Jinyoung Kil, Jeju
The origin of the Minotaur starts from King Minos of Crete asking Poseidon (God of the Sea) to lend him a strong bull to honour the gods by sacrificing a bull. However, King Minos, fallen into the lust of temptation, does not sacrifice that strong bull and instead sacrifices a maimed and weak bull. Infuriated, Poseidon asks Aphrodite to make Minos’s wife Pasiphae fall in love with a bull and raise a child that resembles a half-man, half-bull, a Minotaur.
As the Minotaur grew, he became more and more vicious and cannibalistic, and began to eat the people of Crete. In order to stop the slaughter, King Minos orders a great inventor named Daedalus to build a massive labyrinth for the Minotaur to permanently live, which is complicated enough to make people confused about how to escape the maze. After locking the Minotaur in the labyrinth, King Minos sends fourteen Athenian men and women to be sacrificed each year to keep Minotaur fed. This horrific tale draws the attention of one of the famous Greek heroes, named Theseus.
Theseus was the son of King Aegeus, king of Athens, and his mother was Aethra, daughter of the king of Troezen. King Aegeus had no children and no heir, and so he traveled to the Delphic Oracle to seek counsel. On the journey home, he stopped to visit King Pittheus of Troezen and became drunk. Pittheus offered his daughter to Aegeus, and she became pregnant.
Aegeus, to continue his journey, left Aethra with her father in Troezen, and instructed her to send their child to Athens, when he grew up, with a sword and sandals which he had placed under a very heavy rock so that he would be recognized as Aegeus' heir upon arrival. Aethra shared Aegeus' instructions with Theseus when he became an adult. Theseus successfully moved the boulder and claimed Aegeus’ sword and sandals. He then set out for Athens, encountering outlaws and monsters along the way, thus earning the name of a hero.
Arriving in Athens, the sorceress Medea, who saw the coming of Theseus and wanted her son to become the heir, told Aegeus to order Theseus to capture the Marathon Bull that was terrorizing the countryside around Marathon. When Theseus succeeded, Medea decided to poison Theseus by poisoning his wine. The plan miraculously failed, when King Aegeus recognised the sword and sandals. Medea and her children were soon banished from Athens.
After Medea was gone, King Aegeus told Theseus about the King Minos, the Minotaur, and the Labyrinth. Theseus willingly accepted the quest to stop the purge. King Aegeus told Theseus to fly the white sail if he was successful on his return, and if no, the black sail would signify his death.
Arriving on Crete, King Minos’s daughter, Aridrane, helped Theseus by giving him a ball of thread to help him retrace the path out of the labyrinth. After Theseus gained Aridrane’s guidance, he went deeper into the labyrinth and confronted the Minotaur. Both Theseus and the Minotaur fought in pure combat, and in the final battle, Theseus decapitated the neck of the Minotaur and killed him, leading to his victory.
After Killing the Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne set sail to escape from King Minos and back to Athens. On the trip, Theseus and Ariadne decided to stop on Naxos to sleep together but the next morning, Theseus left Ariadne on the island by herself.
Returning to Athens, Theseus forgot to fly the white flag to signify his victory and sailed under a black sail. Struck with sorrow and sadness, King Aegeus committed sucide by jumping off the cliff.
Theseus killing the Minotaur from an Attic red-figure kylix by Aison, National Archaeological Museum of Spain (Madrid)
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