The Bull of Minos
Leonard Cottrell
THE QUEST CONTINUES
Page 90
" Out in the dark blue sea there lies a land called Crete
a rich and lovely land washed by the waves on every
side, densely peopled and boasting ninety cities….
One of the ninety towns is a great city called Knossos,
and there, for nine years , King Minos ruled and en-
joyed the friendship of almighty Zeus."
Frontispiece quote
"Furthermore, after he (Theseus) was arrived in Creta,
he slew there the Minotaur (as the most part of ancient
authors do write) by the means and help of Ariadne; who
being fallen in fancy with him, did give him a clue of thread,
by the help whereof she taught him, how he might easily
wind out the turnings and cranks of the Labyrinth."
Plutarch (North's translation) "
Page 111
… 'Theseus and the Minotaur.'
… "as related by Appollodorus.
"King Minos had through conquest, become overlord of Athens and as a tribute demanded each year twelve noble Athenian youths and maidens whom he could sacrifice to the Minotaur. This was the monstrous progeny of Mino's wife Pasiphae, a nymphomaniac whom only a bull could satisfy . It was kept by Minos in a labyrinth - designed by his chief craftsman Daedalus, beneath his great palace at Knossos. So tortuous was this maze, with its many twisting passages, blind alleys and false turnings, that no man having once entered could ever hope to find his way out again unaided. And within it lurked the Minotaur, waiting to devour its victims. Every year, according to the legend, twelve of the flower of Athenian youth, men and maidens, met their death in this way.
Then came the year when the hero Theseus, son of old
/ Page 112 /
Aegus, lord of Athens was numbered among those to be sent to Crete - but, writes Apollodorus:
"some affirm…he offered himself voluntarily. And as the ship had a black sail, Aegeus (the father) charged his son, if he returned alive, to spread white sails on the ship. And when he came to Crete, Ariadne, daughter of Minos, having fallen in love with him,offered to help him if he would agree to carry her away to
Athens and have her to wife. Theseus having agreed on oath to do so, she besought Daedulus to disclose the way out of the Labyrinth."
"Daedulus the Smith, another great figure of legend, was a combination of artist, craftsman and engineer whom Minos employed as a kind of Master of the Kings Works."
"…says Apollodorus: "
"…At his suggestion she gave Theseus a clue [ thread] when he
went in. Theseus fastened it to the door, and, drawing it after
him, entered in. And after having found the Minotaur in last
part of the Labyrinth, he killed him by smiting him with his
fists; and, drawing the clue after him made his way out again.
And by night he arrived with Ariadne and the children [pre-
sumably by this the writer means the rest of the twelve Athenian
men and girls destined for sacrifice]at Naxos. There Dionysus
fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off; and having brought
her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begot Thoas, Staphylus,
Oenopion and Peparthus.
" In his grief on account of Ariadne [continues the poet]
Theseus forgot to spread the white sails on his ship when he stood
for port; and Aegeus (his father) seeing from the Acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so he cast himself down and died…"
"But that was not the end of the story. King Minos, when he learned of the connivance of Daedalus in his daughters escape, imprisoned the guilty engineer, with his son Icarus, in the Labyrinth. Then followed the invention of the first flying machine, 3000 years before Leonardo da Vinci…
Daedalus constructed wings for himself and his son, and en-
joined his son when he took flight, neither to fly high, lest the
/ Page 113 /
glue should melt in the sun and the wings should drop off, nor
to fly near the sea, lest the pinions should be detached by the
damp. But the infatuated Icarus, disregarding his father's in-
structions, soared ever higher till, the glue melting, he fell into
the sea called after him Icarian and perished,"
'Daedalus',…'made no such mistake.'… 'He flew, on unscathed to the court of King Cocalus, in Sicily. But says Apollo-dorus:'
"Minos pursued Daedalus and in every country he searched he carried a spiral shell and promised to give great reward to him who should pass a thread through the shell, believing that by that means he should discover Daedalus."
…"Having come to Camicus in Sicily [ writes Apollodorus] to the court of Cocalus, with whom Daedalus was concealed, he showed the spiral shell. Cocalus (Lord of Sicily) took it, and promised to thread it, and gave it to Daedalus."
"Such a challenge was irresistable to Daedalus."…
…"He knew well that his new Lord, Cocalus, was as incapable of working out math-matically the curves and convolutions of the shell as was Ariadne's handsome but stupid lover in memorizing the twists and turns of the Labyrinth. So, just as he had provided Theseus with the clue of thread which even he could not mis-understand , so he provided the King of Sicily with a method of threading the shell which was brilliant in its simplicity."
"Cocalus took it , and promised to thread it …and Daedalus
fastened a thread to an ant, and, having bored a hole in the spiral
shell, allowed the ant, to pass through it . But when Minos found
the thread passed through the shell, he percieved that Daedalus
was with Cocalus, and at once demanded his surrender.
Cocalus promised to surrender him, and made an entertainment for
Minos."
http://www.973-eht-namuh-973.com/colour ... tton/7.HTM
Page114
"And then follows one of the most mysterious records in the chronicle:"
"but after his bath Minos was undone by the daughters of Cocalus"
At this point ZedAlizZed removed a stone from out the who of the understanding scribe.
On the way to coming here they went there.
The Emerald Tablet
For this reason I am called
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
because I hold three parts of the wisdom of the whole world