"At the risk of stating the obvious, no woman can mate with a bull and produce a child. Recognizing this simple scientific fact, I am led to a somewhat interesting suspicion: King Minos did not build the labyrinth to imprison a monster but to conceal a deformed child, his child.
While the Minotaur has often been depicted as a creature with the body of a bull but the torso of a man, centaur-like, the myth describes the minotaur as simply having the head of a bull and the body of a man, or in other words, a man with a deformed face. I believe pride would not allow Minos to accept that the heir to the throne had a horrendous appearance.
Consequently, he dissolved the right of ascension by publicly accusing his wife Pasiphae of fornicating with a male bovine.
Having enough conscience to keep from murdering his own flesh and blood, Minos had a labyrinth constructed, complicated enough to keep his son from ever escaping but without bars to suggest a prison. (It is interesting to note how the myth states most of the Athenian youth "fed" to the Minotaur actually starved to death in the Labyrinth, thus indicating their deaths had more to do with the complexity of the maze and less to do with the presumed ferocity of the Minotaur.)
I am convinced Minos' maze really serves as a trope for repression. My published thoughts on this subject (see "Birth Defects in Knossos"Sonny Won't Wait Flyer, Santa Cruz, 1968) inspired the playwright Taggert Chielitz to author a play called *The Minotaur* for The Seattle Repertory Company. As only eight people, including the doorman, got a chance to see the production, I produce here a brief summary:
Chielitz begins his play with Minos entering the labyrinth late one evening to speak to his son. As it turns out, the Minotaur is a gentle and misunderstood creature, while the so-called Athenian youth are convicted criminals who were already sentenced to death back in Greece. Usually King Minos has them secretly executed and then publicly claims their deaths were caused by the terrifying Minotaur thus ensuring that the residents of Knossos will never get too close to the labyrinth. Unfortunately this time, one of the criminals had escaped into the maze, encountered Mint (as Chielitz refers to the Minotaur) and nearly murdered him. Had Minos himself not rushed in and killed the criminal, his son would have perished. Suffice it to say Minos is furious. He has caught himself caring for his son and the resulting guilt and sorrow ineeses him to no end. As the play progresses, the King slowly sees past his son's deformities, eventually discovering an elegiae spirit, an artistie sentiment and most importantly a visionary understanding of the world. Soon a deep paternal love grows in the King's heart and he begins to conceive of a way to reintroduce the Minotaur back into society. Sadly, the stories the King has spread throughout the world concerning this terrifying beast prove the seeds of tragedy. Soon enough, a bruiser named Theseus arrives (Chielitz describes him as a drunken, virtually retarded, frat boy) who without a second thought hacks the Minotaur into little pieces. In one of the play's most moving scenes, King Minos, with tears streaming down his face, publicly commends Theseus' courage. The crowd believes the tears are a sign of gratitude while we the audience understand they are tears of loss. The King's heart breaks and while he will go on to be an extremely just ruler, it is a justice forever informed by the deepest kind of agony."
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
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