第11章 THE MINOTAUR(8)

"Come, then, with me, brave Theseus.Here is your own sword, which the guards deprived you of.You will need it; and pray Heaven you may use it well."Then she led Theseus along by the hand until they came to a dark, shadowy grove, where the moonlight wasted itself on the tops of the trees, without shedding hardly so much as a glimmering beam upon their pathway.After going a good way through this obscurity, they reached a high marble wall, which was overgrown with creeping plants, that made it shaggy with their verdure.The wall seemed to have no door, nor any windows, but rose up, lofty, and massive, and mysterious, and was neither to be clambered over, nor, as far as Theseus could perceive, to be passed through.Nevertheless, Ariadne did but press one of her soft little fingers against a particular block of marble and, though it looked as solid as any other part of the wall, it yielded to her touch, disclosing an entrance just wide enough to admit them They crept through, and the marble stone swung back into its place.

"We are now," said Ariadne, "in the famous labyrinth which Daedalus built before he made himself a pair of wings, and flew away from our island like a bird.That Daedalus was a very cunning workman; but of all his artful contrivances, this labyrinth is the most wondrous.Were we to take but a few steps from the doorway, we might wander about all our lifetime, and never find it again.Yet in the very center of this labyrinth is the Minotaur; and, Theseus, you must go thither to seek him.""But how shall I ever find him," asked Theseus, "if the labyrinth so bewilders me as you say it will?"Just as he spoke, they heard a rough and very disagreeable roar, which greatly resembled the lowing of a fierce bull, but yet had some sort of sound like the human voice.Theseus even fancied a rude articulation in it, as if the creature that uttered it were trying to shape his hoarse breath into words.

It was at some distance, however, and he really could not tell whether it sounded most like a bull's roar or a man's harsh voice.

"That is the Minotaur's noise," whispered Ariadne, closely grasping the hand of Theseus, and pressing one of her own hands to her heart, which was all in a tremble."You must follow that sound through the windings of the labyrinth, and, by and by, you will find him.Stay! take the end of this silken string; Iwill hold the other end; and then, if you win the victory.it will lead you again to this spot.Farewell, brave Theseus."So the young man took the end of the silken string in his left hand, and his gold-hilled sword, ready drawn from its scabbard, in the other, and trod boldly into the inscrutable labyrinth.

How this labyrinth was built is more than I can tell you.But so cunningly contrived a mizmaze was never seen in the world, before nor since.There can be nothing else so intricate, unless it were the brain of a man like Daedalus, who planned it, or the heart of any ordinary man; which last, to be sure, is ten times as great a mystery as the labyrinth of Crete.

Theseus had not taken five steps before he lost sight of Ariadne; and in five more his head was growing dizzy.But still he went on, now creeping through a low arch, now ascending a flight of steps, now in one crooked passage and now in another, with here a door opening before him, and there one banging behind, until it really seemed as if the walls spun round, and whirled him round along with them.And all the while, through these hollow avenues, now nearer, now farther off again, resounded the cry of the Minotaur; and the sound was so fierce, so cruel, so ugly, so like a bull's roar, and withal so like a human voice, and yet like neither of them, that the brave heart of Theseus grew sterner and angrier at every step; for he felt it an insult to the moon and sky, and to our affectionate and simple Mother Earth, that such a monster should have the audacity to exist.

As he passed onward, the clouds gathered over the moon, and the labyrinth grew so dusky that Theseus could no longer discern the bewilderment through which he was passing.He would have left quite lost, and utterly hopeless of ever again walking in a straight path, if, every little while, he had not been conscious of a gentle twitch at the silken cord.Then he knew that the tender-hearted Ariadne was still holding the other end, and that she was fearing for him, and hoping for him, and giving him just as much of her sympathy as if she were close by his side.O, indeed, I can assure you, there was a vast deal of human sympathy running along that slender thread of silk.But still he followed the dreadful roar of the Minotaur, which now grew louder and louder, and finally so very loud that Theseus fully expected to come close upon him, at every new zizgag and wriggle of the path.And at last, in an open space, at the very center of the labyrinth, he did discern the hideous creature.

Sure enough, what an ugly monster it was! Only his horned head belonged to a bull; and yet, somehow or other, he looked like a bull all over, preposterously waddling on his hind legs; or, if you happened to view him in another way, he seemed wholly a man, and all the more monstrous for being so.And there he was, the wretched thing, with no society, no companion, no kind of a mate, living only to do mischief, and incapable of knowing what affection means.Theseus hated him, and shuddered at him, and yet could not but be sensible of some sort of pity; and all the more, the uglier and more detestable the creature was.For he kept striding to and fro, in a solitary frenzy of rage, continually emitting a hoarse roar, which was oddly mixed up with half-shaped words; and, after listening a while, Theseus understood that the Minotaur was saying to himself how miserable he was, and how hungry, and how he hated everybody, and how he longed to eat up the human race alive.