Mythological imaginings

Minotaur in Nueva Acrópolis, Guatemala City

It was a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull. His name means “Bull of Minos”, and he was the son of Pasiphaë and the Bull of Crete. It was locked in a labyrinth designed by the craftsman Daedalus, made expressly to retain it.  The labyrinth was in the city of Knossos, on the island of Crete.

My interest in the mythological figure of the Minotaur of Crete can be traced to the stories The House of Asterion by Jorge Luis Borges and The Kings by Julio Cortázar.  Unlike the classic stories, in the narratives of Borges and Cortázar the protagonist is the Minotaur and not Theseus.  In Cortázar’s The Kings, the Minotaur is not a cruel and ferocious monster, he is a figure that presents sensitivity, depth of thought and poetic language. Theseus on the contrary, is ambitious and devoid of humanity.  In Borges’ The House of Asterion, the Minotaur (Asterion) tells the story in first person.  The Minotaur describes his house, a house with infinite doors that are open day and night.  He is not a prisoner, there is no closed door.  The labyrinth is the Minotaur, the Minotaur is the labyrinth.  It may be that the Minotaur represents the unconscious, that the anguish points towards the labyrinth.

The sculpture of the Minotaur of Crete created by the professional craftsman represents virility, strength and ferocity.  It is a projection of what a man “should be”.  As in The Kings of Cortázar, the power of the Minotaur comes from his sex.