"Out in the middle of the wine-dark sea, there is a land called Crete, a rich and lovely land washed by the sea on every side; and in it are many peoples and 90 cities. There, one language mingles with another...Among the cities is Knossos, a great city; and there Minos was nine years king, the boon companion of mighty Zeus."
暗酒色的大海里,有一片名叫克里特的土地 它富庶美丽,四面环海有九十个城市,人口众多。在这些城市中,有一座伟大的城市叫克诺索斯在宙斯的恩典下,米诺斯做了九年的王。
That was Homer, singing the praises of Crete, prosperous and cosmopolitan, and of its great king Minos. Now in Greek myth, Minos had a very complex relationship with bulls. He was the son of Zeus, king of the gods, but in order to father him, Zeus had turned himself into a bull. Minos's wife in turn had conceived an unnatural passion for a very beautiful bull and the fruit of that obsession was the Minotaur, half-man, half-bull. Minos was so ashamed of his monstrous stepson that he had him imprisoned in the labyrinth, and there the Minotaur devoured a regular supply of maidens and youths sent every year by Athens-until, that is, the Greek hero Theseus succeeded in killing him. The story of Theseus and the Minotaur, of man facing down his monstrous demons, has been told and re-told for centuries-by Ovid, Plutarch, Virgil and others-and it's part of the high canon of Greek myth, of Freudian psychology and of European art.
在希腊神话中,米诺斯是克里特的统治者,与公牛之间的关系错综复杂。他是美丽的欧罗巴与众神之主宙斯的儿子。当初,为了引诱欧罗巴,宙斯变成了一头公牛。而后来米诺斯的王后也对一头雄壮的公牛产生了感情,因而生下了牛头人身的米诺陶洛斯。米诺斯觉得这个怪兽继子让他 颜面尽失,便将它囚禁在一座地下迷宫里。米诺陶洛斯要求雅典每年向它进贡童男童女,最终被英雄忒修斯杀死。忒修斯与米诺陶洛斯的故事 被人代代传诵:英雄先藏匿起来,找时机发动进攻,最后成功杀死怪兽。奥维德、普鲁塔克和维吉尔等人都有过记述。这是希腊神话、弗洛伊德心理学以及欧洲艺术的经典故事之一。