Speaker 1: Every nine years, nine men come into the house so
Speaker 1: that I can free them from all evil. I hear
Speaker 1: their footsteps or their voices far away in the galleries
Speaker 1: of stone, and I run joyously to find them. The
Speaker 1: ceremony lasts but a few minutes. One after another, they fall,
Speaker 1: without my ever having to bloody my hands. Where they fall,
Speaker 1: they remain, and their bodies help distinguish one gallery from
Speaker 1: the others. I do not know how many there have been,
Speaker 1: but I do know that one of them predicted as
Speaker 1: he died, that some day my redeemer would come. Since then,
Speaker 1: there has been no pain for me in solitude, because
Speaker 1: I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end
Speaker 1: he will rise and stand above the dust. If my
Speaker 1: ear could hear every sound in the world, I would
Speaker 1: hear his footsteps. I hope he takes me to a
Speaker 1: place with fewer galleries and fewer doors. What will my
Speaker 1: Redeemer be like? I wonder? Will he be bull or man?
Speaker 1: Could he possibly be a bull with the face of
Speaker 1: a man, or will he be like me? Welcome to
Speaker 1: stot to blow your mind production of my heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's been
Speaker 1: a long time coming. We finally enter the labyrinth of
Speaker 1: the Minotaur. That's right. We're gonna try and leave some
Speaker 1: string behind us as we go through these episodes so
Speaker 1: that you can find your way back out again. But
Speaker 1: we figured this would be a perfect journey to take
Speaker 1: during October when we frequently engage on Halloween themed episodes. Now,
Speaker 1: that cold opening I want to point out was from
Speaker 1: the the just fabulous short story The House of Hysterian
Speaker 1: by Johey Luis Borges. This one is translated by Andrew
Speaker 1: Hurley and I got this out of the Book of
Speaker 1: Collected Fictions, which is put out by Penguin. The minotaur
Speaker 1: is kind of the perfect monster. I think the minotaur
Speaker 1: has very often been done injustice by by films and
Speaker 1: TV shows, And one of the few exceptions I can
Speaker 1: think of is Jim Hinson's Storyteller, where that minotaur I
Speaker 1: think has has just the right balance of of pain
Speaker 1: and terror and anguish and and and uh and menace
Speaker 1: uh and and I like that. You you don't often
Speaker 1: get a very full look at the minotaur in that story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do the Hintston team does a fabulous job presenting
Speaker 1: just the physicality of the minotaur, but then also the
Speaker 1: minotaur is written and performed in such a way that
Speaker 1: that he is this true hybrid. You know, he's not
Speaker 1: just beast, but he is also uh human as well.
Speaker 1: You know, there's this juxtaposition in his being. He stands
Speaker 1: across this threshold because we we we find him both
Speaker 1: both terrifying and tragic. You know, we fear the minotaur
Speaker 1: even as we empathize with it um you know, and
Speaker 1: and even as just an adversary in the myth it
Speaker 1: can it is supposed to combine brute strength and savagery,
Speaker 1: but also with this cunning, predatory nature. That story by
Speaker 1: Jorge Luis Borges is quite good because it captures the
Speaker 1: pity and the pathos that we should feel for him,
Speaker 1: but it does it in an ironic way. It's like
Speaker 1: that you feel pity for the minotaur because he's deluded,
Speaker 1: like he he has a very his vision of his
Speaker 1: role in in the culture is very confused, like he believes.
Speaker 1: At one point, he says he gets out of his
Speaker 1: labyrinth and he wanders around in streets and he says
Speaker 1: the people are afraid of him, but he believes it's
Speaker 1: because they recognize his royal blood and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, here's the you know, here's the powerful descendant
Speaker 1: of the queen. We must defer. But of course, the
Speaker 1: the implication once you get to the end of the
Speaker 1: story and realize that it's about the minotaur, is that
Speaker 1: I guess they were looking at his horns. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is as as perfect a short story as as
Speaker 1: I can think of, and it is about really about
Speaker 1: the perfect monster. And Borhes of course totally this was this.
Speaker 1: I mean, Borhes was was obsessed by by labyrinths and
Speaker 1: uh and the like, so that this is the perfect
Speaker 1: myth for him to consider. And indeed the labyrinth is
Speaker 1: essential to understanding the minotaur. If you take the minotaur
Speaker 1: out of the labyrinth, as so many works of fiction
Speaker 1: and films and games do, and all you have is
Speaker 1: like a pretty cool beast man, but just a beast man.
Speaker 1: For for the myths to work, for the monster to
Speaker 1: have its true terror and and and all of these
Speaker 1: other emotions were attributing to it, he has to reside
Speaker 1: within this maze, within this artificial habitat that is seemingly
Speaker 1: designed to confuse us. Yeah, in a way, I think
Speaker 1: it's almost a mistake to have made the minotaur into
Speaker 1: um less of a less of a unique sort of
Speaker 1: proper noun type monster, and more into a species of
Speaker 1: monster that you might encounter in Dungeons and Dragons or
Speaker 1: something like that, because it really does. It takes him
Speaker 1: out of his proper context, right right, and and and
Speaker 1: we'll come back to Dungeons and Dragons in a bit,
Speaker 1: because I think there are cases where it can be
Speaker 1: where there has been some correction applied. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, yeah, you you you take me make the
Speaker 1: minotaur into just a species, and you mostly just have
Speaker 1: a beast man. Uh. The setting is key, and in
Speaker 1: fact is as Borges pointed out in another work, The
Speaker 1: Book of Imaginary Beings. This is also from translation by Hurley. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the image of the labyrinth and the image of the
Speaker 1: minotaur seemed to go together. It is fitting that at
Speaker 1: the center of a monstrous house there should live a
Speaker 1: monstrous inhabitant. I agree, And I think another uniting theme
Speaker 1: here is confusion, Because what is the thing that makes
Speaker 1: the hybrid scary. It's that it is a perversion. It
Speaker 1: is a confusion of nature and what makes the labyrinth scary? Uh,
Speaker 1: this is the I guess, the more classic maze understanding
Speaker 1: of the labyrinth, rather than the unidirectional labyrinth. We can
Speaker 1: get into those distinctions in a bit. But the terror
Speaker 1: there is also a confusion. It's a um it's you know,
Speaker 1: having the stability of nature and of direction, uh, taken
Speaker 1: out from under you. You are unmoored when dealing with
Speaker 1: the minotaur because you don't know which way is which,
Speaker 1: and you don't know what kind of beasts this is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and in many ways, this basic idea reverberates
Speaker 1: through a lot of our horror fiction. I mean, a
Speaker 1: haunted house has a ghost in it, you know, like that,
Speaker 1: That's that's how it works. So Leatherface lives in the
Speaker 1: crazy Chainsaw house, you know, and uh uh, Leathers takes
Speaker 1: Manhattan would not work right, Uh? You know. Freddie Krueger
Speaker 1: occupies the realm of dreams. And even even Jason is
Speaker 1: a is a creature of like of Crystal Lake, right,
Speaker 1: He's a creature of the woods, of this environment that
Speaker 1: is far into the various teenagers and what have you
Speaker 1: that have that are visiting it. I guess That is
Speaker 1: one reason Jason Takes Manhattan is so funny is because
Speaker 1: like he just doesn't make any sense whatsoever out of
Speaker 1: his context. And you actually see that in the tone
Speaker 1: of the movie because in Jason Takes Manhattan, when he's
Speaker 1: walking around Times Square, the movie at that point transitions
Speaker 1: to become a full comedy, like on purpose comedy with
Speaker 1: jokes where he just lifts his mask up at the
Speaker 1: punks and scares them, you know, and everybody's now and
Speaker 1: the kids are saying, like there's a maniac chasing us
Speaker 1: in the waitress at the diners, like welcomed into York.
Speaker 1: You know, I never thought of this before, but I'm
Speaker 1: now assuming that movie came out after Crocodile Dundee, right, probably,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's Crocodile Dundee, but he's Jason. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: of course that's another fish out of water story. But
Speaker 1: the minotaur is very much a fish in its own waters,
Speaker 1: waters that are foreign and dark and mysterious to us.
Speaker 1: And uh and I and I feel like like this
Speaker 1: is a perfect metaphor for so many fears and anxieties
Speaker 1: in life. And that's another huge reason that the minotar
Speaker 1: myth and things that are like the Minetar myth resonates
Speaker 1: so strongly the idea of a realm that we're uncertain
Speaker 1: about and the things that might be in there that
Speaker 1: can harm us. I don't think we've said it so far,
Speaker 1: but we should acknowledge this is gonna be a two
Speaker 1: part series because we've wanted to do the Minotaur for years.
Speaker 1: I don't know why it took us so long to
Speaker 1: get around to it, but we're gonna have two episodes
Speaker 1: worth of Minotaur for you. And I think maybe at
Speaker 1: first here we should just tell the myth, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should. We should just remind everybody what the story is,
Speaker 1: who the major players are here and and what happens
Speaker 1: now before we we get going. I do want to
Speaker 1: to drive home, of course, that the Minetar emergence from
Speaker 1: Greek myth, but as always, myths are amorphous. They change
Speaker 1: over time, with different tellings, with different peoples and cultures.
Speaker 1: Stories merged together, stories split apart, stories are finally recorded
Speaker 1: and then re recorded and translated, ETCETERA real history, magical thinking,
Speaker 1: and many other factors come into the creation of a myth,
Speaker 1: and the Minotaur is no exception. That's right, and This
Speaker 1: is one thing we talked about when we when we
Speaker 1: did the Medusa episodes earlier this year that I find
Speaker 1: often today, like kids are really insistent on knowing what
Speaker 1: canon is, like what is what is technically canon and
Speaker 1: what is not canon. I think that that's a product
Speaker 1: of modern myth making, like Star Wars and stuff, where
Speaker 1: you've got ideas of intellectual property and like one artist
Speaker 1: or owner's control over what technically really happens in this
Speaker 1: mythical universe. That's not how ancient myths are Ancient myths
Speaker 1: or you know, there's a million different versions of them,
Speaker 1: especially with like you know, the ones where we have
Speaker 1: a lot of different sources over hundreds of years, like
Speaker 1: the Greek myths. You know, you've got sources they go
Speaker 1: back to a couple of centuries b C. And you've
Speaker 1: got sources going way up into Some of our fullest
Speaker 1: sources are from the earliest centuries c E. And so
Speaker 1: you end up with tons of different variations and there's
Speaker 1: no way to pick one and say, oh, this is
Speaker 1: the real version of the myth. Yeah, And I feel
Speaker 1: like it would be healthier for us if we approached
Speaker 1: things like Star Wars in that way. I've thought about
Speaker 1: this a little bit because I've been thinking way too
Speaker 1: much about Star Wars this year. Uh. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like the Clone Wars, for instance, this is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a mythic event. Uh. And You're
Speaker 1: going to have various tellings and retellings of it, and
Speaker 1: there will continue to be tellings and retellings of it,
Speaker 1: and and and it's and the thing itself is going
Speaker 1: to ultimately be shapeless and unformed at the center. The
Speaker 1: fixed canon is a product of a society that operates
Speaker 1: largely on the basis of fixed recorded media and has
Speaker 1: a like capitalist conception of intellectual property. I think those
Speaker 1: things are just death to mythology. You gotta let it breathe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and certainly you see even with with with films
Speaker 1: and whatnot, you see that energy there in the in
Speaker 1: the fandom and people that follow, you know, we we
Speaker 1: all want to have our own interpretations of what happened,
Speaker 1: alternate interpretations. There's this yearning for for for for these interpretations,
Speaker 1: for fan fictions, for additional fleshings out of mysteries. And
Speaker 1: I think I think that's basically the same sort of
Speaker 1: energy that you would see go into the deviation and
Speaker 1: the and the recreation of myths over time. Now having
Speaker 1: said all that, I guess we should also try to identify, though,
Speaker 1: what are the main sources we would be looking at
Speaker 1: for the closest thing to a canonical version of the myth.
Speaker 1: I guess the closest thing to canonical would be the
Speaker 1: version of the myth that most people know, right, And
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of the modern understanding of
Speaker 1: of the men at our story, like as without many
Speaker 1: other myths, comes down down to of its metamorphosis. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so that was one of the key areas we
Speaker 1: turned to here. As always, I I pick up Carol
Speaker 1: Rose's uh books of Monsters and Fairies, because she she
Speaker 1: did such a fabulous job, uh, you know, basically, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, nailing down that the essential myths, uh, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But certainly what we're gonna about to
Speaker 1: roll out here is not the It is not the cannon,
Speaker 1: but it is maybe as close to the cannon as
Speaker 1: we can sort of agree on for the purposes of
Speaker 1: moving forward. Yeah. I just want to mention another major
Speaker 1: source on this, I think would be pseudo Apolodorus. The
Speaker 1: I think this is probably now believed to be like
Speaker 1: a first or second century CE work. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's the Biblioteca. It's tells a lot of classic Greek
Speaker 1: and Roman myths, and it was traditionally attributed to an
Speaker 1: author named a Polydorus. Now that authorship is questioned, so
Speaker 1: it's largely known as pseudo Apolodorus. Now ask your doctors
Speaker 1: about pseudo Apolodorus. Okay, Well, what's the story? Okay? Alright?
Speaker 1: So so here we go on the isle of Crete.
Speaker 1: There is a king who, like most kings, desires above
Speaker 1: all else to ensure and extend his reign. And as
Speaker 1: he lives in a world ruled by the gods and
Speaker 1: is himself not entirely without divine blood, he seeks their support. Now,
Speaker 1: given the creed is surrounded on all sides by the sea,
Speaker 1: it makes sense to reach out to Poseidon getting into
Speaker 1: bad company there. Yeah, But you know, kings, they're they're vain, uh,
Speaker 1: and they see themselves as powerful enough to stand beside
Speaker 1: such deities. So he asked the sea god to deliver
Speaker 1: up a sign of his divine right to rule, as
Speaker 1: well as a proper beast of sacrifice. And so the
Speaker 1: god does just this. He delivers up this white bull
Speaker 1: from the surf. It comes, comes, comes out, It's as
Speaker 1: white as the frothing sea foam itself, and this beast
Speaker 1: comes to be known as the Cretan Bull. I think
Speaker 1: even this aspect of the myth is very interesting because
Speaker 1: is what he does is King Minos asks Poseidon to
Speaker 1: send him a bull that he can then turn around
Speaker 1: and sacrifice to Poseidon. So he wouldn't even really be
Speaker 1: giving of himself, he'd just be sort of returning the
Speaker 1: favor in a way. Well, I guess it does kind
Speaker 1: of remind me of like the the gesture of say
Speaker 1: you you visit somebody's house for dinner, and you bring
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine, and then the expectation is kind
Speaker 1: of like that bottle of wine will then be opened
Speaker 1: and shared with the guests. Okay, I can see that.
Speaker 1: The analogy I was thinking of was checking the ball
Speaker 1: in a game of basketball where you've only got one goal,
Speaker 1: Check the ball. Check the ball, you know, like when
Speaker 1: you never played half court basketball where you get to
Speaker 1: the when possession changes you, you check the ball, you
Speaker 1: throw it to the other team, you say check, and
Speaker 1: then they throw the ball back to you. It is
Speaker 1: a sign that possession has changed. Okay, I'll take your
Speaker 1: word for it. Okay, so the Cretan bowl is fabulous,
Speaker 1: is beautiful, and then the factors into some other myths
Speaker 1: as well. But but so splendid is this beast, and
Speaker 1: so self interested is King Minos that he decides to
Speaker 1: keep this trophy for himself and instead to offer up
Speaker 1: the blood sacrifice of immortal bowl so that Poseidon, you know,
Speaker 1: will still be pleased. Uh. So it's like you bring
Speaker 1: a really nice bottle of wine to dinner and the
Speaker 1: host is like, oh thanks, and then gets out the
Speaker 1: two buck chuck exactly. Yeah. But, as we've touched on before,
Speaker 1: Poseidon is certainly nobody to trifle with um, even if
Speaker 1: you do have a little bit of of royal blood
Speaker 1: of Zeus in your system, as is uh supposed to
Speaker 1: be the case with Minos. Okay, well, we know from
Speaker 1: experience that Poseidon does not deal well with slides. In fact,
Speaker 1: Poseidon does not even usually treat people well if they've
Speaker 1: done nothing to him. So he is he's bad news.
Speaker 1: How is he going to react to this? Well horribly?
Speaker 1: But by comparing preparing it to other things, Besidon is done.
Speaker 1: I mean he he was almost playing at softball here,
Speaker 1: as we'll see, but that still he definitely has the
Speaker 1: last laugh. So here's what Poseidon did. He bewitched Minos's wife, Pacific,
Speaker 1: causing her to fall in love with the Cretan bull.
Speaker 1: So she ends up belonging to be one with this beast.
Speaker 1: And she convinces the master artificer Daedalus, who was then
Speaker 1: residing in Crete, to craft for her this mechanical bovine
Speaker 1: likeness that wouldn't enable her to then mate with the bull. Yes,
Speaker 1: So Poseidon, by which is pacifically says you're gonna fall
Speaker 1: in love with this bull? She does. She gets Deadalus
Speaker 1: to build her robot bull so she can get inside
Speaker 1: it and have sex with the white bull. Yes, and
Speaker 1: this results in a monstrous pregnancy, producing a monstrous hybrid
Speaker 1: part human part bull. This is the Bull of Minos,
Speaker 1: or the Minotaur, also known as a stereon. Yes um,
Speaker 1: And certainly that that gets back to the title of
Speaker 1: that borhe story, the House of Hysteria. Now, the exact
Speaker 1: form of the minotaur was not always well to find uh.
Speaker 1: The The A. S. Klein translation of The Metamorphosis describes
Speaker 1: a quote strange hybrid creature, a twin form of bull
Speaker 1: and man and bores. Is actually in that passage that
Speaker 1: I read, he's alluding to this a little bit, uh
Speaker 1: the idea that sometimes there is this idea that maybe
Speaker 1: the minotaur is more like the face of a man
Speaker 1: on the body of a bull rather than the reverse.
Speaker 1: So now we have the minotaur, and it's easy to
Speaker 1: sort of overlook how strange this creature is and exactly
Speaker 1: like what it's mixed lineage means, because this is a
Speaker 1: monster of two worlds yet none. It's the It's a
Speaker 1: product of minos Is blasphemy, Poseidon's wrath, Pacific's lust. It
Speaker 1: was an unnatural being, and yet it also was sacred.
Speaker 1: Minos could not simply just kill it and slaughter it,
Speaker 1: or cast it out back into the sea. You know
Speaker 1: where it's a it's it's father, the bull came from.
Speaker 1: So instead he chooses to hide it away, and luckily
Speaker 1: he had in his employ just the right man to
Speaker 1: design a most elegant hiding place. I want to read
Speaker 1: here from the Metamorphoses, the garthen Dryden translation that talks
Speaker 1: about this part. So Avid writes, when Minos willing to
Speaker 1: conceal the shame that sprung from the reports of tattling
Speaker 1: fame resolves a dark enclosure to provide, and far from sight,
Speaker 1: the two formed creature hide. Great Dadalus of Athens was
Speaker 1: the man that made the draft and formed the wondrous
Speaker 1: plan where rooms within themselves encircled lie with various windings
Speaker 1: to deceive the eye. As soft meanders wanton current plays
Speaker 1: when through the phrygian fields, it loosely strays backward and
Speaker 1: forward rolls the dimpled tide, seeming at once two different
Speaker 1: ways to glide when circling streams their former banks survey
Speaker 1: and waters past succeeding waters sea now floating to the
Speaker 1: sea with downward course now pointing upward to its ancient source.
Speaker 1: Such was the work, so intricate, the place that scarce
Speaker 1: the workman all its turns could trace, And Dadalus was
Speaker 1: puzzled how to find the secret ways of what himself designed.
Speaker 1: That's that's wonderful. Oh yeah, So he's describing this thing
Speaker 1: that these galleries, this place that's often described as a
Speaker 1: maze or a labyrinth, as as being as confusing as
Speaker 1: waters that churned back and forth without apparent rhyme or reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love this. So he makes some comparisons to the
Speaker 1: natural world here, But but it is the ultimate unnatural
Speaker 1: environment to house the ultimate unnatural creature. But maybe I
Speaker 1: should read the next two lines because that sets up
Speaker 1: what we're getting into now, these private walls the minotaur
Speaker 1: include who twice was glutted with Athenian blood. That's not
Speaker 1: a good rhyme, is it. I guess that reflects how
Speaker 1: English pronunciation has changed over time. This is a very
Speaker 1: old translation. I think it's ultimately perfect too, that that
Speaker 1: Minos has this constructed, you know, because ultimately again, think
Speaker 1: of the of the minotaur as a creature representing the
Speaker 1: shaming of Minos. You know, it is the revenge of
Speaker 1: of Poseidon. But a king doesn't really suffer shame like
Speaker 1: you or I. His awfulness is common knowledge, right. He
Speaker 1: He can't just change the central vileness upon which everything spends,
Speaker 1: but he can alter the surrounding reality. He can foster confusion, misinformation.
Speaker 1: He can tear apart your faith in the ordered structure
Speaker 1: of cosmos, of society, of law or order. In short,
Speaker 1: a king builds a maze, or certainly he pays a
Speaker 1: great inventor who is by the way, in the case
Speaker 1: of data lists, fleeing his own shame to build it
Speaker 1: for him. Yeah, and so it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: understand exactly what it means that Dadalusts, like the great craftsman,
Speaker 1: builds this maze. The other things we know of Dalists
Speaker 1: for creating are, for example, the wings that he uses
Speaker 1: ultimately to escape the realm of King Minos or Minos.
Speaker 1: I know, we keep saying it both ways, and we're
Speaker 1: probably just gonna keep saying it both ways. I hope
Speaker 1: you're all right with that. But yeah, he makes the
Speaker 1: wings of the wax and the feathers that he and
Speaker 1: Icarus used to to escape the island. That doesn't go
Speaker 1: so well for for Icarus. We all know that story.
Speaker 1: But he, you know, and he's also renowned to be,
Speaker 1: you know, the great master craftsman who makes statues that
Speaker 1: are so lifelike it seems as if they will they
Speaker 1: will become quickened and walk away. But here he has
Speaker 1: made this this sort of like Palace of Confusion, which
Speaker 1: is ultimately some combination of prison and weapon, and it
Speaker 1: is his ultimate creation. And is Ovid points out a
Speaker 1: creation so well designed, the Datalus himself barely escapes it. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that of course plays more into the myth of Icarus.
Speaker 1: But you're right, yes, the maze of the King becomes
Speaker 1: not only a defensive ploy but weapon. And indeed the
Speaker 1: Minoan mays came to feature into Minos's destructive policies. He
Speaker 1: required tributes sent each year by other lands, including Athens,
Speaker 1: and these individuals were thrown into the labyrinth, where they
Speaker 1: were then hunted through the twisted halls amid the echoing
Speaker 1: screams until they too confronted the minotaur and were torn
Speaker 1: to bloody shreds and and presumably consumed as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: so they demand tribute from Athens or is it just
Speaker 1: from Athens or is it from other city states as well?
Speaker 1: I believe other city states as well. But of course
Speaker 1: this is the Athens is most central to the telling
Speaker 1: of the myth, right because ultimately the hero of the story,
Speaker 1: theseus will come from Athens. But from Athens. Every nine
Speaker 1: years they demanded fourteen young people of sacrifice, seven maidens
Speaker 1: and seven young men, and so they would be taken
Speaker 1: away by ship to to the palace of of Minos,
Speaker 1: and then they would be sent into the labyrinth to
Speaker 1: meet their fate as a human sacrifice to the monster. Oh,
Speaker 1: and of course the minotaur would eat them. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he mentioned that part. The minotaur would devour
Speaker 1: their flesh. Yum, yum. So inter theseius, Thepeus is the
Speaker 1: fated one, the one, the fated slayer of the monster. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course there's more to his story as well.
Speaker 1: But basically what happens is he takes the place of
Speaker 1: a tribute that is being sent to Crete. Right, He's
Speaker 1: like one of these guys who would be sacrificed. No,
Speaker 1: I'll go instead because I know what I can do.
Speaker 1: I can kill that minotaur. Right. And of course he
Speaker 1: is uh. You know, he's a handsome prince. So what
Speaker 1: does he do he? You know, he impresses people with
Speaker 1: his charisma. He makes an ally in Ariadne, the daughter
Speaker 1: of King Minos. Right. Uh. It's often said that she
Speaker 1: falls in love with him, though I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's in every telling. So for some reason they end
Speaker 1: up allied, yes, and uh and what does she do? Well?
Speaker 1: She she gives him privileged information. She gives him a
Speaker 1: ball of string to unwind behind him as he travels
Speaker 1: through the labyrinth, and She tells him the various twist
Speaker 1: and turns that will lead him out of the labyrinth,
Speaker 1: because that's what the string is for, but to the
Speaker 1: heart of the labyrinth, to the place where the minotaur
Speaker 1: can be found. Uh. In other words, turned the hunted
Speaker 1: into the hunter instead of being in there just kind
Speaker 1: of lost and hunted by the minotaur. He'll know how
Speaker 1: to get straight to the monster and kill it. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens. He follows her instructions, he slays
Speaker 1: the minotaur and then follows the string back to the surface.
Speaker 1: He ends up eloping with the daughter of King Minos,
Speaker 1: but then ultimately abandons her, just totally maroons her on
Speaker 1: an island. Yes, and and this is That's another great
Speaker 1: thing about the the Jim Hinson Storyteller episode is that
Speaker 1: it it definitely it doesn't just play Theseus up is
Speaker 1: this perfect monster killer hero, but also shows this, I think,
Speaker 1: to at least to modern interpretations and modern viewers, this
Speaker 1: unsavory nature of the hero. You know, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about how the story of Theseus and the Minotaur has
Speaker 1: actually so much in common with the story of Percy
Speaker 1: and Medusa, especially in the broad Strokes and in the
Speaker 1: way modern audiences would react to it, and you have
Speaker 1: to imagine, are we reacting to the story with different
Speaker 1: values in a in a different way than ancient Greek
Speaker 1: audiences would have reacted to it. But you know, some
Speaker 1: of the broad contours that are the same are starts
Speaker 1: with Poseidon doing something cruel because he's awful, and this
Speaker 1: cruelty of Poseidon results in the creation of a monster.
Speaker 1: The monster ends up living in some kind of secluded
Speaker 1: underworld where it kills people, but only really when they
Speaker 1: come to its domain. There is a young hero, the
Speaker 1: son of a king of Sorts now in Perseus. He
Speaker 1: is actually the son of Zeus. Theseus is the son
Speaker 1: of a Gus, the king of Athens, but either way
Speaker 1: the son of a king the son of a king.
Speaker 1: Hero sets out to kill the monster. He receives tools
Speaker 1: and strategies to help him from other people. Perseus gets
Speaker 1: helped from Athena and hermi Is, giving him tools and
Speaker 1: advice that will help him kill mad Usa. Theseus gets
Speaker 1: tools and advice from Ariadney and Dadalus that will help
Speaker 1: him kill the monster. The young hero succeeds in killing
Speaker 1: the monster, then turns out at least on a critical
Speaker 1: reading to be an absolute jerk. Remember Perseus going around
Speaker 1: just showing the head of Medusa to random people. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and then like if someone ticks him off, he'll just
Speaker 1: turn him to stone with it. You know. He's just
Speaker 1: kind of rampaging through the aisles surrounding aisles with that thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Theseus of course abandons Ariadney on the on the island,
Speaker 1: And then in the end, at least as a modern
Speaker 1: critical reader. For some reason, I in both stories end
Speaker 1: up feeling more sympathy for the monster. The monster is
Speaker 1: kind of pitiable. Yeah, there is this sense in in
Speaker 1: some of the tellings that that the and and this
Speaker 1: is also reflected in Borgees retelling that the monster doesn't
Speaker 1: even necessarily put up much of a fight, or get
Speaker 1: to put up much of a fight. He is just
Speaker 1: dispatched by our hero here because you have to again,
Speaker 1: I think you have to think of the minotaur not
Speaker 1: only is an occupant of the maze, but a part
Speaker 1: of the maze, a function of the maze, like the
Speaker 1: killing center of the maze. And via this privileged information
Speaker 1: that he gets Theseus, makes himself the center of the maze,
Speaker 1: makes himself the killing function of the Manoan maze. Oh
Speaker 1: and by the way, I also think it's fitting that
Speaker 1: the the that's this whole episode ends up with with
Speaker 1: this tragic turn of events for Minos his daughter as well,
Speaker 1: which also feels a part uh somehow of Poseidon's grand design. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. And there's more tragedy too because when um,
Speaker 1: when Theseus is returning home to Athens, his father Agus
Speaker 1: gets confused about what's happening because of the way the
Speaker 1: boat is returning and ends up killing himself throwing himself
Speaker 1: into the sea. Uh. And then that's how we get
Speaker 1: the name of the A, G, and C. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's so many interesting themes in this story that that
Speaker 1: we can get into over the next couple of episodes.
Speaker 1: It deals with, of course, this this hybrid bull human monster.
Speaker 1: Of course, it deals with human sacrifice, It deals deals
Speaker 1: with mazes and labyrinths. Uh. There's a lot of rich
Speaker 1: territory here, yes, and and certainly in a one angle
Speaker 1: on it too. Is is going to be just questions
Speaker 1: of the the Noan civilization of Crete and the Greek
Speaker 1: perceptions of that civilization. But I wanna I want to
Speaker 1: stress that the episode following this one will get more
Speaker 1: into that than this episode, So just just stay tuned
Speaker 1: if you have a lot of of of of of
Speaker 1: nagging questions about that aspect of the myth. Alright, on
Speaker 1: that note, we're going to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will venture into hell. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So I want to talk a bit about
Speaker 1: how the figure of the minotaur developed after the Greco
Speaker 1: Roman world. And one example that I've come across recently,
Speaker 1: because I think we've talked about this on the show,
Speaker 1: is that this year Rachel and I have been rereading
Speaker 1: The Divine Comedy, which has been surprisingly fun. I know,
Speaker 1: like to to modern readers that it seem kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Oh really, you want to get into all this stuff about,
Speaker 1: you know, medieval Catholic theology and politics, But if you
Speaker 1: have an addition that's got really good notes, filling you
Speaker 1: in on the historical context is actually a really fun
Speaker 1: and interesting and funny read. We've been reading from several translations.
Speaker 1: We use the Pinskey translation of the Inferno. Uh, We've
Speaker 1: been using the Gene Hollander translation of the Purgatorio and
Speaker 1: the Paradiso, but using the notes by John Chiardi and
Speaker 1: those notes. Charity's notes are fantastic. But so the minotaur
Speaker 1: does appear in the Divine Comedy in Hell, of course,
Speaker 1: And this is in Canto twelve, when Dante and his guide,
Speaker 1: the the Latin poet Virgil, are descending into the Seventh
Speaker 1: Circle of Hell. So, of course, Virgil is guiding Dante
Speaker 1: through the different realms of the afterlife to sort of
Speaker 1: educate him on what awaits after death and get him
Speaker 1: to repent and turn more fully to God. And so
Speaker 1: they're descending through Hell, and Dante's missing all the horrors
Speaker 1: of Hell, and they're going down into the seventh Circle,
Speaker 1: which is reserved for people whose nature is violence. And
Speaker 1: they enter the circle by descending a fallen rock wall.
Speaker 1: And here I just want to read from the RDI translation,
Speaker 1: such was the passage down the steep, And there at
Speaker 1: the very top, at the edge of the broken cleft,
Speaker 1: lay spread the infamy of crete, the air of beast reality.
Speaker 1: And the lecherous queen who hid in a wooden cow,
Speaker 1: And when he saw us, he gnawed his own flesh
Speaker 1: in a fit of spleen. And my master mocked, how
Speaker 1: you do pump your breath? Do you think perhaps it
Speaker 1: is the Duke of Athens who, in the world above
Speaker 1: served up your death off with you, monster, This one
Speaker 1: does not come instructed by your sister, but of himself
Speaker 1: to observe your punishment in the Lost Kingdom. As a
Speaker 1: bull that breaks its chains just when the knife has
Speaker 1: struck its death blow, cannot stand nor run, but leaps
Speaker 1: from side to side with its last life, So danced
Speaker 1: the minotaur, and my shrewd guide cried out, run now
Speaker 1: while he is blind with rage into the past, quick
Speaker 1: and get over the side. This is great. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I love about about like this, this
Speaker 1: particular passage from Inferno, is that it almost is like
Speaker 1: a Looney Tunes cartoon. Yes, you know, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in the Inferno is that way.
Speaker 1: It's like they run into a monster or a figure,
Speaker 1: you know, an evil figure or something. Uh. There's a
Speaker 1: great part where they come up to plute us who's
Speaker 1: clucking at them, and uh, you know there are parts
Speaker 1: where uh, the beasts menacing them in untranslatable languages of hell,
Speaker 1: you know, the tongue of the Inferno Poppy, Satan, Aleppe
Speaker 1: and all that great stuff. But uh, but yeah, and
Speaker 1: then and then Virgil will often like mock them, or
Speaker 1: they'll kind of scramble away. And so what Virgil does
Speaker 1: is he gets the minotaur really mad, and he's like
Speaker 1: stomping and huffing like a bowl I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: the like the Looney Tunes bowl, actually scratching the ground
Speaker 1: and snorting. And then they scramble over the rocks and
Speaker 1: get away. But I like the implication of them scrambling away.
Speaker 1: This is never fully made clear in the Divine Comedy,
Speaker 1: but it makes me wonder, like, was there a possibility
Speaker 1: that Virgil and Dante could be killed while in hell
Speaker 1: and would not get to complete the tour of the afterlife?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Um, it's certainly implied. You know, there
Speaker 1: is this sense of danger at times where where virgils
Speaker 1: having to urge him on and and is there as
Speaker 1: a protector of sorts, so uh, you know, in addition
Speaker 1: to guide. Uh So, yeah, I always got the sense
Speaker 1: that that that that was a possibility. And oh and
Speaker 1: by the way, um, I was always partial to the
Speaker 1: robert Ian Durling translations of of Inferno and in Purgatory.
Speaker 1: Uh As I recall when I was reading these they
Speaker 1: had not yet come out with up or that they
Speaker 1: had not yet published a translation of his of Paradise.
Speaker 1: But that is out now as well, and has been
Speaker 1: for for years. Oh interest thing. I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about that translation. I'll have to look into it. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm almost without doing it on purpose, becoming
Speaker 1: a sort of Dante translation nerd this year, just because
Speaker 1: we've been we've been looking at so many different ones.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the details on that translation so much,
Speaker 1: but but when I um when I studied uh Dante
Speaker 1: a little bit in college, they those were the additions
Speaker 1: that our our teacher recommended. So that's the one we got,
Speaker 1: and I found it quite I think. Earlier, without the
Speaker 1: you know, the aid of a class environment, I had
Speaker 1: tried reading some other translation, like a Penguin translation, and
Speaker 1: I didn't get as much out of it. But I
Speaker 1: really liked these these additions. One thing I will say,
Speaker 1: if you want to make a go of reading the
Speaker 1: Divine Comedy, I think it is absolutely crucial to seek
Speaker 1: out one that has really good notes that absolutely it
Speaker 1: helps explain everything because these books like this is this
Speaker 1: is medieval epic poetry that is full of contemporary political
Speaker 1: and historical and you know, theological mythological references. It's just
Speaker 1: crammed with culture and cultural references that you're not gonna
Speaker 1: understand unless you have some background. But if you do
Speaker 1: get the background, it can become very like interesting and
Speaker 1: funny watching like how you know again, like medieval Florentine
Speaker 1: politics are projected into the afterlife. Oh yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Dante settling old scores and picking at his
Speaker 1: enemies and also like talking about friends who you know,
Speaker 1: tragic things happen to and sort of remembering them like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's a really beautiful work. And it
Speaker 1: covers it does. It covers a lot of territory. Once
Speaker 1: you even emerge from just the inferno, you'll feel like
Speaker 1: you've had a crash course in in in the politics
Speaker 1: and uh and uh and and religious and just cultural
Speaker 1: world of the time. Totally. Now, I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of things about this passage that I
Speaker 1: thought were interesting. One of them is, uh, why is
Speaker 1: this where the minotaur is in hell? In the seventh circle?
Speaker 1: I mean, one part is clear, because this is the
Speaker 1: circle of violence, right, One part is clear, it's the
Speaker 1: violence against others you know, the minotaur kills and eats people.
Speaker 1: But I think there's like a threefold thing going on here,
Speaker 1: which is that the minotaur is depicted as a violent
Speaker 1: against others by killing and eating them, violent against himself
Speaker 1: because it shows him knowing his own flesh and anger.
Speaker 1: And then finally that this is the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that shows up a lot in the Inferno. He is
Speaker 1: violent against nature by way of his monstrous hybrid city.
Speaker 1: The fact that he's part human and part bull is
Speaker 1: a form of violence. Now you could say that's not
Speaker 1: really the minotaur's fault, but uh, in the in the
Speaker 1: medieval Catholic theology that places people in Dante's Hell, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are there for things that we would
Speaker 1: say are not really their fault, right right. But this
Speaker 1: is also, interestingly one of the dozens, i'd say, probably
Speaker 1: hundreds of instances throughout the Divine Comedy of what I
Speaker 1: think would be called syncretism in any other context. Of course,
Speaker 1: syncretism is the blending or mixing of different religious or
Speaker 1: cultural traditions. Uh Adunte is supposedly writing Orthodox Catholic theology
Speaker 1: and fantasy form, but throughout the Divine Comedy he takes
Speaker 1: as real all the gods and heroes and monsters of
Speaker 1: classical Greek and Roman mythology, which would have been considered
Speaker 1: like Satanic paganism in a way, but by a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, Christian thinkers. But it seems for Dante,
Speaker 1: Greco Roman mythology is is just sort of rolled straight
Speaker 1: up into Christianity as if they are the same thing
Speaker 1: and part of the same tradition. So hell is full
Speaker 1: of figures from Greek mythology as if they actually existed
Speaker 1: and are real figures, you know, dealing with with the
Speaker 1: ramifications of of Christian salvation and stuff. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: a It is a rich hell that Dante creates here,
Speaker 1: full of full of all these mythological figures. Uh, these monsters,
Speaker 1: also demons and devils, but also people he knew, people
Speaker 1: he liked, people he hated, reviled Kara. There's from recent histories.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, they're all there. I just find that so
Speaker 1: interesting if anybody out there is a Dante scholar and
Speaker 1: wants to get in touch with us about the syncretistic aspects,
Speaker 1: like what, why was it seen as totally acceptable to
Speaker 1: just essentially take all of these classic Greco Roman myths
Speaker 1: as basically true, except unfortunately Odysseus was not afforded Christian salvation.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we could, we could obviously keep going
Speaker 1: on and on about Dante, and we should, we should
Speaker 1: probably will definitely come back to Dante again in the future,
Speaker 1: and maybe we should do a proper episode about about
Speaker 1: Inferno as well. But let's come back to the meat here.
Speaker 1: Let's come back to the minotaur. Okay, so maybe we
Speaker 1: should talk about labyrinths and mazes. We alluded earlier to
Speaker 1: the fact that these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but
Speaker 1: sometimes they're used to mean very distinct and different things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At times, there's this distinction between a branching assembly of
Speaker 1: artificial paths and halls that are designed to confuse, and
Speaker 1: in some cases these attributes are defined as a maze,
Speaker 1: not a labyrinth. And then on the other hand, there's
Speaker 1: the idea of this complex system that has but one
Speaker 1: path through it. Uh, and this is sometimes described more
Speaker 1: as a pure labyrinth. Uh. We need not get caught
Speaker 1: up too much in the terminology here, because they are
Speaker 1: used interchangeably today. But but this is this idea is
Speaker 1: rather fascinating because you know, first and foremost, a labyrinth
Speaker 1: or maze is generally an artificial environment um or at
Speaker 1: least an artificial reworking of the natural environment in terms
Speaker 1: of things like hedge mazees, hedge labyrinths, etcetera. But in
Speaker 1: in there, in the purer sense of the word, a
Speaker 1: labyrinth or maze has no other purpose other than to
Speaker 1: confuse the individual with a complex system or to seamlessly
Speaker 1: guide them through it. So the sort of labyrinth one
Speaker 1: encounters on stones and church courtyards, for instance, there's only
Speaker 1: one way through, there's not You don't have to make
Speaker 1: any decisions. You just follow the path and it will
Speaker 1: lead you through a complex system and back out again.
Speaker 1: It's essentially a mindfulness exercise. Yeah, these are Sometimes the
Speaker 1: terminology used is unicursive versus multi cursive. Was like, if
Speaker 1: a labyrinth is the of the unicursive type, it means
Speaker 1: there's only one path. It is very complicated, but you
Speaker 1: can only basically go one direction unless you turn around
Speaker 1: and go back the way you came from. The multi
Speaker 1: cursive would be the ones where you have options about
Speaker 1: which way to turn and can reach dead ends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in one you you lose your way and the other
Speaker 1: one you sort of lose your your sense of self. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and so the unicursive labyrinth. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: think how that, like, you know, it could be thought
Speaker 1: of as having metaphorical meanings, Like it's kind of fatalistic
Speaker 1: in a way, there's only one way you can go.
Speaker 1: It's also sort of an an act of submission in
Speaker 1: a way, you're submitting to the designer of the labyrinth
Speaker 1: and saying, like, I will just go the only way
Speaker 1: there is to go. Yeah. And what I find interesting
Speaker 1: is that ultimately both of these in repretations work well
Speaker 1: with the minotaur myth. I mean, we we tend to
Speaker 1: go with the version of the Minoan maze or the
Speaker 1: labyrinth that the minetar resides in as being a place
Speaker 1: of confusion, and then the master of confusion is the
Speaker 1: minotaur that lives there. But you know, I also like
Speaker 1: the idea of the labyrinth as a thing that is
Speaker 1: complex but leads you down one path, and that one path,
Speaker 1: of course, will take you to the mazes kill function
Speaker 1: the minotar. Yeah, that's that's a different kind of terror.
Speaker 1: You can instead of confusion, you can only go one
Speaker 1: way and you know what lies that way, but you
Speaker 1: can't go back. There's nowhere to go there. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can either go forward to death or not go at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And again the data lists is the you know, the
Speaker 1: master builder here, so you know, you can easily imagine
Speaker 1: him creating this sort of structure that is about delivering
Speaker 1: people onto the Minotaur. Which do you think deadalists would
Speaker 1: have been more likely to create? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's often described explicitly as a maze, a multi cursive maze.
Speaker 1: But if you have the option which is more dead
Speaker 1: list like, I don't know, if he's more egotistical, if
Speaker 1: he's more you know, obsessed with his own skill and
Speaker 1: all that he might want to be the the ultimate
Speaker 1: controller that sets you on a unicursal labyrinth where you
Speaker 1: know you have to go the way he tells you
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah. Um, you know, I think I like,
Speaker 1: I think I can make a case for either way.
Speaker 1: But ultimately I see the maze of the Minotaur as
Speaker 1: being a place of multiple, multiple branching paths and confusion. Now,
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that you begin to
Speaker 1: see though when you read about labyrinths and ancient accounts
Speaker 1: of alleged labyrinths, aside from just how diverse the subject is,
Speaker 1: is that there's often a description leveled at certain ancient
Speaker 1: complexes and uh and and temples and structures like that,
Speaker 1: and over time there's a transformation from a place that
Speaker 1: has another purpose but is also confusing, into a place
Speaker 1: that was clearly designed and built to confuse. And perhaps
Speaker 1: we kind of observed the same sort of hyperbole when
Speaker 1: considering confusing door layouts, you know, new cities and more,
Speaker 1: you know where we think, oh man, they just they
Speaker 1: just made this place to drive me crazy. Why is
Speaker 1: this place constructed like this? Um is is like Walmart
Speaker 1: a maze, whereas I Kea is a unicursal labyrinth. It's true,
Speaker 1: I Kia does have that layout where you can you
Speaker 1: you can cut directly through everything, but still they are
Speaker 1: very much guiding your path. So I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't have much experience with Ikea. I went there once,
Speaker 1: and I remember it being more more like that. There
Speaker 1: is a minotar, oh really, but it's called flingbow with
Speaker 1: an oom out probably. But coming back to what you
Speaker 1: were saying about places with an original use being later
Speaker 1: confused for a labyrinth, I think that that actually does
Speaker 1: apply to some possible ruins in Egypt which UM have
Speaker 1: been interpreted by some archaeologists, or maybe not archaeologist, by
Speaker 1: some thinkers throughout history as something that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a confusing maze or labyrinth, but in fact was
Speaker 1: probably just some kind of like temple or burial complex
Speaker 1: that has been you know, massively degraded in a structural
Speaker 1: sense over time and appears confusing to people who are
Speaker 1: unearthing and exploring it. Now, yeah, this is the case
Speaker 1: of the ancient Egyptian labyrinth. So it was often referred
Speaker 1: I was reading about this in a book by William
Speaker 1: Henry Matthews Amazes and Uh in Labyrinths. This is a
Speaker 1: seminal work on the subject. UH. But he mentions just
Speaker 1: the the evocative language of of using labyrinth quote a
Speaker 1: structure which evoked so much wonder and admiration in ancient
Speaker 1: times that can hardly fail to have roused the curiosity
Speaker 1: of later generations. And so when he's talking about the
Speaker 1: the ancient ancient Egyptian labyrinth, this is interesting because this
Speaker 1: is the the oldest structure or place that apparently has
Speaker 1: been described in these terms, and it was described by
Speaker 1: the likes of herodotus Um. Now these these whatever, this
Speaker 1: exactly was it did not survive destruction during Roman times. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it seems though that it was some sort of
Speaker 1: temple structure or some sort of temple compound. It definitely
Speaker 1: was not created just to confuse foreigners, much like um,
Speaker 1: foreign airports that you travel to were not designed just
Speaker 1: to confuse you, even though that is the effects you
Speaker 1: may feel. Um. But at any rate, the thing that
Speaker 1: confuses foreigners becomes a thing that was built to confuse
Speaker 1: them in these tellings. Oh, that's like one of those
Speaker 1: egocentric biases we've discovered, where you think that the the
Speaker 1: effect a thing has on you is the purpose it
Speaker 1: was intentionally created for. Yeah. Uh. There's a quote that
Speaker 1: gets into some of this too that ran across. This
Speaker 1: is from Penelope read Dube from the idea of the
Speaker 1: labyrinth from classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Quote, what
Speaker 1: you see depends on where you stand. And thus, at
Speaker 1: one and the same time, labyrinths are single. There is
Speaker 1: one physical structure and double They simultaneously incorporate order and disorder,
Speaker 1: clarity and confusion, unity and multiplicity, artistry and chaos, nice
Speaker 1: much like the minotaur in his double nature. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, I have to say I see another common
Speaker 1: trend trend as well, if you write about mazes and labyrinths,
Speaker 1: or even if you do a little podcast that covers them. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're doing fiction or nonfiction, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you if you do something about mazes and labyrinths, you
Speaker 1: can end up crafting or traversing this sort of literary
Speaker 1: um maze or labyrinth as well. This is something that's
Speaker 1: that's often you know, cited in these works like just
Speaker 1: straight up either sometimes in ingest but other times as
Speaker 1: part of the texture of the piece. Almost more than
Speaker 1: any other physical object or structure in the world, the
Speaker 1: maze or labyrinth just asks you to use it as
Speaker 1: a metaphor. I mean, the maze is time, right, It's
Speaker 1: like you can't see around the corner. Yeah, the mazes time.
Speaker 1: I think that the mazes is the world, but it's
Speaker 1: also our perception of the world. Um. And again I
Speaker 1: think that's why this idea so engages us. There's like
Speaker 1: there's basically no complex system in the world or in
Speaker 1: our you know, information technology, et cetera that you cannot
Speaker 1: apply the metaphor of the maze and the minotaur too
Speaker 1: and get something memorable out of it. You know, there's
Speaker 1: like any complex system, I don't I don't care if
Speaker 1: it's the law, or politics, or or science. I mean
Speaker 1: that whatever it is, there is conceivably a minotaur in there. Alright,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we will be right back. Thank thank Alright, we're
Speaker 1: back now. I think it's time that we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit of minotaur biology, because one of the things
Speaker 1: that I have always wondered about the minotaur is why
Speaker 1: does it eat humans? Now, I could imagine if the
Speaker 1: minotaur was not the minotaur, but say the minto croc
Speaker 1: and it had the head of a crocodile, a crocodile
Speaker 1: that could eat a human. And so you could totally
Speaker 1: understand why the human with the head of a crocodile
Speaker 1: would live at the center of a maze and eat
Speaker 1: fourteen youths from Athens every year. But bulls do not
Speaker 1: normally eat humans. A bull is a herbivore. It eats grass,
Speaker 1: or it eats grain, or you know, it can of
Speaker 1: course eat some animal protein supplemented grain if that's what
Speaker 1: you're feeding it. But in the natural world, we do
Speaker 1: not think of bow vines like bulls and cows as
Speaker 1: hunting and eating other animals, certainly not other mammals. So
Speaker 1: why doesn't the minotaur just eat grass? Well, I think
Speaker 1: maybe we've got a good answer for you, and it's
Speaker 1: along some lines that might be familiar to listeners of
Speaker 1: the show. Now, we've already ruined squirrels for you. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes a squirrel just needs to eat a bird or
Speaker 1: another rodent. How do you like that, Well, we're going
Speaker 1: to do the same thing with cattle, Joe, I am.
Speaker 1: I am happy to report that chipmunks have also developed
Speaker 1: an appetite for the meal worms that I put out
Speaker 1: for the squirrels. Uh um, that's that's been one of
Speaker 1: my recent observations. Uh. Here in coin Tea, more beautiful
Speaker 1: rodents getting in on the animal flesh action. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they're adorable when they do it. Chip Monks cannot help
Speaker 1: the adorable. But but as far as the myth goes,
Speaker 1: I guess I gathered that the minotaur has been starved.
Speaker 1: He is down there like an animal in a pit. Uh,
Speaker 1: so he's going to tear into whatever he gets. But then,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, of course, he is not entirely bull.
Speaker 1: He is also part human. In humans, eat meat. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but if he was fully human, wouldn't that mean he
Speaker 1: would eat twice as much meat as it. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense that like adding part bull to him
Speaker 1: would make him more desiring of human flesh, except in
Speaker 1: the general logic of well, he's a monster and monsters
Speaker 1: eat humans, so maybe he could also have the head
Speaker 1: of a rabbit and he would eat humans. He would
Speaker 1: not be as terrifying. But yeah, this brings us back
Speaker 1: to some of the best of modern zoology, which is that, uh,
Speaker 1: some of the animals, many of the animals that subsist
Speaker 1: largely on plant based food, are actually able to eat meat.
Speaker 1: We now know this in the modern world, especially with
Speaker 1: you know, modern video documentation, you can learn quite a
Speaker 1: bit about what supposedly docile herbivores will do when given
Speaker 1: the opportunity. Uh. And it appears that bovines are no exception.
Speaker 1: So I want to start with a story that was
Speaker 1: reported in Reuters from March seventh, two thousand seven. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a dateline Calcutta quote. When dozens of chickens
Speaker 1: went missing from a remote West Bengal village. Everyone blamed
Speaker 1: the neighborhood dogs. That would make sense right, you know,
Speaker 1: the dogs get into the chicken coop, but it continues.
Speaker 1: But Agia Ghosh, the owner of the missing chickens, eventually
Speaker 1: solved the puzzle when he caught his cow, a sacred
Speaker 1: animal for the Hindu family, gobbling up several of them
Speaker 1: at night. That's gobbling up several of the chickens, not
Speaker 1: of the family. We were shocked to see our calf
Speaker 1: eating chickens alive, ghost told Reuters by phone from chand
Speaker 1: Poor village. The family decided to stand guard at night
Speaker 1: on Monday at the cow shed, which also served as
Speaker 1: a hen coop, after forty eight chickens went missing in
Speaker 1: a month. Instead of the dogs, we watched in horror
Speaker 1: as the calf, whom we had fondly named Lal, sneak
Speaker 1: to the coop and grabbed the little ones with the
Speaker 1: precision of a jungle cat, said his brother gor Ghosh. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then it goes on to describe how a local
Speaker 1: television station in India went to the village to get
Speaker 1: pictures of the cow grabbing and eating a chicken. Uh
Speaker 1: and Uh. Then the article consults me here sat Pati,
Speaker 1: who is a district veterinary officer, who said quote, we
Speaker 1: think lack of vital minerals in the body is causing
Speaker 1: this behavior. We have taken a look and ask doctors
Speaker 1: to look into the case immediately. The strange behavior is
Speaker 1: possible in some exceptional cases. So it says that hundreds
Speaker 1: of villagers had come to chant poor to Uh to
Speaker 1: watch the cow eat and sometimes eat chickens um And
Speaker 1: it said that local veterinary authority is believe the cow
Speaker 1: was probably suffering from some kind of disease that made
Speaker 1: it eat these chickens, but ultimately they didn't really know. Now,
Speaker 1: on one hand, I would say, Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: Reuters report. I think of Reuter's is very credible reporting.
Speaker 1: But also this story feels very daily mail. You know,
Speaker 1: I I could easily react to this and say this
Speaker 1: is I don't know. I don't trust this reporting. Except
Speaker 1: that there's video. I don't necessarily recommend people watch it
Speaker 1: because I don't know if if you are inclined to
Speaker 1: feeling bad about watching a live chicken get eaten the
Speaker 1: whole by a cow, if that sounds like something that
Speaker 1: would upset you, don't check out this video. But if
Speaker 1: you're interested, look at it. It just yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: a chicken wanders up in front of the cow, and
Speaker 1: the cow just bites it and eats its whole body.
Speaker 1: Oh man, well, you know this, this brings a few
Speaker 1: thoughts to mind. First of all, in terms of relatives
Speaker 1: of the cow that eat meat. I mean, now you
Speaker 1: can certainly point you know, not directly, but by know
Speaker 1: if a few degrees removed to carnivorous whales. Yes, that
Speaker 1: is interesting, And actually I wish I'd looked this up.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the ancestors of whales. Of course,
Speaker 1: one of the most fascinating things about whale biology is
Speaker 1: that we now know that whales evolved from a creature
Speaker 1: that once dwelt on land. So the the ancestors of
Speaker 1: whales going way back were land dwelling tetrapod mammals, four
Speaker 1: footed mammals that walked around on the earth. And we
Speaker 1: know that over millions of years they gradually adapted and
Speaker 1: evolved to a sea based existence. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if their ancestors on land were carnivorous or not, or
Speaker 1: if they transitioned to eating meat once they became full
Speaker 1: time dwellers of the sea. Well, this makes me think
Speaker 1: also of horses. Because there are tales of horses eating
Speaker 1: meat as well. UM. And I was not familed with
Speaker 1: the story previously, but even shackledon UM they explore UH
Speaker 1: and noted his his his pony socks preferring meat based
Speaker 1: diet in in some in the you know, the harsher climates.
Speaker 1: This would have been in nineteen o eight, I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of these little stories here
Speaker 1: and there, and you wonder if you should believe the
Speaker 1: stories now. In the case of the cow in the
Speaker 1: West Bengal village, there's at least video or there's video
Speaker 1: of a cow eating a chicken that I think is
Speaker 1: video of that cow. I can't be a hud certain,
Speaker 1: but whatever cow it is, it's eating a chicken. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any special effects involved. But but but no,
Speaker 1: apparently this is it's not limited to just these few
Speaker 1: weird cases described in the extreme UH. For example, I
Speaker 1: was reading a paper in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology
Speaker 1: from two thousand five by Jamie L. Knack and Christine A.
Speaker 1: Ribbic or Ribbits R I B i C. Called apparent
Speaker 1: predation by cattle at grassland bird nests. The authors here
Speaker 1: were documenting pastures in southwestern Wisconsin during the years two
Speaker 1: thousand to two thousand one which were used for cattle grazing.
Speaker 1: So there's video documentation of what's going on in these pastures,
Speaker 1: and uh, it was noticed there was something odd that
Speaker 1: was noticed about this video. Cattle appeared to be mostly
Speaker 1: grazing but also occasionally quote behaving as a vian predators,
Speaker 1: removing nestlings and eggs from three active ground nests. So
Speaker 1: with video documentation, they showed that cattle were removing eggs
Speaker 1: and baby birds from bird nests that were on the
Speaker 1: ground or at ground level and probably eating them. A
Speaker 1: couple of the nests belonged to the savannah sparrow past
Speaker 1: circulus sandwich insists that is its name. Uh. And in
Speaker 1: one of these savannah sparrow nests, they removed three of
Speaker 1: the four eggs from the nest and they damaged the
Speaker 1: fourth egg. In the other savannah sparrow nest, they removed
Speaker 1: all three of the nestlings. So these were baby birds,
Speaker 1: they were already hatched there they took them out of
Speaker 1: the nest. There was another nest that belonged to the
Speaker 1: eastern meadow lark, which is Sternella magna, and the cattle
Speaker 1: apparently took all four nestlings out of this nest uh
Speaker 1: the author's right quote. We found only two of the
Speaker 1: three missing eggs intact and one of seven missing nestlings
Speaker 1: dead near two of the nests. Cows may have eaten
Speaker 1: the egg and nestlings we were unable to account for. Alternatively,
Speaker 1: the egg and nestlings may have been scavenged by predators
Speaker 1: or removed from the area by the adult birds. Without
Speaker 1: videotaped documentation, we would have attributed nest failure to traditional
Speaker 1: predators and cattle would not have been implicated. We may
Speaker 1: be underestimating the impact of cattle on ground nests by
Speaker 1: not considering cattle as potential predators. This is almost like
Speaker 1: you're wondering, you know, you find like your window broken
Speaker 1: and several items missing from your house, and you assume
Speaker 1: it is a burglar until the I don't know, until
Speaker 1: the can't security camera footage reveals it was your house cat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that the cow. They're out there in the field.
Speaker 1: They're easy to take for granted. UM. I also love
Speaker 1: how this feels very much like something from Gary Larson
Speaker 1: Far Side cartoons. This is exactly what his cows would
Speaker 1: be up to. They got out their cow tools and
Speaker 1: they went to town on the nests. Um, so what
Speaker 1: do we make of this? Well? I was reading about
Speaker 1: this on a blog post by the British paleo zoologist
Speaker 1: Darren Nice. He's got a blog called tetrapod Zoology. It's
Speaker 1: a very good blog and Nice makes the following points.
Speaker 1: First of all, a lot of animals that we understand
Speaker 1: as strict herbivores are just not really that strict. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, they are primarily herbivores, but there are certain
Speaker 1: scenarios where eating of other animals is quote absolutely deliberate
Speaker 1: and likely motivated by a need for calcium. This brings
Speaker 1: us back to the squirrels, right. This came up in
Speaker 1: some of our research about squirrels gnawing on the bones
Speaker 1: of other animals. A a leading hypothesis to explain why
Speaker 1: something that is most stilly herbivorous would sometimes need to
Speaker 1: like eat a bird skull or something, and the ideas
Speaker 1: that there are certain mineral deficiencies that can lead to it,
Speaker 1: primarily calcium, but deer and other hoofed animals in particular
Speaker 1: have frequently been observed eating the antlers and bones of
Speaker 1: other dead animals. Red deer or service a lap as
Speaker 1: sometimes eat seabirds, but Nice reports that they sometimes appear
Speaker 1: to intentionally avoid eating the flesh of the birds, sort
Speaker 1: of separating out the bones and just eating those bones.
Speaker 1: He also mentions the study that I just talked about
Speaker 1: where videotape caught domestic cattle raiding ground level bird nests
Speaker 1: and apparently eating the birds, eating the chicks and the eggs,
Speaker 1: and Nice says quote this behavior is likely opportunistic, but
Speaker 1: may well be common and widespread. It is difficult to
Speaker 1: document since it mostly occurs at night and no evidence remains.
Speaker 1: I guess unless you're just randomly picking through cow feecs
Speaker 1: to see if there are bird bones in it, and
Speaker 1: then there are just a bunch of other examples. It
Speaker 1: often appears to be opportunistic. A cow is not going
Speaker 1: to chase down a human and eat it, but small
Speaker 1: defenseless animals they might just sort of be in the
Speaker 1: why not zone. Now, there are a few other reasons
Speaker 1: that animals we think of as strict herbivores might sometimes
Speaker 1: eat meat. Nice points out to study from two thousand
Speaker 1: by B. B. And Griffiths that documented how cattle drinking
Speaker 1: from water sources often accidentally ingest lots of water dwelling life,
Speaker 1: say tadpoles, So they are eating the tadpoles, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't appear to be on purpose. They're just sort of
Speaker 1: like getting sucked into the mouth in the same way.
Speaker 1: I think probably grazing herbivores end up eating a lot
Speaker 1: of insects without meaning to. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: carnivory by herbivores is probably just a result of not
Speaker 1: being super picky or careful while eating plants or drinking water.
Speaker 1: So one option is that some herbvores deliberately eat other
Speaker 1: animals to make up for a mineral deficiency. Another option
Speaker 1: is it's just accidental. But then Nice goes on to
Speaker 1: say quote, but as shown by the studies cited below,
Speaker 1: bird eating in bovids and deer may actually just be
Speaker 1: a fairly normal bit of behavior that we're only beginning
Speaker 1: to document. I also think that individuals of herbivorous species
Speaker 1: sometimes learn quote accidentally that they can kill and eat
Speaker 1: other animals and then take to this habit as and
Speaker 1: when the opportunity arises. That is, because they can not
Speaker 1: because they need to. In fact, I'd go as far
Speaker 1: as saying that animals and other organisms likely do a
Speaker 1: lot of things simply because they can not because their
Speaker 1: anatomy or physiology is is specifically suited to that activity.
Speaker 1: So there seems to be quite possibly a role for
Speaker 1: just sort of you know, almost like skin ay and
Speaker 1: kind of adaptation. Right, if you just happen to eat
Speaker 1: an animal one time and it works out just fine
Speaker 1: for you, you might well learn that like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a beneficial activity I never
Speaker 1: thought of doing before, But I can just keep repeating
Speaker 1: it if it seems to yield a benefit. And I
Speaker 1: think sometimes when we consider ideas like being a herbivore
Speaker 1: or a carnivore, I think the metabolic bottleneck is is
Speaker 1: not nearly as likely to rule out meat as it
Speaker 1: is to rule out tough, fibrous, or chemically hostile plant matter.
Speaker 1: I mean, what what you need to have a really
Speaker 1: specialized digestive system to digest. I would think it's probably
Speaker 1: more likely to be plants than to be meat. Animal
Speaker 1: flesh is relatively energy rich and easy to digest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we certainly see that in in uh animals
Speaker 1: like the panda, which I would have adapted over time
Speaker 1: from this um more very diet to a very particular
Speaker 1: herbivorous diet. Yeah, exactly. So you know, obviously different animals
Speaker 1: have differently specialized digestive systems. Those are shaped by evolution
Speaker 1: like everything else. But without being sure, I'd imagine it's
Speaker 1: probably easier for more herbivores to get down on some
Speaker 1: available meat than it would be for carnivores to try
Speaker 1: to survive on leaves. Hm. That's interesting, But this I
Speaker 1: don't know. This is one of those many things where
Speaker 1: you start to wonder about what undocumented observations could have
Speaker 1: occurred in the ancient world. You know, if somebody suddenly
Speaker 1: had a cow like law that starts eating chickens, or
Speaker 1: somebody has a bull that starts eating I don't know,
Speaker 1: whatever kind of meat you give to it, could that
Speaker 1: give rise to the idea that that, well, maybe there's
Speaker 1: some kind of like hidden monstrous nature that is easy
Speaker 1: to unlock when you starve a bull and make meat.
Speaker 1: It's only opportunity to get calories. Huh. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not as well read on on this episode, but
Speaker 1: the minotaur would not be the only Greek mythological um
Speaker 1: herbivore to eat meat, specifically the meat of humans. Because
Speaker 1: you also have the mayors of Diomades, the man eating
Speaker 1: herd of horses that were one of the labors of Hercules. Right,
Speaker 1: he had to corral them or something, right, Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and I if I remember correctly, Like they're
Speaker 1: it's it's sometimes implied like this is part of their
Speaker 1: magical nature that they eat humans, but other times it's
Speaker 1: like it's the ideas they've been conditioned to do so
Speaker 1: because this is the way their master treats them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that they feed unsuspecting guests on the island to these
Speaker 1: man eating horses. I mean, I would be surprised. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would be surprised if a
Speaker 1: if a bovine could live entirely on meat. It does
Speaker 1: have a ruminant digestive system that is in many ways
Speaker 1: specialized to eating tough plant matter. But but yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, you could probably get by feeding
Speaker 1: feeding a well adapted bull or cow kinds of strange
Speaker 1: things if you give it an acquired taste. So uh
Speaker 1: so it's possible something like this lies behind the horror
Speaker 1: of the Minotaur. Yeah, if Ernest Shackleton gives you, um
Speaker 1: some feed with some some meat added to it, you
Speaker 1: want seconds. Well, I think we're gonna have to wrap
Speaker 1: it up for part one here, but there is so
Speaker 1: much more fun minute our stuff to talk about. We
Speaker 1: need to talk about my knowing crete, We've got to
Speaker 1: talk about other weird scientific interpretations of the origin of
Speaker 1: the minotaur legend. I'm I'm so excited for part two.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Oh and by the way, we originally
Speaker 1: intended for part two of our Minotaur series to come
Speaker 1: out this following Thursday. Due to some scheduling issues, we're
Speaker 1: going to actually have to air Part two the next Tuesday,
Speaker 1: so it'll be a week out from this episode, so
Speaker 1: you have an extra week there to be lost in
Speaker 1: the maze. Since we're talking about myths uh and the monsters.
Speaker 1: First of all, we have other episodes in the vault
Speaker 1: dealing with these, such as the Medusa episodes. We have
Speaker 1: episodes that deal with data lists UH in more detail.
Speaker 1: But also if you go to stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: dot com, that will shoot you over to our iHeart
Speaker 1: page and if you look over to the right there
Speaker 1: you'll see some show links and you'll see something that
Speaker 1: says store. Click on that, see I'm guiding you through
Speaker 1: the labyrinth here. Click on that and you will go
Speaker 1: to our t public store and here you'll find we
Speaker 1: actually have some monstrous shirts available. We have, of course,
Speaker 1: the all Hail the Great basiliska shirt uh that relates
Speaker 1: to a monster episode. We have two different monstrous squirrel episodes,
Speaker 1: one with a squirrel gnawing on a bone with death
Speaker 1: in its eyes. And then we have the Skug King
Speaker 1: of Rats shirt, and uh it I am I am
Speaker 1: to understand that there will soon be an additional Medusa
Speaker 1: shirt added that says petrifying gays with a with an
Speaker 1: illustration that my son created, uh of so it's like
Speaker 1: it's drawn by an eight year old and eight year
Speaker 1: old's uh dedicated idea of what the Medusa looks like.
Speaker 1: Lest it be forgotten, your son was also the origin
Speaker 1: of the phrase scug King of Rats, which I think
Speaker 1: might be my favorite shirt in our store. I love
Speaker 1: my Skug King of Rat's shirt. Yeah, he still wears
Speaker 1: he's wearing this the other day. Um, that's why he
Speaker 1: is a head of marketing. Well deserved promotion. Now wherever
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Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
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