Theseus and the Minotaur
The Athenian hero's descent into the Labyrinth to slay the bull-headed monster and liberate Athens from its blood tribute
The Meaning of Theseus and the Minotaur
The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is one of the most enduring monster-slaying narratives in Greek mythology. King Minos of Crete had imprisoned the Minotaur — a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull, born from the unnatural union of his wife Pasiphaë and a divine bull — in the Labyrinth, an inescapable maze designed by the inventor Daedalus. As punishment for the murder of his son Androgeos, Minos forced Athens to send seven youths and seven maidens every nine years (or annually, in some versions) to be devoured by the Minotaur. When the third tribute was due, Theseus, son of King Aegeus of Athens, volunteered to go as one of the victims, intending to kill the beast and end the tribute forever. Upon arriving in Crete, Theseus attracted the love of Ariadne, Minos's daughter, who gave him a ball of thread and a sword. Theseus entered the Labyrinth, unwinding the thread as he went. He found the Minotaur in the maze's heart and slew it — with the sword, or with his bare fists, depending on the source. Following Ariadne's thread back through the twisting passages, he emerged alive and led the Athenian captives to freedom. Theseus sailed home with Ariadne but abandoned her on the island of Naxos (where Dionysus later found and married her). In his excitement, Theseus forgot to change his ship's black sails to white — the signal of success — and his father Aegeus, watching from the cliffs, saw the dark sails, assumed his son was dead, and threw himself into the sea. That sea was thereafter called the Aegean.
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