Walking the Labyrinth is an experimental re-imagining of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
The Myth
As reparation for the death of his son, Minos, King of Crete and ruler of the Aegean, demanded from the city-state of Athens a yearly tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. The young people were set loose in the Labyrinth, an immense stone maze, where they became lost and were killed and devoured by the Minotaur, the half-man half-bull offspring of Minos' wife Pasiphae.
After several years, Theseus, son of the god Poseidon and adopted heir to King Aegeus of Athens, volunteered to be part of the tribute. After landing on Crete, Theseus met and fell in love with Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos. Ariadne secretly gave Theseus a sword with which to kill the Minotaur and a thread to help him find his way back out of the Labyrinth. He entered the maze, slew the beast, and returned triumphant, having thus destroyed the symbol of Crete's power over Athens. Ariadne and Theseus fled Crete, stopping at the island of Naxos on the way back to Athens. While on Naxos, the god Dionysus appeared to them in a dream, commanding Ariadne to become his wife and forget Theseus. Dionysus took Ariadne away, and Theseus returned to Athens broken and alone.
The Text
The story of Theseus is one of the oldest and best known in all of Greek mythology; the earliest written version of it dates to 1250 BC. There exist dozens of Classical accounts of Theseus' struggle with the Minotaur, and countless modern writers and poets have also provided interpretations of and reflections on the myth. The text of Walking the Labyrinth draws from many of these sources: it contains excerpts from the accounts of Catullus, Apollodorus, Hesiod, Seneca, Euripides, and Hyginus, as well as passages from works by Edwin Muir, William Blake, Georges Neveux, and the Book of Psalms.
