by Mary Renault
Author’s Note
and
The Legend of Theseus
Author’s Note
THE LEGEND OF THESEUS, as it came down to the Greeks of the classical period, is briefly summarized following this Note. It may be in place here, however, to explain how I interpreted the story of his youth up to his return from Crete in an earlier book, The King Must Die.
It is assumed there that two forms of divine kingship coexisted in Mycenaean Greece. The Pelasgians, or Shore Folk, and the Minoans worshipped the Earth Mother, whose king consort was an inferior, expendable figure, sacrificed after each cycle of the crops so that his youth and potency could be forever renewed. Though in Crete a Greek conquest had brought hereditary kingship, parts of the older cult remained. Ariadne was its High Priestess by right of birth.
But Theseus’ forebears, patriarchal invaders from the north, saw their kings as direct intermediaries between the people and the Sky Gods on whose life-giving rain the crops depended. On the King, therefore, devolved the noble responsibility of offering his own life as supreme sacrifice when, in times of great crisis, the auguries demanded it. Theseus, whose whole life story implies a tension and conflict between these two principles, is supposed to have been reared in Troizen with a sense of his royal destiny, to have imposed the Olympian cult at Eleusis after a ritual king-killing, and presented himself to his father in Athens after putting down the bandits of the Isthmus in a victorious military operation. Having been recognized as King Aigeus’ heir, he offered himself as a voluntary sacrifice when the Cretan tribute of youths and girls fell due.
The doom of these young people, as most scholars agree, must have been to take part in the dangerous sport of bull-leaping so often depicted in Minoan art; and I represented the Minotaur as the human son of Queen Pasiphaë’s adultery, plotting to destroy the dying King Minos and usurp the throne. Theseus, by his skill and leadership in the bull-dance, kept his team of Athenians alive till in the confusion following one of the great Cretan earthquakes (of whose approach he had an inherited premonition) he led the oppressed native serfs and the captive bull-dancers in a successful revolt. Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him for his prowess in the ring and helped in his conspiracy, sailed with him for Athens. But when the ship put in at Naxos, he found to his horror that, reverting to the most savage rites of the ancient religion, she joined the maenads in the yearly Dionysiac orgy, and helped them tear their young King to pieces, like Agave in the Bacchae of Euripides. Abandoning her in her exhausted sleep, he went home alone. It is here that The Bull from the Sea takes up the story.
The Amazons of classical legend seem to be a product of two fused traditions. I see no need to doubt, though I have not adopted it, Herodotos’ account of a tribe whose women, after the slaughter of all their men, preferred to form their own fighting community rather than endure the miseries of an alien bondage, so movingly described by Homer’s Hector, and so little changed even in historic times. I have preferred, however, partly because it accounts so much better for the role of the Amazons in the great invasion, to make them warrior priestesses of Artemis, such as those who, Pausanias said, used to guard her sanctuary at Ephesos. Many races and religions show vestiges of such corps, sometimes surviving as the bodyguards of sacred kings. Megathenes found them in the Aryan kingdoms of North India in 300 B.C., as did Sir Richard Burton two thousand years later, though then reduced to a purely decorative function.
The Amazons of Pontos belonged traditionally to the race of the White Scythians, hence their silver hair; the single plait occurs in Anatolian figurines of girls or goddesses across several millennia. The Ephesian Amazons are said to have danced with cymbals and sistra; but the weapon-dance is derived from one that I myself have witnessed, though done by men and boys-the Moslem “Khalifa.” It is a strange, impressive, and undoubtedly true performance; the sharp points and edges are offered to the watchers to test before, at the climax of the music, the flesh is pierced and does not bleed.
Though the later legend makes Theseus marry Phaedra only after Hippolyta’s death in battle, or after a faithless rejection which caused her to declare war in revenge (but Plutarch rejects this version as corrupt), marriage to the Cretan princess was a dynastic necessity so obvious that it, or at least a betrothal, would have had to take place soon after his conquest of the island. The legend gives her more than one child by him, but says little of Akamas. After a time of refuge in Euboia, where he was reared as a private gentleman, he went, it seems still with the same status, to the Trojan War. There he proved brave and trustworthy enough to be picked for the forlorn hope in the Wooden Horse; yet nothing is said of any quarrel with Menestheus, who led the Athenians as King. Some say Menestheus was killed, others that he died, others again that he was deposed by the Athenians. In any case, Akamas succeeded to the throne, in what circumstances is not related.
His role in revealing the guilt of Phaedra is my own device. Theseus learned the truth; each teller of the tale has supplied a different mouthpiece, human or divine. The constant elements are the attempted seduction, the young man’s silence under the woman’s slander, Theseus’ invocation of Poseidon, and the wave-borne Sea Bull. Since Theseus’ career was not that of a stupid man, it must have needed more than a sudden wild accusation to persuade him that his son had so belied his nature. Euripides makes Phaedra hang herself, leaving a written charge against Hippolytos; a gesture persuasive enough, but rather large for so mean a purpose. I have borrowed on purpose the young man’s dying words; it seems to me a possibility well worth considering, that Socrates, who faced his death with such unswerving constancy, made his offering in thanks for a revealing dream.
The dead youth vanishes in mystery. Some say the Troizenians knew his tomb, but would not show it to strangers; some that Artemis carried him to Epidauros, where Asklepios raised him from the dead, but was struck down by Zeus for this presumption. The youth was then conveyed by the goddess to Italy, where he haunts the sacred wood of Virbius disguised as an ancient man. Lest he should be reminded of his former sufferings (or perhaps of his father’s unpitying god) no horse is allowed within the grove.
The remarkably widespread forays of Theseus in pursuit of various women have often been remarked on, and explained away in religious terms as the suppression of goddesses’ shrines. But it seems to me that the ancient and aristocratic pursuit of piracy accounts for all these episodes with much less trouble.
In 490 B.C. the Persians landed at Marathon, and were thrown back by the Athenians against overwhelming odds. Afterwards the victors reported that Theseus had appeared on the field in arms to lead them, like the fighting angels of Mons. This gave great impetus to his hero-cult in Athens; and in 475 his alleged bones were brought back by Kimon from Skyros, after a campaign for which the story of Lykomedes’ guest-murder must have made good propaganda. Legend says nothing of any such belief by Theseus’ own heirs; and an alternative version, in which Theseus fell from the cliff by a slip of the foot, continued to survive. The likeness of his death to his father’s is very striking. His epitaph may best be left to Plutarch. “His tomb is a sanctuary and refuge for fleeing slaves, and all men of low estate who fear the mighty; in memory that Theseus while he lived defended the oppressed, and heard the suppliant’s prayer with kindness.”
The Legend of Theseus
KING AIGEUS OF ATHENS, dogged by misfortune and childless through the enmity of Aphrodite, established her worship in Athens and went to consult the Delphic Oracle. It enjoined him not to untie his wineskin till he reached home again, or he would die one day of grief. On his way back through Troizen he told his story to King Pittheus, who, guessing that some notable birth was portended, led Aigeus while drunk to the bed of his daughter Aithra. Later in the same night, she was commanded in a dream to wade over to the island shrine of Athene, where Poseidon also lay with her. When Aigeus awoke he left his sword and sandals under an altar of Zeus, telling Aithra, if a son was born, to send him to Athens as soon as he could
lift the stone. This feat Theseus achieved when only sixteen; he was then already a youth of heroic size and strength, skilled with the lyre, and the inventor of scientific wrestling.
Choosing to travel to Athens by the Isthmus Road, in order to prove himself against its dangers, he overthrew in single combat all the monsters and tyrants who made its travellers their prey. In Megara he killed the giant sow Phaia, and in Eleusis slew King Kerkyon, who slaughtered wayfarers by forcing them to wrestle to the death.
When he reached Athens, the witch Medea, his father’s mistress, divined his parentage, and to secure her own son’s succession persuaded Aigeus that this formidable youth was a threat to his throne. Aigeus prepared a poisoned cup to give him at a public feast; but Theseus displayed the sword in the nick of time. Aigeus dashed the cup from his lips and joyfully embraced him; the witch escaped in her chariot drawn by winged dragons.
Aigeus adopted Theseus as his heir amid public rejoicing; Pallas, the former heir, and his fifty sons were killed by the young prince or driven into exile. Theseus won further honor by taming a wild bull which was ravaging the Marathon plain. Soon after, however, the City was plunged in mourning by the arrival of the Cretan tribute-vessel, with a demand for the boys and girls regularly sent off to be devoured by the Minotaur.
King Minos of Crete had been provided by Poseidon, in answer to a vow, with a magnificent bull for sacrifice, but had kept it for himself. As a punishment, Aphrodite visited his queen, Pasiphaë, with a monstrous passion for it, which she consummated within a hollow cow made for her by Daidalos the master-craftsman. Their offspring was the Minotaur, a being with a man’s body and a bull’s head, who fed on human flesh. To conceal his shame, Minos had an impenetrable Labyrinth made by Daidalos, where he withdrew from the world, and, in the heart of the maze, concealed the Minotaur, introducing a supply of human victims into his den.
The quota from Athens was seven youths and seven maidens. Among these went Theseus; according to most versions, by his own choice, though others say by lot. At his departure, his father charged him to change the black sail of the sacrificial ship to a white one, should he return alive.
On his arrival at Crete, Minos mocked his claim to be the son of Poseidon, and challenged him to retrieve a ring thrown into the sea. Theseus received from the sea-nymphs not only the ring but the golden crown of Thetis. His exploit caused Minos’ daughter Ariadne to fall in love with him; she gave him in secret a ball of thread with which to retrace his steps through the Labyrinth, and a sword to kill the Minotaur.
This deed accomplished, Theseus gathered the Athenian youths; but the girls were imprisoned apart. Theseus had prepared for this in Athens by training two brave but effeminate-looking boys to take the place of two girl victims. These unbarred the women’s quarters, and all the victims escaped to Athens, taking with them Ariadne, whom, however, Theseus abandoned on the island of Naxos. Dionysos, finding her there, became enamored of her and made her the chief of his maenad train. Coming in sight of Athens, Theseus forgot to change the mourning sail for a white one, with the result that Aigeus in grief leaped off the Acropolis, or off a high rock into the sea. Theseus thus succeeded to the throne.
During his reign he is said to have unified Attica and given laws to its three estates of landowner, farmer, and craftsman. He was famed for his protection of ill-used servants and slaves, for whom his shrine remained a sanctuary down to historic times. Pirithoos, King of the Lapiths, raided his cattle as a challenge; but the young warriors took to each other in the field and swore eternal friendship. Theseus took part in the Kalydonian boar-hunt and the battle of the Lapiths and Kentaurs, and is said to have emulated the feats of Herakles. In a foray against the Amazons he carried off their Queen, Hippolyta. Later her people in revenge invaded Attica; but Hippolyta took the field at Theseus’ side, where an arrow killed her. Before this, however, she had borne him a son, Hippolytos.
After her death, Theseus sent for and married Phaedra, King Minos’ youngest daughter. Hippolytos was now a strong and beautiful youth, devoted to horsemanship and to the chaste cult of Artemis, his mother’s tutelary deity. Soon Phaedra was seized with a consuming passion for him, and begged her old nurse to plead her cause. Upon his shocked refusal she hanged herself, leaving a letter which accused him of her rape. Theseus, convinced by the fact of her death, drove out his son, and invoked the death-curse entrusted to him by his father, Poseidon. As Hippolytos drove his chariot along the rocky coastal road, the god sent a huge wave, bearing on its crest a sea-bull, which stampeded his horses. His battered corpse was brought back to Theseus, who had learned the truth too late.
Thereafter, Theseus’ luck forsook him. While helping in Pirithoos’ attempt to abduct Persephone, he was confined in the underworld in torment for four years, till Herakles released him. On his return he found Athens sunk into lawlessness and sedition. Failing to restore the rule of law, he cursed the city and set sail for Crete. On the way he stopped at Skyros, where through his host’s treachery he fell off a high rock into the sea.
A Biography of Mary Renault
Mary Renault (1905–1983) was an English writer best known for her historical novels on the life of Alexander the Great: Fire from Heaven (1969), The Persian Boy (1972), and Funeral Games (1981).
Born Eileen Mary Challans into a middle-class family in a London suburb, Renault enjoyed reading from a young age. Initially obsessed with cowboy stories, she became interested in Greek philosophy when she found Plato’s works in her school library. Her fascination with Greek philosophy led her to St Hugh’s College, Oxford, where one of her tutors was J. R. R. Tolkien. Renault went on to earn her BA in English in 1928.
Renault began training as a nurse in 1933. It was at this time that she met the woman that would become her life partner, fellow nurse Julie Mullard. Renault also began writing, and published her first novel, Purposes of Love (titled Promise of Love in its American edition), in 1939. Inspired by her occupation, her first works were hospital romances. Renault continued writing as she treated Dunkirk evacuees at the Winford Emergency Hospital in Bristol and later as she worked in a brain surgery ward at the Radcliffe Infirmary.
In 1947, Renault received her first major award: Her novel Return to Night (1946) won an MGM prize. With the $150,000 of award money, she and Mullard moved to South Africa, never to return to England again. Renault revived her love of ancient Greek history and began to write her novels of Greece, including The Last of the Wine (1956) and The Charioteer (1953), which is still considered the first British novel that includes unconcealed homosexual love.
Renault’s in-depth depictions of Greece led many readers to believe she had spent a great deal of time there, but during her lifetime, she actually only visited the Aegean twice. Following The Last of the Wine and inspired by a replica of a Cretan fresco at a British museum, Renault wrote The King Must Die (1958) and its sequel, The Bull from the Sea (1962).
The democratic ideals of ancient Greece encouraged Renault to join the Black Sash, a women’s movement that fought against apartheid in South Africa. Renault was also heavily involved in the literary community, where she believed all people should be afforded equal standard and opportunity, and was the honorary chair of the Cape Town branch of PEN, the international writers’ organization.
Renault passed away in Cape Town on December 13, 1983.
Renault in 1940.
Renault and Julie Mullard on board the Cairo in 1948, on their way to South Africa, where they settled in Durban.
Renault in a Black Sash protest in 1955. She was among the first to join this women’s movement against apartheid.
Renault and Michael Atkinson installing her cast of the Roman statue of the Apollo Belvedere in the garden of Delos, Camps Bay, in the late 1970s.
Renault working in her “Swiss Bank” study with Mandy and Coco, the dogs.
Renault and Mullard walking the dogs on the beach at Camps Bay in 1982.
Delos, Greece, with a view over the beach at Camps Bay.
Portrait of Renault in 1982.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1962 by Mary Renault
Copyright renewed © 1990 by Constance Bella Mullard and Graham John Sonnenberg
Cover design by Biel Parklee
978-1-4804-3289-5
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