My Heart? Gone

My heart? Gone

Did Pasiphaë Mourn the Minotaur?

He had a monster’s form, of course. The result of her husband’s hubris and the spite of Poseidon, yes, such a thing would never be beautiful.

Never be beautiful, perhaps, save in the eyes of his mother?

Did she feed him at her own breast? Did no wet nurse dare touch his twisted body? Was hers the only friendly touch he knew?

She named him Asterion, for a great king of the island of Crete

Her little star

Perhaps he had a little starry tuft of hair on his forehead, shining like the tail of the little bear Ursa Minor?

Maybe a scattering of white on a darker hide, as the vault of night where the gods hung their heroes and monsters.

Was he a monster then? Her little star?

Did she play with him in the courtyards of her husband’s palace? Did the children of relatives and servants flee in horror at her little boy?

Did he laugh? Did he cry? Did he play in the mud and skin his knee as all little boys do? Did he chase the dogs who lounged too long in the Mediterranean sun?

Did she see the disdainful glint in Minos’s eye as he spoke with his advisor Daedalus, the one who had humored her urges driven on by the machinations of the Earthshaker?

Did she know of what the men of Crete said of her son’s appetite? Was it even true? Was it a rumor planted by an embarrassed and furious step-father?

Did she know that the dancing paths her daughter had enjoyed would be buried and sealed to contain her son?

The day came when Asterion was to be locked away. Minos carried the words of a faraway prophet, the words of the gods. His bull, his Minotaur, had to be locked away for everyone’s safety. So said the gods.

And the gods were never to be disobeyed. Minos knew that all too well.

Did he struggle against his bonds when they dragged him to the buried dancing paths once made to delight Ariadne, doomed to a broken heart on a lonely isle? Did he roar? Did he cry? Did he yell for his mother to help him? He’d be good. He wouldn’t bother the dogs lounging in the sun, he’d eat politely at the dinner table. He’d make her proud. He’d make father proud. He’d be a good son.

Was Pasiphae struggling against bonds of her own as she watched her son disappear from the eyes of Helios, condemned to darkness for the rest of his days? Did her heart grow cold in the absence of her little star?

Did he call out for her in that winding maze? Did he plead to his mother, to Daedalus, to the gods, to anyone who would hear in that dark cavern? Did he know why he was cast from the sight of gods and men?

Did Pasiphae wretch at Minos’s plan to feed her little star? A way to solve two problems with one answer. Little Athens had been such a thorn in the side of great and mighty Crete, they needed to make up their wrongs with tribute. And Minos’s bull couldn’t simply be left to starve. Kinslaying, even monsters, was a dark and terrible act looked down upon by the gods. Minos knew not to disobey the gods.

A starving monster or a starving man, hunger makes all decisions so much simpler. Stone or flesh, only one route. Only one thing to eat.

Was Asterion a monster born or a monster made?

Did Pasiphae wail when brave Theseus emerged from the depths of the labyrinth, her son’s blood on his sword? Did she keep a brave face in front of her husband? After all, who would mourn a monster?

Did she follow that length of twine to her son’s broken body once all eyes had closed for the night? Did she hold her son’s cold hand as she sung a lullaby from so long ago, when he was just her little star? Did she kiss the little tuft of starlight that still adorned his bull’s brow?

Perhaps, in the grim hands of Thanatos, his broken body once more came into view of the lights of the heavens? Who need fear a corpse, even a monster’s corpse?

Did Pasiphae plead for a goodbye for her son? A way for him to leave the world of the living as the man he never was?

Did she, hands shaking, place two coins on his forever closed eyes to pay the ferryman Charon who carries souls across the river Styx?

Did she anoint his brutalized, gaunt, starved body in the perfumed oils that had graced the fallen bodies of his ancestors?

Did she hope against hope that perhaps in that cold realm of Hades and Persephone his soul might finally find rest?

Did Pasiphaë mourn Asterion

Her little star?