The King Must Die
What is the skill which allows some writers to take the familiar and represent it in such a way that what we read is refreshed, almost as if we are following a story that is slightly familiar but which we really didn’t know? I have written before about some great examples, as with the two series of outstanding novels written by Madeline Miller and Claire North, in which they retell familiar myths about Ulysses and people around him. They do this by highlighting some of the key characters who might not have been so central in other versions. In her 1958 book The King Must Die, Mary Renault does the same but pulls off another extraordinary trick – as she tells us about Theseus’ early life and adventures, she does so through his eyes, and even does so starting with his life as a boy. I guess it is fair to say the result is ‘magical’.
At one level, The King Must Die is simply a thrilling story told in five sections. The first, Book One or Troizen, deals with Theseus’ childhood. Among other adventures, he learns about the ‘horse sacrifice’ , and for the first time hears the sound of the surging sea, an ability that warns him an earthquake is about to occur. He grows up entranced by horses, but eventually becomes a skilled wrestler, as much through strategy and agility as opposed to brute strength. Indeed he is shorter and slighter than many he defeats. At the age of seventeen, his mother takes him to a sacred grove and explains that his father , whose identity he doesn’t know, made her swear not to tell Theseus who he was until he could pry up a heavy stone. Theseus does this using a lever, finding a sword and sandals underneath. He also learns he. is the only son and heir of the King of Athens.
On his way to Athens, in Book Two: Eleusis, Theseus is chosen to kill the year-king, and replace him, only to be sacrificed in a year’s time. He builds up a gang of Eleusinian youths and the Queen of Eleusis realises his aim is to overthrow this system and tries to have him assassinated. She fails and attempts suicide. Her eventual fate is left unclear. After this, Theseus finally goes to Athens (Book Three). His father, Aigeus, attempts to poisoned him, before he recognises Theseus is his son and proclaims him his son and heir. However, when a Cretan ship comes to collect a yearly tribute of seven boys and seven girls from Athens, Theseus, based on what he believes Poseidon is asking him to do, offers himself in one boy’s place and becomes a Cretan slave. Once In Crete, Theseus and the other tributes become bull-dancers. Now in the Minoan court, Theseus becomes Ariadne’s lover, meeting her in the Labyrinth under the Knossos Palace.
However, now in Book Four, we learn Asterion is gathering power to take the throne, and also plans to marry Ariadne, his half-sister. Theseus slays Minos at his request and promises to marry Ariadne, but Theseus senses a major approaching earthquake and as it strikes, he leads a revolt against the Labyrinth aristocracy. When Asterion begins the ritual to make himself the new Minos, wearing a bull mask, Theseus interrupts the ceremony and fatally wounds the Minotaur, and sacrifices the dying Asterion, using a sacred axe. In the final part of the book, Theseus and his gang, together with Ariadne set sail for Greece. Things begin to fall apart. At one stage Theseus realises Ariadne isn’t quite the woman he had hoped. Closer to home, by way of foolish logic, he ensures that his father will die.
It is a thrilling story, with many twists and turns. However, the story isn’t the magic, but the way Mary Renault breathes life into the characters, and imbues events with startling and, at time, horrifying precision. In her hands Theseus becomes a change agent, lightly built with the agility of a wrestler and the ingenuity of an inventor and entrepreneur. His skills and abilities are tools to help him achieve what he sees as his destiny, complemented by his belief that he is guided by Poseidon, and an instinctive ability to sense earthquakes, possibly a gift from Poseidon. As the story evolves, he establishes his own loyal band, the Cranes, seven females and seven males (of whom Theseus is one).
Around Theseus is a dazzling cast of characters. There’s the beautiful Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, a high priestess revered as a goddess by the Cretans. Apparently gentle and timid, Theseus eventually sees her hidden capacity for violence and abandons her. Asterion, the Minotauros, is heir to King Minos of Crete, and is getting ready to take the throne. Another king, the King of Athens Aigeus, is Theseus’s father, once a dominant leader, he is now losing his power and commitment. He’s also troubled by Medea, his lover, she wants the Athenian throne for her two sons. Jointly with Persephone she persuades Aigeus to attempt to poison Theseus in return for the lifting of a curse, before he realises Theseus is his son.
Among many others, another who stands out is Persephone, the 27-year-old queen of Eleusis. Beautiful and manipulative, she persuades Theseus kill her current husband the King. However, Theseus is more than she had assumed, overcomes the rule that the king must die after one year of rule, and starts a revolution, persuading the men of Eleusis to change the structure of their society to impose their rule on the women. On four occasions Persephone attempts to end Theseus’ life and even attempts suicide when she fails.
Are the characters what makes this novel read so well? Yes, in part, but it is more than the story and more the than the individuals. The King Must Die draws on our love of mythology, the idea that an account is more than just a fiction, but addresses something important about ourselves and our world. Myths are part of the backbone of society, whether they are about the story of Henry Ford, going from a childhood as part of a family of Irish immigrants to creating one of the world’s major companies, Julius Caesar conquering parts of Western Europe, only to die at the hand of some conspirators. They are more than stories, they are larger than life, often partially or totally untrue, but embodying themes that matter to the culture. Henry Ford embodied the view that anyone can make it in business, and Julius Caesar that military might is not the same as universal approbation.
I think that myths are usually seen as part of folklore, narratives that play a fundamental role in society. As such their importance is not in their veracity, though many do involve supernatural being and impossible feats. Rather they justify and explain origins of nations, religions, groups and families, as well as their defining values, symbols and central practices. Honko, a Finnish folklorist is quoted in Wikipedia as offering a succinct explanation of myth:
“Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world and creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society’s religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behaviour to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of a cult”. (pages 41-2 of Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth, UC Press, 1984).
As commonly used by social anthropologists, to use the word ‘myth’ is not to imply whether the narrative may be understood as true or otherwise. In the mid-20th Levi Strauss proposed a structuralist theory of mythology, argued that myths reflect patterns in the mind and interpreted those patterns more as fixed mental structures, specifically pairs of opposites (good/evil, compassionate/callous), rather than about unconscious feelings or urges. This was a little after Malinowski had developed an approach to analysing myths in rather more functional terms. Today both these perspectives have been important in treating myth as a form of narrative that can be studied, interpreted, and analysed like ideology, history, and culture. In other words, “myth is a form of understanding and telling stories that are connected to power, political structures, and political and economic interests”. However, outside of social science, many hold that myth has some type of essential connection to ultimate sacred meanings that transcend cultural specifics.
How does all this help us understand the attraction of a book like The King Must Die. In part, of course, Mary Renault is an excellent writer. Her command of narrative, description and plot complexity is superb. Through that clever device of speaking through Theseus, we are easily swept up, living with him through adventures, dangers and moments of triumph and delight. However, it is more than that. By taking and re-introducing us to an old myth, she is also re-animating the Theseus myth.
First of all, she does this by creating a character who is both unlike anyone else, but also extraordinary. He can hear Poseidon, anticipate earthquakes, and discover secrets. In addition to these skills, he also embodies opposites: a lonely and somewhat isolated boy who is the son of a king, a smaller man he excels in some sports, especially wrestling, using intelligence and strategy to outwit those stronger than himself. He is the ideal character to capture our attention: we want to be like him, an outsider, capable of achieving remarkable feats, willing to take risks. A natural leader, who attracts others to follow him because of his achievements and insights, not because he is the strongest, boldest or toughest in the group.
In the 21st Century, Theseus is best known for killing the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster that lived in the Labyrinth. The standard story is that Theseus volunteered to go to Crete, stripped of his weapons. On his arrival Ariadne, King Minos’ daughter, fell in love with him and, on the advice of Daedalus (who had designed the Labyrinth), she gave him a ball of thread to unwind as he travelled to meet the monster and by which he could find his way out As soon as Theseus entered the Labyrinth, he tied one end of the ball of string to the doorpost and brandished his sword which he had kept hidden from the guards inside his tunic. Theseus followed Ariadne had learnt from Daedalus, to go forwards, always down, and never left or right, and finally met the sleeping Minotaur. The beast awoke and following a tremendous fight Theseus overpowered the Minotaur with his strength and stabbed the beast in the throat with his sword (although in some accounts, Theseus strangled it).
The magic that Mary Renault weaves is to take a story that we ‘know’, a familiar legend, and then retell it in a way that does more than refresh the basic tale, but actually makes it new again. Such a retelling process is the way in which myths are passed on from one generation to another. The basic story that the myth embodies is always there, but it is offered to a new audience – refreshed and made current and timely.
It isn’t always in books, of course. Romeo and Juliet is a well-known Shakespearean romantic tragedy about two lovers each from one of two bitterly opposed families. Written between 1591 and 1595, it was first published a quarto version in 1597 (and later amended). Romeo and Juliet fall in love, initially unaware they come from the two rival families. The stage is set for their desperate attempt to get away, to get away from their families and to get away from the tensions that have kept the families in constant warfare. We hope, forlornly, they will succeed, but we sense from early on this is going to have a tragic ending.
Over more than 400 hundred years the play has entranced and devastated audiences across the globe, and offered directors a challenge as to how to refresh the story. Just as Mary Renault does with Theseus, among many others, two 20th Century directors found a novel ways to ‘re-present’ Romeo and Juliet, in both cases transforming the action to the present.
One of these clever contemporary versions was West Side Story, which first appeared as a 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, The show had an even longer-running West End season, and was followed by a 1961 film adaptation of the musical. The musical converts the rivalry between the Montagues and Capulets families into a tale based on ethnic confrontations. Now the story is about fights between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs – The Sharks, recent migrants from Puerto Rico, and the Jets, New York City whites. In this version, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang’s leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, tragic love story, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
Baz Luhrman’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet) is another take on the familiar story shifting the action to Verona Beach, a fictional location in Miami. In Verona Beach, the Capulets and Montagues are two rival business empires. The animosity of the older generation, Fulgencio and Gloria Capulet and Ted and Caroline Montague, is felt by their younger relatives. Benvolio and Romeo learn of a Capulet party that evening, which they might be able to gate-crash. Romeo agrees to this as Rosaline, with whom he is madly in love, is attending. They meet their friend Mercutio, who is able to get them into to the party. Romeo takes ecstasy, and the effects of the drug and the party overwhelm him. On his way to the restroom, Romeo meets Juliet, and the two instantly fall in love, both unaware of who the other is. Tybalt spots Romeo and vows to kill him for trespassing into his family’s home.
Despite these different setups, West Side Story and Romeo + Juliet remain true to the original in most key respects, with death, misunderstandings and fatal fights slowly ensuring things will come to a ‘sticky end’. We watch these ‘new’ versions, already knowing that the path of this love affair, will be shaped by family tensions and circumstances beyond the control of either lover. No matter: the power of the story ensures we remain entranced.
Mary Renault does the same. The legend of Theseus, the Minotaur, and the Labyrinth is at the centre of many stories, and a basis ripe for retelling for a contemporary audience. It is impossible to go past Cretan King Minos and his wife Pasiphae, who fell in love with a white bull; how her husband’s architect, Daedalus, built a cow-like contrivance in which Pasiphae crouched to fulfill her desire; and how a child, half bull and half human, Asterion or the Minotaur, was born to the queen. A “Labyrinth” is built to imprison the Minotaur, who craved meat and demanded human victims. In the original story Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, betrayed her half-brother by showing the Athenian prince, Theseus, how to negotiate the Labyrinth and kill the monster. As the relentless logic of a tragedy continued, Theseus abandoned Ariadne and married Ariadne’s sister, Phaedra, who, tragically, fell in love with Theseus’s son as a result of an earlier entanglement. It’s quite a story.
Mary Renault is a compelling story-teller. She takes the myth, changes it in some critical and exciting ways. She offers an eminently believable historical setting. Moreover, by subtly changing the fantastical elements in the original concerning monsters and the appearances of gods, she presents us with an archaeologically and anthropologically plausible story, a version of what really happened that was to develop into the myth. It’s a ‘tour de force’.
