The Storyteller: Greek Myths

The Storyteller:
Daedalus, the master who designed this labyrinth. Whose mind produced these dizzy passages. Daedelus the genius, who invented ships which could sail under the sea, fireworks which would knock down a wall, lenses, that set together could see as far as the stars. Fantastic machines. He fell so far, he fell so far from grace he finished a broken man. Making the same little clay figure over and over: a child with wings.

The Dog:
A child with wings? Who was that?

The Storyteller:
The one thing Daedelus made he had no control of. The one thing he ever truly loved. Icarus, his son.

The Storyteller:
Daedalus, the greatest crafstman in Greece, there was no one like him. He was born in Athens.

The Dog:
Like us.

The Storyteller:
And he learned the art of making from the godess Athena herself. But his greatest dream was to fly, to sour through the clouds like a bird.

The Dog:
Is that why his son had wings? Did they both grow wings?

The Storyteller:
No, no, they didn't. Poor Icarus had nothing so graceful as wings. Even his hands were awkward and clumsy.

The Storyteller:
The gods play with us. Into Talos, his sister's boy, went all the joy of creation. A keen eye and a quick wit, as if the two boys had been born to the wrong parent. For Talos was the kind of son Daedelus had dreamed of.

The Storyteller:
Talos fell, twisting and turning like a starfish. He fell so slowly through the air, it seemed to Deadelus he was falling forever, that he never going to land, that he was flying. Then the ground reminded him. It came to meet Talos and jolted him asleep.

Daedalus:
[softly] What have I done?

The Storyteller:
And people say Daedalus did use his brain. The maze he built to imprison the monster, the Minotaur, was designed like the brain itself. And a thousand years later, it still stands here.

The Dog:
So was Minos pleased?

The Storyteller:
Minos was cruel. Minos had two secrets: who the minotoar was and how to get out of the labyrinth. Now Daedelus knew both of them. When the monster was taken to its new prison, Deadelus and Icarus were locked in with it. Down there somewhere, in the heart of the labyrinth.

The Vulture:
Love him, Daedelus, love him to death.

Icarus:
[Daedelus is hugging his son] You're squeezing me. We're not saying goodbye, are we?

The Storyteller:
Daedelus clung to his son on the hill. Then he kissed Icarus and it seemed as if some great bird was feeding it's chick mouth to mouth, as birds do. Or that if Daedelus was willing his knowledge into his clumsy son.

The Dog:
He died?

The Storyteller:
He died.

The Dog:
That's terrible. Why did he fly too high? He promised he wouldn't fly too high.

The Storyteller:
I think when Talos dropped from the sad heights above Athens, Icarus was already falling. As if a single thread held them all together. Talos fell, Icarus fell, Daedelus fell.

Daughter 1:
You're so clever.

Daedalus:
Am I?

Daughter 2:
[pickes up a statue of Icarus] That's funny, a flying boy.

Daedalus:
Yes, it is funny, isn't it. I had a little boy, but he died. And it was my fault. Not so very clever after all, eh?

The Storyteller:
Water took his son from him, water killed the king. But there's no peace in vengeance, no rest in revenge. Daedelus survived, but sometimes he wished he hadn't. Sometims, as he sat in his workshop day upon day, staring at nothing, he wished he had gone back to Crete and a quick death, not the slow dying inside.

The Storyteller:
Orpheus and Eurydice. Two names that will always belong together. Two people who loved each other even beyond the shadow of death itself.

The Storyteller:
When Orpheus played, the whole world wanted to move. It seemed that the roots of the trees would to haul themselves up from the Earth and dance to his rythm.

Orpheus:
[to Eurydice] I am Orpheus. Or... pheus. I have sung storms to sleep. I have made the clashing rocks move away from our ship. I have been to the end of the world and seen things more terrible, more beautiful than I thought could be. But you...

The Storyteller:
Sometimes a story doesn't end with two people falling in love, it starts there.

The Storyteller:
Orpheus wanted to keep her away from the untrimmed trees and the ragged depts of the forests because he knew who was there.

The Dog:
Who was?

The Storyteller:
Centaurs, fauns, satyrs, creatures given up to pleasure, hairy and unpredictable.

The Dog:
Like me.

[laughs]

The Storyteller:
Hairy, anyway.

[scratches the dog's belly]

The Storyteller:
There is almost no sound in Hades.

The Dog:
They have a dog there, don't they?

The Storyteller:
They have a three-headed dog, Cerberus, if you must know. But this isn't a story about dogs, this is the story of Orpheus, who went down into Hades itself to bring back his loved one.

Hades:
Who comes uninvited to my kingdom?

Orpheus:
I am Orpheus, king of Thrace, son of Calliope.

Hades:
And what does King Orpheus seek from Hades?

Orpheus:
The soul now before you in judgement. Eurydice, my wife.

Hades:
No soul returns from my kingdom.

Orpheus:
Love is stronger than death.

Hades:
[laughs] Nothing is stronger than death, little musician.

Hades:
Fear me. I am the bored audience at the theater. A knock on the door when you least expect it. I am the one whose name must not be spoken for fear I hear it and sit next to you. I am the pain in your arm at four in the morning, the headache that will not shift, the sour taste in your mouth of everything you ever did.

Persephone:
Everything must die, Orpheus, the people we love most have to die, even the rocks, the earth itself is eaten away by time. Everything must die, Orpheus.

Orpheus:
[stops playing his flute] To live again!

Hades:
Death is unimpressed.

Charon:
Don't ask me questions, don't sing. Don't remind me of the world. I have my duty, that's enough.

The Storyteller:
He was almost at the entrance to the cave that leads to Hades and he could hear the birds singing outside...

The Dog:
[interrupting] And they walked out into the sunlight and were happily ever after?

The Storyteller:
They didn't. They didn't. [the dog sighs] They didn't.

The Storyteller:
It is always just when you think you have things in your grasp that you close your fingers and find they have gone. Because when we're in love it's our hearts that guide us and betray us all the time.

The Dog:
They're realy wild, those women, what are they doing?

Orpheus:
My lyre must always play. For without music we are nothing. We knead the shapes out of nothing. Tunes out of silence, love out of hate. Music that lasts forever.

The Dog:
[having found a statue of Medusa's head] That face, it's horrible. Where does it come from?

The Storyteller:
A long way away on a rock at the edge of the world, lived a woman with terrible claws, wings of bronze and breath as foul as corpses. Her hair was a nest of poisiones snakes. Hissing, alive. Catch her stare, and she could turn you to stone. Her name was Medusa. The Gorgon. Imagine her looking away and then starting to turn towards you. Slowly... slowly...

Medusa:
Shall we turn and look at them, sisters?

Young Dana?:
[Acrisius locks his daughter in a cel] Father... Father?

Acrisius:
Nothing, now for both of us. No sons, no laughter, no joy, nothing but silences and funerals and things that might have been...

Young Perseus:
What's the world like?

Dana?:
Not like this.

Young Perseus:
What's this then?

Dana?:
A prison.

Young Perseus:
I thought it was the world.

Perseus:
Sometimes I miss the darkness, I miss the shadows and the silence. My house is full of shadows. Come and live with me.

The Dog:
Is that it? The cap of invicibility? Nice!

The Storyteller:
It's dogskin.

The Dog:
I don't believe you! That cap of dogskin? That's disgusting.

The Storyteller:
Well, it is.

The Dog:
Yuck!

Atlas:
Is it a man? All sounds are small. You make such a noise about your destiny. I'm tired of bearing the weight of heavens. And if I let go, the sky will fall on your heads.

Medusa:
I like to be looked at. And I like to look, too.

The Dog:
Who were these other Gorgons? You never mentioned three Gorgons.

The Storyteller:
If I told the whole story your head would burst. There is no one story, there are branches, rooms, like this place. Rooms, corridors, dead ends.

The Dog:
So the Oracle was wrong?

The Storyteller:
What?

The Dog:
Acrisius. The Oracle said Perseus would kill his grandfather and he didn't.

The Storyteller:
I went to the Oracle once. Never ask. You never hear what you hope for.

The Storyteller:
Oh, yes, oracles are true. Stories are true. There are monsters at the end of the world. There are looks that can kill. And who has not been petrified with fear? Ask Athena, warrior daughter of Zeus, weaver, maker of spiders. She will tell you the things I cannot. She will sing the praises of Perseus the hero, father of the Argus, the Gorgon-slayer.

The Dog:
[hearing how Dana? was blessed to bear Perseus] Oh. So *that's* how it's done.

The Dog:
Was it a boy? Did it kill its grandfather? Did it have a poisoned rattle or something?

The Dog:
I don't know who I hate more: this Polydektes or the Gorgon.

The Storyteller:
Ten centuries ago a creature was born. Child of a terrible passion. Son of a queen, son of a bull. A creature so monstrous, Minos, King of Crete had this maze build to hide him. Every seven years there was a blood tribute paid to Crete. Every seven years a black-sailed ship came from Athens. Seven youths in their prime, seven pure maidens were taken as sacrifice. Brought here to the labyrinth, where every passage is a promise broken, Every way out is a way in and where the Minotaur's savage appetite for human flesh could be dealt with in the dark...

Theseus:
[having found his father's sword] Mother, was my father a great warrior?

Aithra:
Your father is a king. Your father is Aegeus, king of Athens.

Theseus:
I will come back, I promise.

Aithra:
Go to Athens by sea. Don't risk the coast road. Danger will find you soon enough.

Theseus:
I seek purification from the king.

Medea:
[sarcastic] Of course you do.

Aegeus:
What is your name, warrior?

Theseus:
Theseus, lord.

Aegeus:
Your lineage?

Theseus:
Some say my father is of the sea, some say he is a great king.

Medea:
The king is insulted by riddles, does he have your allegiance?

Theseus:
I would give my life for him. I would take life from all who are his enemies.

The Dog:
[about Medea] I don't like her, she's a witch.

The Storyteller:
She was a witch, she was also a mother. And she knew Theseus. She knew nothing would stand in his way, not love, not fear, not a promise.

The Storyteller:
As Ariadne came from the labyrinth, ran from monster left with its secrets, Theseus son of Aegeus sailed into Crete. And as the childen of Athens came before her, Theseus the hero stood defiant. As he saw her, as she saw him, the threads of their lives crossed. Tangled, knotted them together.

The Storyteller:
[Theseus has defeated the Minotaur] It lay there on the floor, bleeding to death. And Theseus stood above it with his sword. And as he watched, its huge jaws moved. And it seemed to him as if the sounds coming from them were almost human. Mother, it seemed to say, mother... father... brother... sister.

Ariadne:
No... don't! Don't kill him. He's my brother.

The Storyteller:
And Ariadne watched, pale as sin. Watched and waited for her new lord to join her. Waited for him to lie with her. And when the fire had died to its embers, when the wineskins were dry, when his feet could no longer carry him, Theseus came to her. And all night he promised her anything. Everything. The promise of a man to a woman. The promise his father had made to his mother... and broken.

Ariadne:
THESEUS! SON OF AEGEUS! BREAKER OF PROMISES! BETRAYER!

The Storyteller:
[about Aegeus] His heart broke and he lept out into the dazzling light of the day into the sea, which ever after bares his name.

The Storyteller:
Theseus, son of Aegeus, bullslayer, king of Athens. Many nights he would dream of wondering through the winding corridors of his palace. Looking as he had done once before for a monster to kill. But in the dream, it was always his mother, or his father, or his wife he killed. And when he caught his own reflection, he had the monster's face.

Pursuer:
[from outside the labyrinth the storyteller he was chasing just broke into] Athenian dog!

The Dog:
That's you.

The Storyteller:
At first it was wonderful.

The Dog:
There's a "but" coming.

The Storyteller:
But... [the dog nods]

Ariadne:
Throw him on the ground as the Egyptians kneel to their kings and queens!

The Dog:
She gave him a key? Oh, my goodness, this *is* getting exciting.

The Dog:
What happened? No, don't tell me... No - tell me! Uhh! This is terrible.