|
INHABITANTS OF THE
LABYRINTH: Daedalus- "…a vast and dangerous conspiracy consisting of a single man." An Athenian by birth, the
inventor Daedalus ruined himself through a jealousy. His nephew, taken
on as an apprentice, proved as clever as Daedalus by creating a saw made
of fish spines. The apprentice was acclaimed and paraded through the
streets. Afterwards, the master took his nephew for a stroll along the
Acropolis, then hurled the boy over the cliff. There were many witnesses
to the murder, though some said that Athena herself took pity on the
falling lad and turned him into a partridge, the grounded bird of hedges
and low places. Given the choice of exile or execution, the inventor
chose exile. Crete was named as the land of banishment. Foundations- "This fear that a terrible event may be brought on by its mere mention is out of place or pointless in the overwhelming disorder of the real world." Closer in temperament to the superstitious savagery of the Persians than to the ideals of the Peloponnesus, Crete was hated and feared by the civilized Athenians. During orgiastic festivals, crazed acrobats capered with bulls while the women danced bare-breasted, writhing vipers clutched in each hand. Generally considered vicious simpletons, the Cretans aroused such scorn that the Phoenicians were rumored to have leaned over the bows of their galleys and shat in the incoming tides as they passed the island. Daedalus arrived on the
tide as well, soon became a favorite of the court, and took a beautiful
lady in waiting as his lover. The Cretan King Minos, who had formerly
availed himself of her charms, was not pleased. Later, Queen Pasiphae,
obsessed with Poseidon in the guise of a white bull, asked the inventor
to create a cow wherein she could be taken by the sea god. Daedalus
complied. The resulting birth of the Minotaur occasioned construction of
the Labyrinth. Statuaries- "…there are recurring themes: the sword, the kiss, the cat, betrayal, grapes" Crete, not Phrygia, had
been the domain of ancient, cursed Midas. Though Daedalus normally
scorned the decorative, he filled the maze with remnants of the golden
king's touch. Perhaps he wished to taunt the Minotaur with reminders of
the curse of divinity. If so, such reminders were everywhere. Throughout
the maze, in the cul-de-sacs, dead-ends, corners, or sometimes placed
meaninglessly in the center of a wide avenue, there were gold dogs with
perked golden ears, gold couches, grapes, sails, plates, and goblets;
gold concubines, wineskins, tiles, mirrors, and sheets; gold lovebirds
in a gold cage, gold sheep with gold knives at their throats, a gold
baby in a gold mother's arms; gold squids and gold shells with bits of
gold granules within; gold sandals, gold acrobats, gold laurels, gold
spears and shields and arrow heads; a length of gold rope tied as a
noose, and in the center of all the Labyrinth, Midas himself, a gold
King with his gold hand around a gold erection. The Minotaur- "…the natural, which is the incessant result of endless, uncontrollable processes" Cages were all the Minotaur would ever know. King Minos refused to admit his wife's bestial progeny into sight. Torn from Pasiphae's arms before he was ever given suck, the infant-calf was tethered within a staked ring. Bawling, he watched with rolling, gold-flecked eyes as the Labyrinth rose and slowly surrounded him. The bull-child grew up wild. The beast was intelligent, though human intellect as such was difficult to discern. Pasiphae, golden-eyed daughter of the sun god, would deposit instruments in the maze for her son, but the flutes, lyres and goatskin drums were demolished. The Minotaur was confined to roaring. Minos, a cruel and capricious ruler, used the maze as a method of criminal punishment, the despised stepson as his executioner. It would be many years
before the Athenian Theseus, with the help of the King's daughter
Ariadne, would enter the Labyrinth, sword and string in hand. Only
half-divine, the Minotaur was slain in bloody combat. The Queen, wailing
in the night over her slaughtered son's corpse, was the Minotaur's sole
mourner. Walls- "A quite different sort of order rules them, one based not on reason…" The walls of the Labyrinth
were raised in such a way as to block at all times the full rays of the
sun. The maze was kept in a continuous, shaded murk during the heat of
the day. At night, however, no matter where one went, moonlight
permeated the entire enclosure, and the Minotaur, roused at sundown,
would trample the grasses and chew his human cud in lunar pastures. How
Daedalus engineered this phenomenon is unknown, though some said the
walls themselves shifted continuously on hidden rollers under the sands,
with the structure of the Labyrinth dependent on the varying direction
of the fierce winds that continuously swept the barren isle. At times,
whole sections of the maze would be lost to themselves, consumed within
other, more agile walls. This is perhaps why Daedalus, creator of the
maze, was never able to escape his own creation. The apprentice had
again outgrown the master. The Mad Queen- "…magic is not the contradiction of the law of cause and effect but its crown, or nightmare." Queen Pasiphae was often
able to escape her confinement in the palace, and would wander the
dolorous Labyrinth in search of her bellowing, anguished son. Venturing
out only at night, far from the scorching sight of her father,
Pasiphae's golden eyes reflected the gold statuaries as she whisked in
and out of the turnings. The guards knew not to follow else they would
be lost in the confusion, at the mercy of the Minotaur. The mad Queen,
still obsessed with her obscene union with the white bull, would cry
aloud for her lover, then for her son, then meaninglessly in a gibberish
that froze the hairs of any who heard. Some said that Pasiphae found and
held her son, stroking his horns and whispering comfort into the ears of
the weeping beast. Others said she only went to the maze to maniacally
satisfy herself on the perpetually rigid golden king. The orgiastic
priests, however, claimed that the Queen should be forgiven whatever
acts she committed because her perversity was always inspired by the
divine. They offered as proof Pasiphae's ability to navigate the
Labyrinth with ease. The mad Queen alone knew the secret of the
ever-shifting walls. Icarus- "To the superstitious mind, there is a necessary link not only between a gunshot and a corpse but between a corpse and a tortured wax image…" The son of Daedalus hated
his father. His mother had previously served as a consort to the King.
That, plus Daedalus' construction of the perverse cow mechanism, cinched
their interment in the Labyrinth. The boy Icarus grew up amid shadows
and statuaries and bovine ranting, ruled by illusions of gold and silver
and the wind. Never believing that his father couldn't find a way out,
Icarus seethed as he was sent in search of feathers while Daedalus
sketched in the dust, slowly refusing to venture even a few yards beyond
their teetering, weather-struck hut. Icarus spent his life attempting
various schemes to move as far into the maze as possible and still be
able to return, a few tattered, fear-crushed feathers in hand.
Nevertheless, he was often lost, and his dreams were unruly with the
frenzies of the Minotaur, another lost, tormented son. His father never
explained the reason behind the feathers; all the boy knew was that he
was being sized up. Theseus- "A complete list of these savage, or ridiculous, examples is impossible." His time in the Labyrinth
was short. Tying one end of the string to the opening gate, he entered
the Labyrinth and called out his challenge. The challenge was met, the
Minotaur slain, and guided by the string, Theseus escaped the maze and
left Crete with princess Ariadne at his side. He abandoned his savior on
the isle of Naxos while she slept, claiming Athena had instructed him to
do so during his own slumbers. Ariadne awoke in a strange place, her
lover and the murderer of her half-brother gone. Betrayed by man, an
accomplice to fratricide, she wandered the glades of Naxos, loose
strings in hand. Later, the wine god Bacchus took her as his wife.
Theseus became ruler of Athens, and accepted his crown from the top of
the Acropolis, very near the place where Daedalus threw his nephew from
the edge of the temple of wisdom. Feathers, Wind, and Waves- "…there is a long repercussion." After Icarus fell, waxen
wings melted by the sun's heat, it is said Daedalus sorrowed, that when
he saw the feathery remnants floating on the blue, blue waters, he wept
and cursed Athena that she did not save his son, did not turn him into a
partridge or a gull or an eagle or even an owl, the symbol of her
divinity. Daedalus alone landed safely upon the island of Sicily, but he
never returned to Athens, his home and the center of the civilized
world. Caught like his son was caught between the glare of Helios'
blazing eye and Poseidon's sucking tides, at a dead end, tanned, cracked
and aging, he sketched in the golden sands, glad of the winds that
erased any further designs. He knew escape was no longer possible.
|
