Ariadne of Crete

“Theseus, savage with slaughter, met with like-grief as that which with unmemoried mind he had dealt to Minos’ daughter.” (Catullus 64)

His feet leave their mark on the soft sand as I wait, frozen still. Every move is a dangerous dance of the unknown, and I can’t seem to bring myself to move a toe in the wake of his arrival. My eyes stare, rapt with attention, as a dull ache begins to blossom behind my brow.

He’s here.

It should be impossible but there he walks through the surf I thought sure he’d forgotten. My lungs feel close to collapse as I try to make sense of the sight of Theseus, returning to my side.

For days I’ve wept and yelled until my speech turned garbled. Now, I’m torn between running into his arms and hiding myself away. So, I hover on the coast; uncertain.

A week long, I’ve yearned and wondered if I would ever see those black sails on the horizon again. Naxos. That’s what he’d called the isle I’ve been the sole occupier of; only the barren palms and meagre rations to sustain.

I’m still deciding what I want to do when he sees me, and cerulean blue never looked as calm nor as forgiving as that of his iris’ in that moment.

I crumple before I can help it; I’m saved.

The waves wash my ankles and I bow beneath every pulse of the sun as my legs bend and refuse to carry me further. I kneel on the shore, utterly at one with the sand and the sky and the fragments of myself which I know I’m juggling. Half of me yearns to fling myself at his feet and forgive any sins. The other half (which, I confess comes from my father) is still caught on the sight of his sword, and pleads with my body to revenge itself.

It’s then that I begin to worry that the labyrinth followed me. If, somewhere beneath the burning sand, it waits. Because, though he stands mere metres before me, I cannot seem to find the way forward. I should be moving towards him, right?

Is my mind unravelling like the spool of string I gifted to him almost a week ago?

Lost in a maze of tranquillity and panic, time seems to slow. For a split second, I'm no longer here. Seconds stretch to a point where I almost believe that some deity has taken pains with my toils. Perhaps I am simply being cajoled by Athena, herself. Maybe my unfortunate choices have insulted her wisdom, for I know I have made some mistakes.

Have I done wrong by the divine for tempting that of creation in my fratricide? Or, is it just my lot as a woman to be trodden beneath the heels of a god?

Was the monster beneath the labyrinth simply a thing with horns or was it more? Though my brother had hooves and a snout, he also had eyes so large and round they appeared more than human in his babe-hood; but I grew certain it was a façade.

But, how to be sure? Asterion was born, just as I, after all.

The notion sends a bead of nausea through me and, all at once, I want to rebel against these past days as the truth stares me down.

It is my fault that my brother is dead. My fault that more innocent blood spilt. For, what was Asterion but a product of what Poseidon and my father made him?

“Ariadne,” Theseus calls, and it’s only then that I realise I have been staring deeply into the horizon. When I turn my gaze away, blinding light prowls my vision.

“Theseus,” I reply, though something stutters in my tone. “Are you here?” I stand to meet him though he is still too far to touch.

His throat bobs, only once. “I am here, Ariadne. I left for Athens thinking I’d done right by my people, who would not celebrate a princess of Crete. But with each day at sail, a weight grew in my heart.”

How nice it must be to have the liberty to choose one’s own redemption.

“A weight,” I repeat, dumbly.

There’s a coil set to spring within me. With every breath, it tightens and weakens my resolve to stay away from the man who left me ruined. A cocktail of grief, shame, and longing has left me inebriated in the brutal evidence of my lost innocence.

“Yes,” he says. “I was wrong to leave you here.”

“Yet you did so, willingly.”

He appears shocked for a moment, baffled that I would dare question my lifeline. “Yes,” is all he says, and that spring inside me tightens.

“You left Phaedra,” I continue, my tone clear it is not a question.

At this, he bows his head to hide his eyes. “Yes,” he says again and that spring tightens further.

There’s something so serene about allowing yourself to be engulfed in rage. I take a step, but it’s not toward the man I thought I’d marry.

“Ariadne, what are you doing?” He asks, looking poised to follow.

I am no longer confused by the depletion I felt at the sight of his dimmed splendour. When we met, he seemed at once a man of myth and wonder. Now, I feel that the reality of his crimes has been laid bare.

“How innocent was the maid whose blood you spilt?”

A squint. “Certainly, you don’t mean Medusa, who wore snakes for a mane and almost turned me to stone? Who, indeed, turned many to mere sediment?”

The spot on which he abandoned me, yet what bore me anew in the throes of some mottled sheets, is the walk of mere minutes away. I suppose it is conceivable that I never lost anything that night, but instead made space for something new.

“You’re a coward,” I tell him and take another step back. “What was her crime?”

He squints at me and takes a step in my direction. “Do you not understand, my love? I am here to take you with me—to Athens, where you will be crowned queen.”

I feel the flickering beneath my skin; the small mocking caress of doubt befalls my spine and I stiffen ever so slightly as I resolve to look him in the eye once more.

“Is it a crime to pay for a god’s transgression?” I ask.

“I don’t understand—”

“What about a mortal man’s entitlement? Was it my crime to choose you above my family?”

All through my life, I’ve grown so used to people obeying my whims. Every want has been fulfilled by the careful hands of those qualified.

I knew it would never last, you know? People believe that privilege occurs only to the wanting, but this is untrue. I knew my life in ivory towers, caged but cared for, would come to a crashing halt.

It is the role of a woman to be mistrustful of her environment, after all.

He appears caught, and dismayed at being so. Shame becomes him, and a savage smile decorates my lips when he refuses to meet my eye, yet my words come out a contrasting snarl.

“How dare you betray us, we who helped you at the expense of ourselves, who loved and trusted your word.”

A shudder runs through him and he looks up in alarm as my words land in blows. “Ariadne, please, I’m here now—”

I turn away and tilt my head to the sky with my back facing him.

“On this island where Theseus forsook me, I call to any who will listen. With like mind, I beg he brings a retribution upon himself and his kin,” I breathe, “as he did to me and mine.”

I take another step away and pause to turn and incline my head towards his ship. “You should leave this place.”

He stares, aghast it would seem, at where I continue to drift further and further away. And, for a moment, I can only question how he was able to forget the vengeance which I contain inside when it is what led us to this very point in our lives.

I may be incapable of much more that would revenge and save, but I refuse to be described as helpless in this story.