Down the river of night's dreaming.
Flow Morpheus slow,
And light comes streaming into my life."
If you have ever looked into Greek mythology, then you may know the story of the Minotaur.
Here is the reasonably true to the original but slightly en-Joelanated version.
Once long ago there was a King, and his wife, the Queen, was with child.
Through some strange twist of fate that changes from tale to tale, the unborn prince was cursed, by witch, god, demon or otherwise.
The child born out this curse was horribly deformed: He was found to be a Minotaur, a nightmarish amalgam of human child and bull calf.
The child was secretly raised, and grew strong and violent quickly, killing several serving folk before the age of three.
The King knew that this deranged creature could not be left to grow, nor could he find it in him to kill his own son. So, he hired the ingenious inventor, Icarus, who appears in other tales, to build a great labyrinth to house the beast.
It was done swiftly, and the abomination was locked within, incapable of puzzling a way out of the maze.
The King sent into the labyrinth every month, through random selection, a woman of maidan-hood to sate the hungers of the beast, both for flesh to eat and lust to slick.
After sixteen years, the very great population of the city was barely diminished, but always at the back of the citizen's minds was the thought of who's daughter would be next devoted to and devoured by the monster.
Then came a fateful day, when the name of the girl selected for
the beast to consume at the end of the month was that of the princess, and daughter of the king.
The King agonized with himself, and offered anything to anyone who could provide a solution to giving his daughter to the mercies of the wretched Minotaur.
As the adage goes, "Cometh the hour, Cometh the man." and so stepped forward the hero Theseus. He asked the king if he might be allowed to go into the labyrinth in the princesses stead, and if he should return, be given whatever reward the king felt fit.
So, on the night of the new month, Theseus was stripped of all his clothes but his undergarments. The princess escorted him, and gave him two gifts to help him in his battle against her brother. She gave him a long ball of yarn and a sword.
So with only these things he walked near naked into the labyrinth of the Minotaur. The hero tied one end of the yarn to a post outside the gate, and the other he held tight to.
After several hours of wandering, he came upon the monstrous creature. For a day and a night they fought, hoof and horn against fist and blade. Finally though, when the two were nearly spent, Theseus thrust his blade deep into the chest of the abomination, killing it.
Exhausted, he followed the twine the princess gave him back out of the maze, to be greeted by a grateful population.
The king announced that his reward was the hand of the willing princess in marriage, and as she was his daughter, the heir-hood to the throne. There were many great celebrations and everyone from the kings soldiers to the lowliest beggar rejoiced as though such a gift had been handed to them too.
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But you know, they left something out of that story. They left out the way, when he saw his son, the look of utter disgust the King gave. They forgot the fleeing in terror the servants made as they watched the prince attempt to make words with the cumbersome bull mouth he had been given. They forgot the lonely cry of the boy who was locked away from the world in the dark for no crime more than an having an unsatisfied father. They forgot his attempts to help lost girls sent into his maze to forage for food as he did, how he cried over their bodies as they died for want of food, air and sunlight. They forgot the final look in the deep, sad, brown eyes of the Minotaur as a man with a sword rushed towards him.
They forgot the prince, and saw only the Monster.
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