girl quickly closed the door.

  Theseus found he could no longer sing. In a daze he let himself be led along with the others, the ship’s crew included, to a large round cell under the palace. By the light of torches in brackets set around the wall, he saw a long table covered in dishes of the most colourful and appealing food. Some of the Athenians cried out in surprised delight as they fell on the feast, but Theseus felt no such pleasure. Naturally the Minotaur would prefer to gorge on well-fed flesh.

  The captain of the guard banged his spear on the ground. ‘Stop. Girls on the left, boys on the right. His majesty will inspect you.’

  The door to the cell opened and the royal party came in. King Minos entered clutching the hand of a young girl whose eyes were cast down. When she looked up, Theseus saw that it was the same girl he had seen in the doorway. Their eyes met again.

  ‘I shall examine the young men, Ariadne,’ Minos was saying to her. ‘Why don’t you and your mother inspect the maidens?’

  Queen Pasiphae stepped out from the shadows and took her daughter’s arm. So this was the woman who mated with a bull and gave birth to the Minotaur. She seemed ordinary and disappointingly domestic to Theseus’s eyes, which were only for her beautiful daughter. Ariadne! What a perfectly delightful name.

  Theseus lined up with the other six youths. The maidens were ranged opposite so Theseus could only see Ariadne’s back as she walked with her mother down the line, appraising the Athenian girls.

  ‘Well, they look like virgins,’ he heard Pasiphae saying in a sceptical voice, ‘but how can one tell?’ Ariadne said nothing. Theseus would have loved to know what her voice sounded like.

  Meanwhile Minos stalked down the line looking the young men up and down with a critical eye. When he arrived at Theseus he prodded him with his ivory sceptre. Theseus restrained an enraged desire to throw a punch right at his arrogant, smirking face.

  ‘Red hair, eh?’ Minos said. ‘Well-muscled too. Asterion will like that. Very good. Now this is how it works,’ he raised his voice and turned to address both groups. ‘Over the next two weeks you will be given all the food and drink you require. Starting tomorrow a youth will be selected and taken into the labyrinth. The next day it will be a girl. A youth the day after, and so on until the two weeks are over and the last of you has been taken. The ship’s crew will then be released to sail back to Athens under safe passage with the news that the tribute is paid and your kingdom safe for another year. Understood?’

  Silence. Theseus looked towards Ariadne who seemed to be examining the stone flags of the cel
l floor.

  ‘No snivelling, no sobbing, I admire that,’ said Minos. ‘Keep your heads high and meet your fate proudly and doubtless you will be rewarded in the afterlife. That is all. Come, Pasiphae, Ariadne.’

  At the last minute Ariadne glanced up towards Theseus and again his eyes locked with hers for the briefest instant. The briefest instant that contained an entire lifetime of joy, love and explosive bliss.

  The door clanged shut and the young people turned expectant faces on Theseus. They were thrilled to see that he was smiling.

  ‘You have a plan?’ they enquired of him.

  Theseus was jerked from his trance. ‘Plan? Well now … plan …’

  He looked about him. Something would occur to him, surely? After the feelings that had swept over him when he looked into the eyes of Ariadne it was impossible to believe that his life and the lives of his companions were going to end. Surely Eros had been at work with his bow? Surely the tumult in his heart was in her heart too? It couldn’t be for nothing. It had to mean something.

  ‘You all sleep. By morning I shall have my plan.’

  ‘But what will it be?’

  ‘Sleep. Just sleep. All will be clear.’

  The plenteous good food and strong wine had tired them out and it was not long before Theseus was the only one left awake and standing.

  Silence descended and Theseus found himself sliding to the floor and nodding off too, but HYPNOS never fully took his mind and he was quickly jerked awake by a sound. Someone was coming along the passageway. He stood upright and stepped over to the door.