The Book of Love (10 page)

While Bonifacio had inherited significant wealth and power, he worked tirelessly to increase his own fortunes by his own merits. The rivers surrounding Mantua, the Po and the Mincio, were trade arteries to northwestern Europe that began to thrive during Bonifacio’s rule. Prior to his superior leadership, merchants had feared the lawlessness of northern Italy and avoided trade there. Critical pathways from the great ports, like Venice, for importing luxury goods from the Orient and elsewhere had been completely cut off.

But the duke of Tuscany governed the Po river valley with an iron hand, stringing up brigands after seeing to it that they were brutally mutilated as a sign to approaching pirates that such behavior would no longer be tolerated. Strong bands of fearless and well-compensated men were organized into an elite force to patrol the river regions in the name of the grand duke.

Bonifacio’s strategy secured the trade routes and succeeded in bringing merchants from the Adriatic via the rivers, as well as the Germans, who now were more willing to cross the Alps with their valuable wares from the northern kingdom of Saxony. In return, he exacted taxes and fees for use of the routes by merchants, who were only too glad to pay for the right to trade safely in this lucrative region. His wealth and his power grew to legendary proportions, aided by the beautiful, blue-blooded wife at his side. She was the jewel in his feudal crown, the legitimacy he required and craved.

Bonifacio’s only weakness was his precious daughter, whom he often carried on his horse with him while inspecting his territories. At six years of age, Matilda had more experience on a horse than most adult males in her day. Yet after Matilda spent time in her father’s commanding company, Isobel needed many hours of patience to correct the child’s behavior.

“I am sorry, Isobel.” Matilda managed to look somewhat sheepish, if only briefly. “I shall work to be a good and noble countess.”

“That’s much better. Now, remind me. Where does this tale begin?”

“Crete!” Matilda shrieked excitedly.

“Ah yes. The mighty and golden kingdom of Crete. A long, long time ago there lived a great king named Minos…”

The Minotaur was a great monster, born into the family of the king of Crete, the powerful ruler known as Minos, and his wife, Queen Pasiphaë. He was half man, half bull, and had the appetite of ten wild beasts. It is said that the Minotaur was the result of Pasiphaë’s illicit encounter with a god, or worse, with a great white bull. This has likely been misunderstood by judgmental men who could not grasp the great mysteries of the ancients. It is likely that Queen Pasiphaë was a priestess of the moon and the embodiment of the sacred feminine and that her mating with a priest, in his guise as a bull to represent the sacred masculine, was the enactment of a ritual that has been considered a holy mystery since the dawn of mankind: a ritual of the union of masculine and feminine energies, necessary for the balance of life on the earth.

Thus the history of how the Minotaur was conceived is shrouded in mystery, but we know this: he existed as a combination of the human and the divine, and he was half miraculous and half terrible as a result. Perhaps it is the mysterious existence of the Minotaur wherein lies the secret of the Fall. Perhaps he is a symbol of the great loss of understanding that occurs when humans are no longer able to accept our divine natures and, most of all, the loss to our humanity when we abandon the necessity of honoring the masculine and feminine together in its most divine form.

The given name of the Minotaur was Asterius, which means “star-being,” as a
result of his divine origins. He was revered as one of the gods at the same time that he was the object of terror and fear amongst the humans. His body was covered with a pattern of stars as a reminder that all creatures come from heaven, even those who appear to have only a base nature. It is from heaven that we come, and to heaven we will return. For that which is above is also below.

Was Asterius born a monster, a terrible creature who would demand human sacrifice and terrorize the peace of Crete? Or was he made a monster because he was denied love and subjected to ridicule, cruelty, and judgment? He was most certainly a source of shame for King Minos, who could not bear that his wife had conceived without him, even if it was with a divine being. Minos was driven to the brink of madness by jealousy and wanted nothing more than to destroy Asterius, but he dared not put the monster to death because of his divine paternity. Instead, the king devised an underground prison in which to house this unwanted creature and shield him from his sight.

There lived in Minos a refugee from Athens named Daedalus the Inventor, who was summoned by Minos to create a prison in which to house the Minotaur. It was in devising this terrible structure that Daedalus became a master builder. What he conceived was the labyrinth, an enormous and circuitous type of maze that led to a midpoint; here in the midpoint was the temple in which the creature would dwell. The construction of this labyrinth was such that once one was inside, it was impossible to find the way out. This served to contain the Minotaur but also to entrap his unfortunate victims—for the construction of the labyrinth was such that once they were inside, they would not be able to escape. As his monstrous due, the Minotaur demanded a sacrifice of seven girls and seven boys to be sent into the center of the labyrinth every nine years, all of whom he devoured without a trace.

Thus Asterius the Minotaur lived the life of a god-monster, out of the sight of the people of Crete and trapped in his subterranean labyrinth, yet as a shadow cast over the land every nine years. King Minos and Queen Pasiphaë went on to have human children, among them the lovely and kind princess called Ariadne. The Minoan princess was renowned for her radiant beauty and was referred to throughout the lands as “the Clear and Bright One” and was also known to be “utterly pure of spirit and heart.”

It came to pass that Crete was at war with Athens. The brother of Ariadne and the only true son of Minos, a hero called Androgeos, was slain by the Athenians in
a battle. King Minos howled in his grief at the loss of his son and declared absolute terror on Athens in revenge. As part of his conquest, Minos demanded that the Athenians supply the tribute to the Minotaur from their own children, and henceforth the fourteen sacrificial innocents were taken from Athens.

The youngest son of the Athenian king was a beautiful and heroic youth called Theseus. And so it was when it came time for the Athenians to send their terrible sacrifice to the Minotaur, Theseus volunteered to go in as the first of the fourteen, determined as he was to face the Minotaur and slay him, thus saving the lives of future innocents and liberating the people of Athens from this terror. For even in his youth, this hero was wise beyond all years. He understood that the offering of sacrifices to the Minotaur was a choice. It was a tradition that did not need to be kept, but it would take someone with great courage to stop it.

The princess Ariadne was walking on the beach near the harbor in Crete when the ship from Athens landed to unload the sacrificial victims. It is said that she caught sight of Theseus and fell immediately in love with him, recognizing him as the bright hero who could defeat the darkness that lurked below the surface of Crete in the guise of her half brother, the terrible Minotaur Asterius. She had been haunted throughout her life by the slaying of innocents to satisfy his inhuman hunger, and yet the compassion in her heart also gave her great sympathy for his monstrous suffering.

Ariadne arranged a secret tryst with Theseus on the eve prior to the sacrificial ceremony. Here Ariadne vowed her aid in return for his own promise to marry her and take her away with him.

As it was, the fair Ariadne had been promised by her father as a bride to the debauched god Dionysus. It was said that the god, driven half mad by his passion for the pure beauty of Ariadne, had demanded her as tribute from Minos in exchange for military victories over the Athenians. Minos had relented with some reluctance, but the deal had been struck. But the pure lady Ariadne was a devoted disciple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. As such, she could not bear the thought of marrying for any reason other than true love, and certainly not in submitting to a fate as the debased concubine of the god of hedonism.

Upon setting eyes on Theseus, Ariadne fell in love with him and knew that he could change her destiny. Theseus would rescue the people from the Minotaur, and Ariadne from the dark god, and both salvations would happen through the force of
love. It is said that Ariadne and Theseus joined together that night in passion and purpose, flesh and spirit, trust and consciousness. In that way she shielded him within the pure power of her love.

Because Ariadne was the half sister of the terrible beast, she knew the secrets to slaying the Minotaur and exiting the labyrinth. All these she shared with her new love. Ariadne then wove strands of her own silken hair into a skein of golden yarn, to create a magical thread, called a clue, in which to aid her love’s escape from the labyrinth. Finally, she presented him with a miraculous sword, a weapon once forged for the sea god Poseidon himself; it was crafted of silver and gold to represent the light of the sun and the moon as they reflect off the sea. Ariadne knew that this weapon would kill her half brother without causing him any suffering. Theseus would not fail to kill the Minotaur with a single true and merciful blow and emerge as a hero of the light if he followed her instructions perfectly.

The following morning, as he was being led into the labyrinth as the first sacrifice, Theseus fastened one end of Ariadne’s thread to an iron ring at the entrance post of the labyrinth, tying it in the symbolic bridal knot exactly as she had shown him. He carried the ball of magical thread inside with him, unraveling it slowly as he walked the circuitous paths toward the hideous beast.

At the center of the labyrinth, Theseus met the Minotaur and defeated him in honorable hand-to-hand combat, shielded by Ariadne’s love and delivering the final blow with the magical weapon that she had provided. His task complete, the hero retraced his steps out of the labyrinth by following Ariadne’s thread, thus arriving safely at the entrance of the labyrinth and into the embrace of his newly beloved. Carrying off his princess, Theseus freed the remaining thirteen Athenian children and returned to their ship as the liberator of his people and the great slayer of the god-beast.

They sailed until arriving on the island of Dia, where they stopped for a night of celebration and to gather provisions for their return to Athens. Sadly, their joy was cut short when the wine-crazed god, Dionysus, appeared on Dia to claim his bride. Ariadne was his by the right of human and divine law, he said, betrothed by her royal father and with no will of her own to resist. Theseus resisted the god at first, claiming that Ariadne was his by her own choice and that it was his intention to make her the queen of Athens. Dionysus countered by reminding Theseus that he
could make Ariadne immortal through her marriage to a god, and that if the Athenian truly loved her, he would release her to a more divine destiny. The argument lasted into the night, with the god Dionysus relentless in his attack on Theseus.

It was a terrible choice for the young Athenian prince, who was no match for the clever and determined god. In the end, Theseus believed that if he resisted Dionysus, the god would likely take Ariadne by force and inflict harm upon him and the remainder of the Athenians. And so it was that with a heavy heart, Theseus abandoned his Ariadne to the will of Dionysus and sailed away from Dia without his newfound beloved.

Ariadne was distraught at the loss of Theseus, and in despair at the prospect of becoming the consort to the hedonist god who had taken her by force of guile. But it was through the sacred strength of love that a miraculous change occurred in the god Dionysus. So enamored was he of the beautiful and pure Ariadne that he could not bear to see her in such anguish. He did not take her by force. Instead, he agreed that he would have her only when she agreed to be his wife of her own accord. Dionysus began to shower her with gifts and celebrate her beauty, even vowing to change his decadent ways to indicate the truth of his love for her. When Ariadne saw the extent of the god’s devotion, and how it had transformed him, her heart softened. Through her prayers to Aphrodite, the embodiment of all love, Ariadne came to the understanding that Theseus would have fought for her if he had truly felt in his heart that she was his only beloved. That he did not was an indication that she must let him go.

For love that is not requited in equal measure is not love at all; it is not sacred. And holding on to the ideal of such love can keep us from finding the one that is true.

The day came when Ariadne agreed to be the wife of Dionysus, and they lived in a state of bliss into eternity as true and equal partners in the hieros-gamos. Here it was that Ariadne found the love that is real—with the beloved who had, indeed, fought for her.

Theseus, for his part, was left to mourn the loss of Ariadne and regretted until the end of his days the weakness that had led to his terrible decision to abandon her. In honor of she who was now a goddess, he created a temple in her name on the isle of Amathus. Taking the statue of Aphrodite which Ariadne had once carried with her upon leaving Crete, he erected a structure which he called the Temple of Love,
and dedicated it to “Ariadne-Aphrodite.” Within the temple, he built a labyrinth which became the symbol of love and liberation, and a rhythmic dance that represented the celebration of divine union was established for the annual feast in Ariadne’s honor, the feast of the Lady of the Labyrinth who defeated the darkness with her love. The new labyrinth was created as a place of joy, with one sacred, spiral path that led into the center and out again. No more would the labyrinth be a place where human souls were lost. Forevermore, it would be a place where the human spirit could be found: a place to celebrate what is both human and divine in us all, once we learn to slay the minotaurs that lie within ourselves through our necessary belief in the power of love.