PARTISAN REVIEW
At this point I thought it only decent to interject that I had
nothing against monsters in themselves; but she went on without
listening.
"Please try to understand me. By temperament I am a mystic.
Heavenly things alone excite my love. The difficulty, you see, is one
never can tell exactly where the god begins and where he ends. I
have seen a good deal of my cousin Leda. For her, the god hid him–
self in the guise of a swan. Now, Minos always knew that I wanted
to give him a Dioscurus for his heir. But how can one distinguish
the animal residue which may remain even in the seed of the gods?
If
I have since then deplored my mistake- And I realize that to 'talk
of it in this way robs the affair of
all
grandeur-yet I assure you,
Theseus, that it was a celestial moment. For you must understand
that my bull was no ordinary beast. Poseidon had sent him. He
should have been offered to him as a sacrifice, but he was so beautiful
that Minos could not bring himself to do
it.
That
is
how I have
been able ever since to pass off my desires as an instrument of the
god's revenge. And you no doubt know that my mother-in-law, Eu–
ropa, was carried off by a bull. Zeus was hiding inside him. Minos
himself was the fruit of their union. That is why bulls have always
been held in great honor in his family. And, if ever, after the birth
of the Minotaur, I noticed the king knitting his brows, I had only to
say "What about your mother?" He could only admit that
it
was
a natural mistake. He is very wise. He believes that Zeus has nom–
inated him judge, along with Rhadamanthus, his brother. He takes
the view that one must have understood before one can pass judg–
ment, and he thinks that he will not be a good judge until he has
experienced everything, either in his own person or through his
family. This is a great encouragement for us
all.
His children, and
I myself, each in our different ways, are working, by our individual
errors of conduct, for the advancement of
his
career. The Minotaur
too, though he doesn't know it. That is why I am begging you here
and now, Theseus, not to try to do him any sort of injury, but rather
to become intimate with him, and so to end a misunderstanding
which has made Crete the enemy of Greece, and done great harm
to our two countries."
So saying, she became even more attentive, and a point was
reached at which I was seriously incommoded, while the exhalations
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