Ariadne by Jennifer Saint - The Real Hero of Theseus & The Minotaur has her story told.
The Blog of a Bookseller
Greek Mythology retellings remain an all-time favourite for me. I grew up on Percy Jackson and the original myths, particularly in Primary School when we learned about Ancient Greece. School often focused on the famous myths - Perseus and Medusa, Theseus and the Minotaur, The Trojan Horse and others of a similar nature - it was always Man Vs Monster ones the teachers told us.
I cannot remember the exact versions of them we were told - obviously, the teachers made them more child-friendly for us, avoiding the more gruesome themes - but the one I remember the clearest was Theseus and the Minotaur.
In the version we were told, Poseidon cursed the baby Asterion, King Mino's Son, to be the Minotaur. Our teacher carefully ensured we weren't told how Pasiphae, Mino's wife and the mother of the Minotaur, was cursed with madness and conceived the Minotaur with a bull, disguising herself as a cow. I understand why the teachers did this - we were ten years old then, and what teacher would feel comfortable reciting this to thirty ten-year-olds?
The one part of their version of the story I will never understand why they changed is Ariadne. Poor Ariadne.
The Daughter of Minos and Elder Sister to the Minotaur, she fell in love with Theseus when he arrived in Crete to take on the Labyrinth and the beast inside. Theseus used this to his advantage and encouraged her to help him defeat it, so she handed him the golden twine she had woven so he could find his way out and hide his weapon in the Labyrinth's entrance so it would be a fair battle between beast and man.
Knowing Minos would punish her for her betrayal, Ariadne fled with Theseus, who promised her marriage, where they took refuge on an abandoned island for the night. This is when Theseus abandons her to return to Athens alone.
In the original myth, the reason for his abandonment varies based on who was telling it. Some say he was disgusted that she betrayed her father and feared she would do the same to him, after which Dionysus finds and rescues her, and they marry. Others because The God Dionysus fell in love with her, sending Theseus on his way so he and Ariadne could marry. Regardless, we always know she survives and is safe.
My teachers decided to tell us that Theseus was certainly disgusted with the Cretan Princess, but the disgust was at her unfathomable ugliness, so he left her on the Island alone with no food or water, returning to Athens alone. That was our story, and no Greek God could rescue her.
In my ten-year-old brain, I had an image of poor Ariadne on a desert island, left to starve and dehydrate, all because she wasn't pretty enough for some guy, and so he decided she must die because of it.
It haunted me, and it wasn't until years later that I discovered the true myths, not the watered-down ones we were taught. I was relieved to find out Theseus didn't abandon her for such shallow reasons, and more than that, I was even more relieved to find out she lived and loved with her Godly husband.
Not long after this, I came across Ariadne by Jennifer Saint - a mesmerising retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur from Ariadne's point of view. After my teachers' disservice to the poor woman, I wanted to hear her voice on the story that happened to her and see the strength to survive that my teachers stole from her in their horrid version.
Saint's immersive and detailed writing gives Ariadne a voice, and that strength is evident from the first page; not only does Ariadne receive the voice stolen from her, but so does her sister, Phaedra - who later goes on to marry Theseus.
We learn how Ariadne has memories before the Minotaur came, but Phaedra doesn't, and we see how this affects the sisters. Ariadne has gentleness and empathy as she tried, for the first few years of her brother’s life before Minos dubbed him his monster, to nurture her baby brother and teach him not to be the monster the Crete people dubbed him. She tries to care and find good in everybody. On the other hand, Phaedra only remembers a time with her brother and sees him in a far harsher light, reflecting her worldview. She is sharp and untrusting, particularly of her new husband, but she is also alone in Athens, where she has no one to rely on and knows that she must remain guarded. She knows Theusus had something to do with her sister's disappearance. When Theusus abandons Ariadne on the Island, we are introduced to his lies, claiming she was bitten by a snake and died. We know he is lying, as does Phaedra, but like her, we cannot find a way to catch him, and we feel her anger and frustration.
The morning, Ariadne realises she has been abandoned for death by the man she thought she would marry and rescue her from her tyrannical father and an unhappy retirement; she screams and curses from the cliffs in all directions, hoping that Theseus will hear her, not to come back and rescue her, but to hear her remind him that if it weren't for her, then he would not have survived. She should be the hero of the tale, not him.
"Your flesh would be rotting off your bones in the Labyrinth if I had not saved you! You are no hero, you faithless coward!"
Ariadne is right, of course; if it weren't for her risking punishment from her father for Theseus, then the so-called hero of the tale would have never made it through the battle against the Minotaur, let alone the Labyrinth itself.