The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault

First published:The King Must Die, 1958; The Bull from the Sea, 1962

Type of work: Mythological romances

Time of work: Sometime during the Mycenaean Age in Greece

Locale: Various sites on the Greek mainland as well as on Crete and other Aegean islands

Principal Characters:

• Theseus, a renowned Attican hero, who eventually succeeds his father, Aigeus, as king of Athens
• Pittheus, a king of Troizen, whose daughter, Aithra, is Theseus’ mother
• Ariadne, the eldest daughter of the king of Crete, Minos, and his queen, Pasiphae
• Asterion (Minotauros), Pasiphae’s son from an adulterous union with an Assyrian bull-dancer
• Orpheus, the Thracian minstrel who assists Theseus in establishing a mystery religion at Eleusis
• Poseidon, the Sea God and Earth-Shaker, who is Theseus’ tutelary deity
• Pirithoos, the adventure-loving king of the Lapiths, with whom Theseus forms a fast friendship
• Hippolyta, an Amazon queen, who becomes Theseus’ lover and comrade-in-arms
• Hippolytos, the natural son of Theseus by Hippolyta
• Old (Chiron) Handy, a wise and gentle Kentaur
• Oedipus, the sightless Theban king now wandering about Greece in self-imposed exile
• Phaedra, the younger sister of Ariadne, whom Theseus formally weds after the death of Hippolyta
• Menestheus, a demagogue who usurps the throne of Athens during Theseus’ waning years

The Novels

The life of the legendary Attican hero Theseus spanned a period of approximately fifty years. In The King Must Die, Mary Renault delineates the course of his life up to the age of eighteen, when he assumes the kingship of Athens; in The Bull from the Sea, she recounts the vicissitudes of Theseus’ subsequent career to his death on the Aegean isle of Skyros. The opening section of Renault’s earlier novel is set in the Peloponnesian city of Troizen, where Theseus’ maternal grandfather, Pittheus, is king. It is here that King Aigeus of Athens once stopped over for the purpose of boarding a ship that would take him across the Saronic Gulf back to Attica. Aigeus was returning from a visit to the Delphic Oracle, whose advice he had sought on the matter of how best to put an end to his childless state. Unfortunately, the response of the priestess was too obscure to be of any help. While Aigeus is still in Troizen, Pittheus receives an oracle of his own from a local priestess directing him to sacrifice the maidenhead of his daughter, Aithra, to appease the wrath of the Earth Mother. He therefore arranges a sexual union between Aithra and his Athenian guest. Before Aigeus resumes his journey, he buries a sword and a pair of sandals under a huge rock and instructs Aithra to send any male offspring from their union to Athens when the child comes of age, provided that he is able to move the rock and retrieve the buried objects. A boy is born in due course and is named Theseus. Since enemies of Aigeus would surely attempt to kill any offspring of his who might have a claim to the kingship of Athens, the true identity of Theseus’ father is kept secret from the people of Troizen as well as from the boy himself. Pittheus, moreover, adroitly encourages everyone to accept the rumor that Theseus is the son of Poseidon.

It is only when Theseus reaches the age of seventeen that his mother invites him to test his strength by lifting the rock under which Aigeus has buried the sword and the pair of sandals. After failing to dislodge the rock through sheer strength alone, Theseus decides to substitute wit for brawn by employing a lever to aid him in the task and thus succeeds in reclaiming the buried objects. He is, thereupon, informed for the very first time that he is the son of Aigeus and has now duly qualified himself to claim his birthright as the Athenian king’s heir. Theseus chooses to go to Athens by the hazardous land route over the isthmus rather than by sea. At Eleusis, a city located fourteen miles northwest of Athens, Theseus finds himself forced to engage in mortal combat with a man named Kerkyon. After killing him, Theseus learns that Kerkyon’s death was part of a matriarchal ritual in which the consort to the Queen is sacrificed annually and that he himself is the new Year-King. Acting on the basis of his own strong patriarchal instincts, Theseus quickly sets about organizing activities among the menfolk of Eleusis that are aimed at putting an end to the worship of the Earth Mother as well as to the social dominance of women. These efforts are strongly opposed by the Queen’s brother. When the two fight a duel, the men of Eleusis side with Theseus and help him turn defeat into victory. Theseus then goes to Athens to be purified for having shed the blood of a kinsman and uses the occasion to reveal his identity to Aigeus. Even though Theseus is convinced that his destiny lies in Athens, he still returns to Eleusis briefly out of concern for the welfare of his comrades there. Once back in Eleusis, he is declared king and the queen commits suicide. Prior to departing for Athens again, Theseus replaces the matriarchal form of worship with a mystery religion espoused by an itinerant Thracian bard named Orpheus.

Many Greek cities at that time were obliged to pay tribute to the ruler of Crete because a member of his royal household had once been killed in a brawl on the mainland. It was mandated that a number of young men and women were to be dispatched on a periodical basis to serve as bull-dancers in the arena located within the labyrinthine palace at Knossus. In addition to providing amusement for the effete nobility of Crete, the highly lethal sport of bull-dancing constituted a religious ritual whose purpose was to appease the wrath of Earth-Shaker Poseidon. Following Theseus’ return to Athens, seven youths and seven maidens were scheduled to be chosen by lot for the bullring at Knossus. Much to the dismay of Aigeus, who decided not to enter his son’s name in the lottery, Theseus volunteers to replace one of the youths who was selected. Under his skillful coaching, the Athenian contingent not only manages to survive for a full year but also returns to Athens without the loss of a single member. Their escape from Crete occurs shortly after its ruler, Minos, requests Theseus to kill him as a means of thwarting the political machinations of his potential successor, Asterion, who is the illegitimate offspring of his deceased wife and an Assyrian bull-dancer. It turns out, however, that this power-hungry opportunist has already had sufficient time to coerce most of the island’s nobility into supporting his claim to the kingship. When the coronation ceremony is disrupted by an earthquake, Theseus seizes the moment to slay Asterion. He then sets sail back to Greece along with the rest of his team. Accompanying them is Minos’ eldest daughter, Ariadne, whose admiration for Theseus’ daring performances in the bullring led her to become his lover. Theseus abandons her during a stopover at the island of Naxos, however, when he comes to view her with revulsion because of her zealous participation in the bestial orgies that take place during the annual slaying of the Year-King in the presence of Dionysos himself.

The concluding chapter of The King Must Die and the opening one of The Bull from the Sea overlap in content insofar as each of them recounts the incident of Theseus failing to replace the black sail with a white one as the vessel approaches the Greek mainland, so that Aigeus might receive advance notice of his son’s safe return. Instead of keeping the promise that he made to his father, Theseus refers the matter to Poseidon and receives a sign instructing him to retain the black sail. Theseus is obviously impatient to become ruler of Attica. Grief-stricken at the sight of the black sail, Aigeus jumps over a cliff to his death, and Theseus sets foot in Athens as king. Among the more memorable incidents depicted in The Bull from the Sea is one in which Theseus encounters Oedipus outside Athens and is witness to the death of the former king of Thebes amid an earthquake. Another impressive episode deals with Theseus’ participation in the legendary battle that erupts at the wedding of the Thessalian king named Pirithoos the Lapith, when a band of Kentaurs seeks to abduct the bride. The Kentaur king, Old Handy, is entirely different from his unruly subjects, and both Theseus and Pirithoos hold him in great esteem for his wisdom as well as his healing powers. A short time after the wedding, Pirithoos convinces Theseus that the two of them should join Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. While in the region of the Amazons at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Theseus is caught observing the secret rituals of the Moon-Maidens and is compelled to engage Queen Hippolyta in single combat. Victorious in the duel, Theseus takes her back to Athens as a concubine. She subsequently bears him a son, and he names the infant Hippolytos in her honor, although to do so is against custom in a patriarchal society. When the Amazons mount a rescue attempt on Hippolyta’s behalf by forming the vanguard of a Scythian invasion of Greece, she sacrifices her life for Theseus while assisting him in repelling an enemy attack against the ramparts of the Acropolis.

Emotionally devastated by Hippolyta’s death, Theseus takes to roving with Pirithoos and sacking cities throughout the Mediterranean. After having indulged himself in such nefarious activities for more than a dozen years, he directs his attention toward stabilizing political relations with the island of Crete. To this end, he decides to enter into matrimony with Phaedra, the younger sister of Ariadne. When she subsequently bears him a son, Theseus is convinced that the vassalage imposed on the island after he and his grandfather conquered it several decades earlier will now evolve into a permanent dynastic union with Athens. Before long, things go awry: Phaedra falls hopelessly in love with Hippolytos. Resentful because her advances are spurned, Phaedra falsely accuses Hippolytos of raping her in response to an omen bidding him to consecrate her as a priestess of the Earth Mother so as to restore the matriarchal form of worship. When Theseus confronts him, Hippolytos is unable to deny Phaedra’s charges because of a priestly oath that he has sworn to remain silent. Theseus, thereupon, invokes the curse of Poseidon upon Hippolytos and sends him into exile. The truth comes to light only because Theseus’ son by Phaedra informs him of Hippolytos’ innocence. The boy makes this disclosure in the hope of appeasing the wrath of Poseidon after his father announces that an earthquake is imminent. The earthquake, nevertheless, occurs as Hippolytos is driving his chariot near the seashore, and both the driver and his team of horses are crushed by a tidal wave that engulfs them. Hippolytos is on the point of death when Theseus arrives on the scene, and there is barely time for a tearful reconciliation. Theseus’ next encounter with Phaedra is a lethal one, for he strangles her forthwith. Once again, Theseus seeks distraction through piratical adventures, but he soon suffers a stroke that incapacitates him permanently. As a result, a new king is able to assume power in Athens and Theseus goes into exile on the island of Skyros. Broken in spirit as well as in body, Theseus is now convinced that his destiny has finally run its course, and he leaps into the sea from a cliff to his death.

The Characters

In accordance with mythological tradition, Mary Renault depicts Theseus as growing up with the conviction that Poseidon is his father. Her view of Theseus is, however, unique in two major ways. First, she endows Theseus with an “earthquake-aura” that enables him to sense in advance whenever an earthquake is imminent. This proof of Poseidon’s partiality toward him manifested itself unequivocally in his final year of service at a temple dedicated to the sea god, where he was obliged to reside one out of every four months from age eight to age ten. Second, Renault rejects the view that Theseus was a man of gigantic size. In an author’s note appended to The King Must Die, she argues to the contrary by stating that “a youth accepted for the bull-dance can only have had the slight, wiry build which its daring acrobatics demanded” and that Theseus’ heroic feats may, in part, represent “the overcompensation of a small, assertive man.” Within the novel itself, she describes how, while still a boy, Theseus found it difficult to reconcile his divine lineage with his smaller-than-average stature and how, on many occasions, he felt the need to reassure himself of his descent from Poseidon by performing deeds of great valor.

Theseus, at age six, is indoctrinated into the concept of kingship by his grandfather after witnessing the sacrifice of a noble white stallion in honor of Poseidon. Pittheus explains that the office of king is a sacred duty imposed by the gods themselves and that a true king must always be willing to sacrifice his life for the people whenever he receives a divine sign indicating that his moira (fate) is fulfilled. Both Aigeus and Pittheus exemplify all the qualities associated with a true king. Even Minos, for all of his faults, proves to be capable of sacrificing his life on behalf of his people when he finds it necessary to oppose Asterion. This villainous usurper, also called Minotauros (bull of Minos) because of his squat build, seeks the kingship of Crete without having received any indication of divine sanction, and Theseus welcomes the opportunity to punish him for this sacrilege. Although not immediately apparent, Asterion’s half sisters Ariadne and Phaedra are in like manner morally corrupt and mirror the decadence of the semi-Hellenized nobility of Crete.

Hippolyta, notwithstanding her matriarchal proclivities, is Theseus’ true love, for this warrior maiden fully shares his belief in the sacred nature of the kingship. Accordingly, Theseus views her selfless death on his behalf as the epitome of kingly virtue. His attitude toward Hippolytos, on the other hand, is fraught with ambiguity. Theseus is actually envious of his son’s prepossessing appearance and tall stature. Theseus is also perplexed by the youth’s androgynous character. In contrast to the uncompromising masculinity of his father, Hippolytos dedicates himself to the worship of the goddess Artemis and is still a virgin at age seventeen. He is, moreover, almost Christlike in his healing powers. Theseus never manages to advance to the moral level of Hippolytos, but owing to his steadfast willingness to consent to the dictates of destiny, he maintains an aura of genuine nobility throughout both novels.

Critical Context

It is generally conceded that Mary Renault’s first novel about Theseus is vastly superior to its sequel. While the plots of both novels are equally imaginative, The Bull from the Sea does not equal the aesthetic merit of The King Must Die either in terms of stylistic richness or in terms of character development. Especially fine is the section that depicts Theseus’ adventures on the island of Crete. This section may very well be the finest achievement of Renault’s entire literary oeuvre. There can, moreover, be no doubt that The King Must Die ranks, along with The Last of the Wine (1956) and The Mask of Apollo (1966), as one of Renault’s most important novels. The literary establishment has, on the whole, chosen to regard novels written about mythological or historical subjects with condescension; few critics, with the exception of Peter Wolfe and Bernard F. Dick, have seen fit to undertake a serious analysis of Renault’s career as a novelist. The reading public at large, however, has responded most positively to her writings, and there is every indication that The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea will continue to enjoy popularity among those lovers of mythology who take delight in twice-told tales.

Bibliography

Dick, Bernard F. The Hellenism of Mary Renault, 1972.

Ward, Anne G. The Quest for Theseus, 1970.

Wolfe, Peter. Mary Renault, 1969.