There was a road between tall black cypresses, leading to the sea, and by it a little wineshop, such as peasants seek at evening when they unyoke their teams, a mulberry tree above the benches, hens scratching, a couple of goats and one young heifer; and a little house of daub-and-wattle, old and tottering, all drowsy in the quiet sun. Beyond was the flat sour sea-meadow, the long harsh plain between bay and mountains. The blue sea lapped on a beach piled high with wrack and driftwood; slow shadows of clouds, grape purple, swept the sunny mountains. A thin poor grass, with yellow coltsfoot, stretched from the shore to the olive trees. Among the flowers, like a great white block of quarried marble, stood the Cretan bull.
I hitched my horse to a cypress and went softly forward. It was Old Snowy, sure enough. I could even see the paint of the bull ring still upon his horns. The gilt stripes caught the sun, but the tips were dirty. It was turned noon, the hour of the bull-dance.
You could see he was on edge, if you knew bulls, by the way he looked about him as he grazed. Far off as I was, he saw me, and his forefoot raked the ground. I went off to think. There was no sense in stirring him up before I was ready.
I mounted again; my horse slowed before the little wineshop. There was the heifer, honey-colored, with a soft brown eye. I thought how bulls are caught in Crete, and laughed at my own slowness. So I tied my horse to the mulberry tree and went and knocked at the door.
A slow step shuffled, the door opened a crack, and an old eye peeped out. “Let me in, Mother,” I said. “I want a word with your husband.”
“You’ll be a stranger here,” she said, and opened. Inside it was like a wren’s nest, so spare and neat; she must have been widow longer far than wife. She was shrunk so small, she looked to be near a hundred. Her eyes were still bright and blue, but it seemed as if a breath would blow her away; so I waited, not to give her a start.
“Young man,” she said, “you’ve no business walking abroad. Didn’t you hear the crier? The High King of Athens sent for everyone to keep within doors, till he brings his army. There’s a mad bull loose in the fields; they say it came from the sea. Well, poor lad, come in, come in, the guest of the land is holy. I can tell by your speech you’re from foreign parts.” I went humbly inside. She was the first to tell me I had picked up a Cretan accent in the Bull Court.
She shuffled about, dipping a measure of wine into a clay cup, and filling from the water-crock. She sat me on a three-legged stool and gave me barley bread with goat-cheese. It was time in courtesy to account for myself; but I did not want to flutter her. I said, “The Good Goddess bless you, Mother; I shall work better for that. I am the bull-catcher from Athens, come to take the bull.”
“Mercy!” she cried. “What can the King be thinking of? One young lad alone, for a great bull in his rage? You should go back to him, and tell him it won’t do. He won’t know the ways of cattle, he hires others for that.”
“The King knows me. I learned my trade in Crete, where that bull comes from. And that’s what brings me here, Mother; can I borrow your cow?”
The poor soul quivered all over, and her mouth opened like an empty purse. “Take my poor Saffron for that wicked beast to murder? And the High King with a thousand of his own?”
“Murder?” I said. “Not he. But she’ll quiet him down; and if he serves her, she’ll throw you the finest calf in Attica; you can sell it for a fortune.” She went to the little window, muttering and near tears. “Be good to me, Grannie,” I said, “for the sake of all the people.”
She turned round. “Poor boy, poor boy. Braving the bull with your own flesh and bones; what’s my cow to that? Take her, lad, and the All-Mother keep you.”
I kissed her cheek. The goodness green in the withered trunk came like a kindly omen, after old Mykale. “I’ll see you right with the King, Mother, I swear by my head, if I get safe home. Tell me your name and give me something to write on.” She brought me a worn wax tally from the shop; I smoothed out the old scores, and wrote, “The King owes Hekaline three cows, a hundred jars of sweet wine, and a strong good slave-girl. If I die, let the Athenians send to Delphi, and ask Apollo how to choose a king. Theseus.” She peered at it, nodding; of course she could not read. “Keep that safe, and give me your blessing, Mother. I must go.” As I walked off leading the heifer, I saw her bright little eye at the shutter’s chink.
Podargos had gone further off. I was going after, when I saw something on the beach, too white for driftwood. It was a body, almost bare. Then I went running; for it wore the dress of the Bull Court.
It was a girl from my team in Crete, one of the tribute-maids from Athens. She had set out to the bull with more pride than I had; as well as the loin-guard, she had put on her gilded boots, her handstraps, and all her jewels, and painted her face for the ring. There was a great tear in her side that must have gone through her liver. She was dying; but she knew me, and spoke my name.
I knelt beside her, saying “Thebe! What is this? Why didn’t you wait for me; you must have known I would be coming.”
Her eyes were bright and wandering, and she gaped for air as the dark blood flowed away. Theseus!” she said. “Is Pylia dead?”
I looked about, finding first a bull-net, then the second girl, lying half in the sea where the horns had tossed her. I came back and said, “Yes, she is. She must have died quickly.” They had been lovers in Crete, after the custom of the Bull Court.
She put up her hand and felt the wound in her side. “I need the ax; can you do it?”
They use it in the ring to dispatch the victims. I said, “No, my dear, I have nothing; but it won’t be long. Keep hold of my hand.” I thought how I had watched over them in the Labyrinth, trained them, heartened them, and jumped the bull for them on their bad days, only for this.
“We have done what is best.” You will see sometimes with a warrior going before his wounds are cold, that he will talk and talk, then snuff out like a dead lamp. “We came back too proud, and our kinsfolk hate us.”
She paused, gasping. I stroked her brow and felt the clammy sweat.
“My father called me a brazen trull, for vaulting our old ox to show the boys. And Pylia, they found her a clerk to marry. Soft as a pig. In Crete we’d have thrown him to the bull. They said she was lucky to get him, having lived a mountebank and a public show.”
I said softly, “They should have spoken those words to me.” But there was no one to be angry with, only the dying and the dead.
“They called us haters of men. Oh, Theseus! There is nothing left like the Bull Court. No honor … so we tried …” Her head sank back, and her eyes were setting, when she opened them again and clenched her hand on mine and said, “He gores to the right.” Then her soul went out in the death-gasp.
Her hand slipped from mine, and it left me lonely. The Bull Court was gone indeed. But as I got to my feet I saw along the mud flats a great white shape, wicked and noble, smelling the wind. There was still the bull.
I walked along the trees till I found a thick old olive, the last before the sea. I tethered the cow there, and tied the great hide bull-rope, with its running hobble, strongly round the tree. Then I climbed up with the net and hung it between two branches, lying easily. There was nothing left but to call upon the gods. I chose Apollo, since the Cretan bulls are bred from his sacred herd, and promised him this one if he would help me to take it. Then I went to work.
Podargos had his back to me, switching his tail at flies. I licked my finger to feel the wind, hoping the heifer’s scent might draw him. But the breeze blew from the sea.
Out on the sea-meadow I stepped, a pace at a time. The soil was caked and sun-dried, not good to run on. I did not want to get too far from the tree. I pitched a stone or two, but they fell far short of him. So I went further out, alone with my short noon shadow among dry yellow flowers, and threw again. The stone just hit him, though nearly spent, and he looked over his shoulder. I waved, to draw him. He would be fast as a war-chariot, once he charged. He swung down his head, and gave me a hard look, as if to say, “I am resting now; be thankful, and do not tempt me.” And he moved a little away.