Elegy of the Minotaur

The Minotaur is one of the most fearsome monsters in the ancient Greek imagination: the half human, half bull child of Queen Pasiphae of Crete, who is locked away in a mysterious and treacherous maze, beneath the royal palace of Crete, called the Labyrinth. There he feasts on the flesh of the youths and virgins of Athens who are sacrificed to him until the great Athenian hero Theseus slays him. In Elegy of the Minotaur, the fearsome monster is reimagined as a shy, bookish, vegetarian loner who longs for human love and companionship. He falls hopelessly in love with a cold, vain beauty in the royal court of ancient Crete, who cruelly spurns his declaration of love. In despair, the monster makes a desperate pilgrimage to visit a holy shrine to beg reprieve from the gods from his cursed fate to become a handsome youth who can win his beloved’s heart. The monster is forced to confront and accept his fate before being recaptured and imprisoned in the underground labyrinth, where he must face his final confrontation with the bloodthirsty and ruthless Theseus.