Asterion

 

 

Asterion

 

Located in Knossos just near King Minos’s Cretan Palace

In the centre of a labyrinth designed by Daedalus

The Brooding Dark Prince, with a penchant

for turning young men into blood & mince

A ruminant biped on hungry virgins fed

A prisoner never to be released

Pasiphae’s poor boy child

A wild roaring beast

Furious, Hideous

Incestuous

Lies

Lurking

The Bull of Minos

The Vengeance of Androgeus

The secret crimes of an old vain King

Hidden in a maze at the heart of all things

Locked inside the prison that pride and pain brings

We sometimes become closer to the monster we really are

 

But perhaps I go too far…

 

For our story truly begins

with the seed not the fruit of our sins

 

In a time before Aegeus threw himself into his own sea

& Ariadne led Theseus on a golden thread to victory

 

3500 years ago…

 

King Minos had a beautiful white bull

The most virile in all of Greece

It’s fleece like snow,

silk & ice

 

The God Poseidon wanted it for his sacrifice

 

Minos overcome with greed

betrayed the second son of Cronos for his need

Refusing to pay Poseidon, his patron god of the sea so high a price

He exchanged the bull before the sacred feast

in a gambit to suffice

Poseidon enraged

with fury

turned to Aphrodite

whose bewitching spell was then unleashed

Causing Queen Pasiphae to fall in love with the very same beast

 

His obsessions; his beloved bull,

his beautiful wife. His most coveted

possessions would become the ruination of his life

For in madness, drinking deep from its inverted cup

Pasiphae upon the poison chalice of lust then supped

Seeking false copulation in a contraption of Daedalus’s divination

Her perverted abnormal passions rose and with this white muscled

bovine entwined in the throws of ecstasy she mated

Her warped animal desires revealed, reciprocated

The shameful act of Minos concealed, lest he

be implicated by what his subjects saw

The fate of Crete sealed

Thus was created

 

The Minotaur

 

 ***************************

 

 We all have Minotaur’s hidden within our hearts.

 

We all have desires, wants, needs, faults & flaws that we endeavour to keep locked away from the rest of the world. None of us are perfect. None of us are immune. We are all human. This world could never be that simple.

 

I’m not talking about monsters here. I’m not talking about staring into the abyss. But we definitely seem to be a beast that is in a constant struggle, locked within a tug-of-war with our own nature & divinity. At very best, we are strange inexplicable creatures that will never be fully explainable in all of our depth & essence. We are more self-aware than any other creature on this planet. Yet, we are more cut off from our instincts than any other creature on this planet. We are by far, the best & worst of what we have to offer. We are a mystery unto ourselves. Human hearts & minds are labyrinths. An enigma designed by God, yet forged in the jungle of mankind.

 

Perhaps, this is why I so love the theatre & pageantry of Greek Mythology; the deep complexity of its themes. They seem to grasp some fundamental element hidden away at the very base of the human core. The very fantastical nature of their stories pays homage to the bizarre intricacies of this human existence. They give flight to the great conundrum that is this riddle wrapped up in the encasement of human flesh.

 

& none more so, than that of The Tragic Bovine Boy Prince, Asterion. Better known as The MINOTAUR.

 

It seems I have always been fascinated by Greek Mythology, I can’t remember a time in my life that I wasn’t. Some of my earliest memorable daydreams are of the mighty winged horse, ‘Pegasus’. I’d sit in school, staring dreamily out the window & I’d imagine him swooping down from the clouds & carrying me off upon some great adventure. Normally, I would envision my school chums & teacher looking on with incredulous amazement as I waved goodbye & shouted aloud, ‘Adios Suckers!’

 

But, this time it’s been my pleasure to share the adventure & take you with me. I hope it has been entertaining, thought provoking & just a little bit scary.

 

So, until next time…‘ADIOS SUCKERS!’