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You should never believe
everything you're told.
In ancient Greece
it was quite common for children to be born the sons of gods,
rivers, even the wind! If you think about it it's quite logical; an
unmarried maiden falls pregnant so someone must have impregnated
her, and if she happened to take a swim in the sea on the fateful
day then it's quite reasonable to assume that Poseidon, the god of
the sea, had his evil way with her whilst she was not looking, if
instead she took a walk up on a breezy headland it could well have
been the north wind that did it, and if it just happened overnight
it was probably the god Zeus, in the form of a serpent, who was the
guilty party.
There is an obvious parallel with the Christian religion, but I will
pass that over diplomatically.
Anyhow, Theseus, a one-time king of Athens was either a son of
Poseidon or an Athenian king, a guy called Aegeus, who just happened
to sleep with his mother Aethra just before she went for a paddle in
the sea, only to be so cruelly impregnated by the wily aquatic god. That is
what they say anyhow, and who am I to contradict them. Like many sons
of Greek gods he grew up to be a bit of a lad, very fond of murder
and the seduction of young maidens, and had many adventures involving
spreading his seed and doing away with evildoers, but what is his most famous
stunt was the killing of the Minotaur. It happened like this:
Theseus' father (or stepfather, whichever version you prefer) Aegius
had a brother called Minos who was another king (they had lots of
kings in those days) in Crete. Minos' wife copulated with a bull
(it's a very complex story, please don't ask) and the product was
the Minotaur, which was half man half bull. Minos and Aegius had a
slight family disagreement over the murder of Minos' son and the
gods were not greatly pleased about this so they sent a great
plague, and commanded that the only way that the plague would be
lifted would be if the Athenians sent seven young men and seven
maidens every nine years to Crete so that the Minotaur could do as
it would with them. Theseus was one of the chosen few and so off he
sailed to Crete to do battle.
It's very difficult to forget old habits so he seduced another man's
wife, called Ariadne who risked everything for him and hatched a plot
with him to kill the Minotaur. This unhappy beast lived in a
labyrinth which was pretty near impossible to navigate without
getting lost so she gave him a ball of string, he tied one end of it
to the entrance of the labyrinth, and fed it out as he wandered
around, so once he had dispatched the poor half bull with his sword
he was able to find his way out, and grabbing the besotted Ariadne
he set sail for home! Their wanderings led them first to the holy
island of Delos and then to Naxos but by now the joys of playing
with another man's wife was starting to bore Theseus, who had a very
low boredom threshold, so he dumped her there and sailed off,
leaving her to a despairing suicide by throwing herself off a high
rock into the sea.
The moral of the story is; never give a ball of string to a Greek
Lothario. He'll only tangle you up in it.
No need to get your finances tangled!
Here is just the website if you are looking for
short
term insurance or, if you've spent too much on your Greek
holidays, some methods of
credit repair.
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2009 |
