The Myth of Ariadne and her Thread

The story of Ariadne and her Thread opens on what is today the northern coast of the Island of Crete in what is now the municipality of Heraklion. You can go there if you want to. In Ariadne's time, the island was ruled by her father, Old King Minos, and she lived in what came to be known as the famous Palace of Knossos. Ariadne was very much her father's daughter, and a princess. In the story as it has been told to us, there is no mention of a Queen at the side of Old King Minos, or a Mother for Ariadne.

Under the vast and exquisite expanse of cool marble floors in what came to be known as the Palace of Knossos, deep beneath the surface, there stretched a vast, dark Labyrinth. At the very centre of the Labyrinth was the lair of a fearsome creature, half man and half bull, known as The Minotaur. The Minotaur inhabited the Labyrinth, and anyone who entered his convoluted domain just below the surface of everyday life never came out. Many tried, but they all lost their way and once disoriented in the terrifying darkness and complexity of the Labyrinth they were slain and devoured by the monstrous Minotaur. Ariadne lived her life above the Labyrinth on the surface of this invisible but ever-present force each and every day.

Ariadne grew up in the palace with the terrorizing force of The Minotaur below her every step. She slept above it, ate above it and played above it each and every day of her life. It was just the way things were and Ariadne never questioned the norms of her father's kingdom. Over the years Ariadne the girl became a young woman, and one day as Ariadne watched the familiar comings and goings of daily life in her father's kingdom, she noticed the arrival of a ship from Athens. Ariadne's attention remained on the ship as it docked in the port. Before long, a handsome young man called Theseus stepped off his swift sailing ship and as he set foot on the island, something dramatic shifted in Ariadne. She was on the threshold of change.

Theseus was the son of the King of Athens, and had come across the sea from his father's kingdom as part of an annual ritual. Each and every year for all the years of her life, Ariadne had witnessed a procession of the seven most promising youths from Athens arriving on Crete in order to challenge the Minotaur. The strongest, most beautiful, athletic and intelligent youths were selected and sent to Crete from Athens. If, as always happened, they failed to slay the fearsome Minotaur, their lives served as sacrifice in the Labyrinth to appease the dark forces within it. Ariadne grew up in her father's kingdom on Crete watching this pattern repeat. Year after year youth, beauty, strength, vitality, virility and intelligence were sacrificed. It was simply the way things were.

The young princess Ariadne gazed out at Theseus. She was taken both by what she saw physically and by his stated determination to slay the Minotaur. But Ariadne had seen all this before; she knew how the ritual unfolded each and every year. And as she watched the pattern repeat again, something flickered in Ariadne. This year, somehow, it felt different. Deep in Ariadne was a sense of something she felt compelled to pay attention to, and as she followed her intuition, a plan emerged in her thinking of how she could save Theseus and get something she began to realise she wanted for herself.

Ariadne came up with a very simple strategy and proposed a deal to Theseus; it was a pact between them. Ariadne offered to help Theseus slay the Minotaur and find his way safely back out of the terrifying Labyrinth if he in turn would promise to take her with him, when he sailed away from her father's kingdom in his ship. Theseus agreed.

On the appointed day of the "ritual" sacrifice of the seven youths from Athens, Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread. She explained to him carefully and precisely how to unravel the thread as he walked into the Labyrinth. She promised she would hold tight to the other end so that as he journeyed deeper and deeper through the absolute darkness, Ariadne's Thread would remain securely in place to ensure Theseus was oriented in a safe, secure connection to her out in the lighted world. He was to slay the Minotaur and then follow Ariadne's Thread back out. This is exactly what happened. Theseus went into the Labyrinth, triumphed over the fearsome Minotaur and followed Ariadne's Thread back out to safety.

Defying her father, the Old King Minos, Ariadne and Theseus fled together on his swift Athenian sailing ship over the water and away from all that Ariadne had known. Ariadne left her father's house behind her. The two young royals sailed towards an island called Naxos where the ship weighed anchor and they spent the night on the shores of the island. The next morning when Ariadne woke up on Naxos, she found Theseus had gone. She saw him and his ship in the distance sailing off, vanishing over the sea. Ariadne was alone on the beach; she had brought nothing with her and stood in everything she possessed. She was alone in territory that was alien to her.

The story as it is told today portrays Ariadne as isolated and griefstricken, feeling abandoned and her trust in the promise Theseus had made to her betrayed. Ariadne was left standing on unknown ground. The past was gone and the future she may have begun to imagine for herself had sailed off without her. What happens next in the story is dramatic. As Ariadne waved and wept, hoping it was all a mistake and trying to catch the attention of the retreating Theseus and as his ship vanished over the horizon, she sensed something behind her. Ariadne turned her head and as she did so, not from the sea or the direction from which she had come, but from inland, from an unknown landscape she hadn't been aware of, or paid any attention to, a chariot arrived. Out of the chariot leaped the Greek god, Dionysus.

While Theseus may have been the son of the King of Athens, and royal, he was still a mere mortal. Dionysus, however, was a god. This part of the story, as it has been told down through the ages, concludes with Dionysus and Ariadne falling in love. He crowns her with a circlet of stars and, mutually devoted, they marry, establish an eternal loving bond allowing them, as the story goes, to live happily ever after.

Deconstructing the Myth

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