A man with a bull's head: biography and image of a mythical creature

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

What is the name of the man with the head of a bull? The answer to this question is simple and very concise. The bull-headed man is the Minotaur. He lived in the center of the labyrinth, which was a complex structure designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus on the orders of King Minos. The Minotaur was destroyed once and for all by the Athenian hero Theseus.

Etymology

The word "minotaur" comes from the ancient Greek Μῑνώταυρος, a combination of the name Μίνως (Minos) and the noun ταύρος "bull", which translates as "Bull of Minos". In Crete, the Minotaur was known by the name Asterion given to him by his parents.

The word "minotaur" was originally a noun for this mythical figure. The use of the word "minotaur" as a common noun for representatives of the generic species of creatures with the head of a bull developed much later, in the fantasy genre of the 20th century.

History

After Minosascended the throne of the island of Crete, he competed with his brothers for the opportunity to single-handedly rule the island. Minos prayed to Poseidon, the sea god, to send him a snow-white bull as a sign of support (the Cretan bull). He thought Poseidon wouldn't care if he left the white bull and sacrificed his oath. To punish Minos, Poseidon forced Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, to fall in love with the bull sincerely and passionately. Pasiphae told the master Daedalus to make a wooden hollow cow so that she could climb into it and mate with a white bull.

The brainchild of this unnatural sexual intercourse was the Minotaur. Pasiphae nursed him, but he grew and became ferocious, being the unnatural offspring of woman and beast. It had no natural food source and therefore fed on humans. Minos, having received advice from the oracle at Delphi, ordered Daedalus to build a giant labyrinth to contain the Minotaur.

The Minotaur is usually represented in classical art as half-bull, half-man. According to Sophocles, one of the figures adopted by the spirit of the river Achelous in seducing Dejanira is a man with a bull's head. The Minotaur is mentioned in many legends and beliefs. Some apocryphal stories describe him as a winged man with a bull's head.

Cultural context

From classical times to the Renaissance, the Minotaur appears at the center of many works of art. In Ovid's Latin treatise on the Minotaur, the author did not specify which half was from a bull and which from a man, and some later images are drawn before usthe unusual appearance of this monster with the head and torso of a man on the body of a bull, which somewhat resembles a centaur. This alternative tradition survived into the Renaissance and is still featured in some modern depictions, such as Steel Savage's illustrations for Edith Hamilton's Mythology.

Secret son

Androgeus, son of Minos, was killed by the Athenians, who were jealous of the victories won at the Panathenaic festival. Other sources claim that he was killed at Marathon by a Cretan bull, beloved of his mother, whom Aegeus, king of Athens, ordered to be killed. Minos went to war to avenge the death of his son, and won it.

Catullus, in his essay on the origin of the Minotaur, refers to another version in which Athens was "forced to pay for the murder of Androgeus". Aegeus had to pay for his crime by sending young men and the best unmarried girls as victims for the Minotaur. Minos demanded that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens, selected by lot, go to the Minotaur every seven or nine years (according to some reports, every year).

The Feat of Theseus

When the third sacrifice approached, Theseus volunteered to kill the monster. He promised his father Aegeus that if he succeeded, he would return home under white sails. In Crete, Minos' daughter Ariadne fell in love with Theseus at first sight and decided to help him navigate the labyrinth. She gave him a ball of thread to help him find the right way back. Theseuskilled the Minotaur with the sword of Aegeus and led the other Athenians out of the labyrinth.

King Aegeus, waiting for his son at Cape Sounion, saw the approach of a ship with black sails (the crew simply forgot to hang white sails) and, assuming that his son had died, committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea named after him. So Theseus became the ruler.

Etruscan contribution

This purely Athenian idea of the Minotaur as the antagonist of Theseus expresses the heroism and philanthropy of the Athenian people. The Etruscans, who associated Ariadne with Dionysus rather than Theseus, offered an alternative view of the Minotaur that never appeared in Greek art.

Contribution to mythology and culture

The fight between Theseus and the monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull was often represented in Greek art. The didrachm of Knossos shows a labyrinth on one side, and on the other a Minotaur surrounded by a semicircle of small balls, probably meant for the stars; one of the monster's names was Asterion ("star").

Although the ruins of the palace of Minos at Knossos have been discovered by archaeologists, the labyrinth does not seem to have been there. Some archaeologists have suggested that the palace itself was the source of the labyrinth myth. Homer, describing the shield of Achilles, noted that Daedalus built a ceremonial dance floor for Ariadne, but he does not associate it with the labyrinth.

Interpretations

Some modern mythologists consider the Minotaur a solar personification and a Minoanadaptation of Baal-Moloch of the Phoenicians. The killing of the Minotaur by Theseus in this case indicates a break in Athenian ties with Minoan Crete.

According to AB Cook, Minos and the Minotaur are just different forms of the same character, representing the sun god of the Cretans, who depicted the sun as a bull. Many also believe that the whole monster story is an allegory for the bloody cults practiced in Crete in ancient times. Like it or not - now it is difficult to say for sure. Everyone chooses the version that is closer to him. The story of Talos, the Cretan copper man who heated himself to a red-hot state and clasped strangers in his arms as soon as they landed on the island, probably has a similar origin. All these are traces of the Paleo-European cult of the bull, which existed throughout Europe before the invasion of our ancestors - the Indo-Europeans. The bull is still the symbol of Crete.

The historical explanation of the myth dates back to the time when Crete was the main political and cultural hegemon in the Aegean. Since young Athens (and possibly other continental Greek cities) were vassals of Crete, it can be assumed that young men and women were given as a tribute to the hegemon for the purpose of sacrifice. This ceremony was performed by a priest wearing a bull mask. The man with the head of a bull in Egypt is one of the priests of Set. This is often explained as the origin of the myth.

When mainland Greece was liberated from Crete domination, the myth of the Minotaur was mentioned in the context of secessionthe emerging religious consciousness of the Hellenes from the Minoan beliefs.

In the Middle Ages

The Minotaur (infamia di Creti, translated from Italian means "shame of Crete") appears briefly in the Divine Comedy, in Canto 12, where Dante and his guide Virgil find themselves in the midst of boulders near the seventh circle of Hell.

Dante and Virgil in Hell meet a monster with a human body and a bull's head among the "blood people" cursed for their cruel nature. Like other ancient characters, the Minotaur was reintroduced by the great Italian poet into medieval culture. Some commentators believe that Dante, contrary to the classical tradition, bestowed on the beast the head of a man on the body of a bull, although this representation has already occurred in medieval literature.

In his monologues, Virgil mocks the Minotaur to distract him, and reminds the Minotaur that he was killed by Theseus, Prince of Athens, with the support of the monster's half-sister, Ariadne.

Minotaur is the first infernal guardian that Virgil and Dante meet within the walls of Dis. The bull-headed man seems to represent the entire area of Violence in Hell, while Gerion represents Fraud in Canto XVI and fills a similar gatekeeper role for the entire seventh Circle.