The King Must Die

Theseus grows up in Troizen, though to his mind he doesn't actually grow anywhere near enough, believing himself to be the son of Poseidon. This turns out to not be literally true, but Theseus is a devout and sincere matter-of-fact believer, and he hears the voice of the god, so he has two fathers, one a god and one the beleaguered king of Athens. On the way to join his father, he becomes part of a yearly ceremony where an old king dies and a new one marries the queen. Theseus knows that he himself will die when the year is out, but submits to the logic of the rites and sacrifices. Avoiding his fate, he eventually joins his father, only to find himself, for similar reasons of rite and sacrifice and obligation, to volunteer himself as show more part of the annual tribute to Crete. There as a slave he is made into a bull dancer, and because of his pride and confidence and inner certainty, he becomes a supreme bull dancer while remaining true to himself and his sea-god father.

This is told in the voice of Theseus, tough, matter-of-fact and generally straightforward except when he tries to deduce the reasoning of the gods and obey their will and do them honour. He is proud and fierce and pragmatic, but also clear-sighted and sensible. An unusual hero for his grounded sense of his own importance and the profound responsibilities that go with it, particularly his acceptance of the probability that at some point he will have to be made into a human sacrifice. This is a theme that recurs through the book, and the inherent corruption rotting the heart of Crete and bringing down the wrath of the gods is their failure to make this due observance.

A strong, sturdy, sensuous, earthy book, this is an amazingly vivid and fascinating retelling of the old myth as a series of historical events that are nonetheless drenched in the everyday reality of belief on the gods. Brilliant. show less

The past, they say, is a foreign country. One might even go so far as to say that it is another world full of strange wonders and people who both fascinate and repel. I imagine that is why history so intrigues me and I definitely approach the subject with a heaping portion of romance as I in no way attempt to diminish the veneer and lustre which the intervening ages bring to previous eras. Despite this fascination I generally find myself of two minds when it comes to historical fiction. While the subject matter fascinates me and the promise of even vicariously visiting that foreign country, the past, is a powerfully attractive one I often find myself somewhat unimpressed by many of the books I have sampled in the genre which, for one show more reason or another, often fail to capture my interest. Sometimes I am critical of the anachronisms (real or perceived) that seem to litter these books as the writer attempts to make the past perhaps a bit too relatable to our present world. Other times I am simply unimpressed by mediocre writing (I imagine it is no more prevalent in this genre than any other, but somehow it particularly grates when I find it here). Then again, sometimes I am simply not interested in what turns out to be more a history lesson than a story with blood and life to it. I was glad therefore to have found Mary Renault’s _The King Must Die_ which proved to be both well-written, full of particular human interest, and displayed the wonder and strangeness of the past in all of its glory. I also consider it something of a return to the love affair I had in my youth with the Hellenic myths which seemed to fall to the wayside as I grew older and other interests crowded them out.

Renault takes as her subject the early Hellenic expansion among the Greek archipelago when the ancient chthonic mother-goddess religions of the autochthonous peoples (the “earthlings”) were being displaced by the more patriarchal sky-god religions of the invaders. The title of the book itself refers to the ancient tradition that the year-king married the goddess (or more accurately her avatar the high priestess) and would then be killed as a yearly sacrifice to the Great Mother in order to ensure the bounty of the harvest and safety of the people. Into this tradition she incorporates the story of Theseus and his rise to fame and power. The son of an unknown father and the daughter of the king of a tiny Hellenic kingdom, Theseus has grown up believing himself to be the son of the god Poseidon. Theseus comes to learn that some of his preconceptions about his birth may not be literally true, though he never loses the sense that there is a deep connection between himself and the Earth-shaker. I like how Renault handles this aspect of her story. The power of the gods and goddesses of the ancient religions permeates the story and is never simply disproved or denied, yet she also doesn’t make them explicit characters in the story and go fully into the realm of fantasy. There are indications of the ways in which these divinities interact with the world, and it is up to the characters (and the reader) to decide for themselves how to interpret these strange and seemingly coincidental events.

To make a long story short Theseus grows in knowledge and confidence and eventually leaves his tiny home in order to find his fortune, and his earthly father, in the wider world. His journeys take him across the wild and bandit-infested Isthmus of Corinth first to the goddess-ruled city of Eleusis and ultimately to Athens. From his early victories and society-changing actions Theseus is finally driven to the event that will cement his name in the history and myths of his people forever: the yearly tribute of youths from Athens to the kingdom of Minos in Crete. Again Renault does a superlative job of taking what is, on the face of it, an utterly fantastic story and bringing its details down to earth without divesting it of its magic and mythic allure. The Minotaur may not be a true half-man half-beast, but he is no less a fascinating power against which Theseus must stand. The bulk of the novel concentrates on the time Theseus spends in Crete at the labyrinthine court of Minos as leader of a team of bull-dancers. These bull-dancers hold a special place in the hierarchy of Crete, on the one hand they are slaves destined to die at the hand of the god’s creature, the bull; on the other they are sacred and popular athletes who, so long as they survive, are showered with praise, gifts, and glory and are an untouchable segment of the populace, forever kept apart.

All of the elements of the myth are here: the brutal and savage Minotaur looming in the background, the decaying and decadent reign of the monarch known to the world as Minos, the labyrinth built by Daidalos through which Theseus must creep guided only by a thread, and the doomed love of the hero for the unfortunate maiden Ariadne, but they are all subtly transformed. Renault’s transmutation of them in some ways brings them closer to us as they become more plausibly human and understandable as ‘real’ events, but she does not go so far as to allow them to lose the lustre that gives to all true myths the shine and glory which make them everlasting. Of course this is a Greek tale and thus tragedy is a prevalent thread throughout. The tale ends as the first phase of Theseus’ rise and adventures are coming to a close and sets the stage for the final phase of his story in [b:The Bull from the Sea|67693|The Bull from the Sea|Mary Renault|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348588710s/67693.jpg|2077262] to which I look forward (with suitable fear and trembling on behalf of the man unfortunate enough to be the ‘hero’). show less

I've loved Greek (and Roman) myths since I was a kid. I remember fighting with a third-grade classmate over which of us got to check out D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths first when the school library bought it (I got to it; my friend went on to become a professor of classics... I should have let him have it first. Sorry, Paul.). I am not a scholar or a historian, but remember many of the tales well. Daniel Mendelsohn recently wrote a touching essay about what Mary Renault's novels meant to him when he was a teenager, smitten by the classics amidst personal angst. He wrote to her, she wrote back, and they sustained an affectionate epistolary relationship till her death. So I was eager to plunge in for myself, and see what Renault did to show more bring the ancient Greek world, its customs, beliefs, arts, and, in this case, the hero Theseus to life.

Which, for the most part, she does quite wonderfully. The writing is graceful, with a vivid feel for the country, the palaces, the mountains, and its people. It may feel a bit decorated, a bit mannered, which may date it for some tastes. I especially liked how she translated the "magical" episodes of monsters and miracles, gods and curses, into a believable, "natural" reality - Minos becomes an isolated king, disfigured from leprosy, who hides away deep in his palace, wearing a golden mask of a bull to cover his diseased countenance. The tales feel genuine, and a modern reader might easily say, yes, this could very well be how it happened.

The trouble is... Theseus. Theseus is a jerk. He is arrogant, condescending, egotistical, promiscuous, and is forever banging on about his sacred "pride." He kills without compunction, he ridicules other cultures not as macho as his. He believes in his heart he is the god Poseidon's chosen son, so whatever he does is fine because the god supposedly has approved of it. He is also smart, talented, strategic, clever, and brave. But when it comes to women.... Now, I *know* that this is fiction. I *know* that Renault's intent may have been to try to depict Theseus and his time as they were, complete with prejudices, and an appalling contempt for women everywhere he goes. Women are toys, or war booty (the "girls" are divided up along with the gold, the arms, the war horses, etc. to the victors). They are dismissed as entirely silly, selfish, cruel, superficial, cunning, helpless or just a nuisance... or childish, pretty, and f*ckable. The entire city of Eleusis is overjoyed to be "released" by Theseus from a horrible era where the government is run by women. Powerful women are either goddesses (and even then they are fickle, jealous, vengeful, and not to be trusted) or an abomination. So... I puzzle over Renault's intent. How does a woman writer - a gay woman writer - decide to depict women so dreadfully? Of course, we are being given Theseus's own thoughts and point of view throughout, but it's not clear whether this is meant to be an admiring portrait, a truthful portrayal of how women in that society were viewed and treated, or a cautionary tale. All told, I found Theseus to be very annoying company for many pages.

Well, all that said, there are some intimations of growth in the callow young hero. He gets a little smarter about persuasion and leadership. He actually learns to admire and value the skills that the young sacrificial "girls" bring to the bull arena. There are some moments when Theseus comments that now that he is old, with a string of tragedies behind him, he might not have done or said such a thing, or behaved in such a way. So perhaps, in volume 2, our hero's hubris receives its due, and he learns the hard way to be a better man. I'll stick around to find out. show less

I first read this book as a child (who was fascinated by mythology especially the Greek myths) and approached it with some trepidation this time around, remembering very little about it, apart from the fact that I'd been upset by the horse sacrifice near the start of the novel. However, I needn't have worried: for a book first published in 1958 it still holds up very well.

The plot isn't a mystery for anyone who knows something about the mythological story of Theseus, but the interpretation that Renault puts on it is unique. She tells the story from his own viewpoint, looking back over his life, as if it is historical fiction, drawing on all the - then recent - discoveries about Crete such as the Linear B language. For the main meat of show more the book is formed by Theseus' experiences in Crete.

The story begins in his childhood when he learns how to be a king from his grandfather, but always smarts under the stigma of not knowing his father's identity. He is the sole child of the king's daughter and sole surviving child - and comes to believe the story put around that the god Poseidon is his father. This seems confirmed when he starts to experience the kind of 'aura' that animals and birds receive as a warning of earthquakes - to the ancient peoples a sign of Poseidon's anger. But he remains small and light, outgrown by his contemporaries, unlike in the myth, because - more realistically - Renault takes the fact that Theseus later excels at bull leaping to indicate he must have been agile and shorter than average.

Then comes the revelation about his real father and the circumstances around his conception - plus the need to shift a massive stone and take the sword concealed underneath it to his father to claim his birthright. And so the tale gathers momentum. En route, Theseus learns skills and gains experiences that will later serve him well, plus changing for ever the nature of the goddess worship in an intervening town where the old practice of sacrificing the king annually has survived. And his experiences on Crete will change and inform his maturing character for the rest of his life.

I liked the way Renault came up with realistic explanations for all the oddities which myths take for granted, and made Theseus likeable despite the - to our age outrageous - treatment of women, something in which he was following societal norms. The goddess worship had been subsumed into the worship of male gods such as Zeus and Poseidon by this time, apart from in pockets where it survived less transformed, and was regarded with suspicion by men in general. Yet Theseus does gain an awareness while on Crete that the women who have to face the bulls - despite their being labelled always as 'girls' - are just as brave and capable as the men, and that the flighty behaviour of so many women is due to their conforming to what is expected of them in a male dominated society.

The one point which I didn't think Renault quite managed to make convincing was Theseus reason for not painting his sail on his return journey - unlike the myth, he doesn't just forget. But that is such a minor point that the book still deserves a 5-star rating. show less

I love books that transport me. This sparkling, deed-driven, gestural world, conjured up by Mary Renault, is a world I find profoundly attractive. In part, this is because these stories are so deeply embedded in my unconsciousness that although alien, they are also familiar.

That said, the Minotaur of the The King Must Die is not quite the same as the legendary half-man, half-beast of my childhood. As a character in the weave of this tale it is better and more subtle for Mary Renault's art, I think. But it raises questions about veracity, if that can apply to mythology?

Some books bleed into others and I’ve come to The King Must Die immediately after Sylvia Martin’s Passionate Friends; wherein women writers hide behind assumed names. show more Mary Renault was the pen name of Eileen Mary Challans who pioneered novels exploring same-sex love and desire. She and her partner, Julie Mullard, emigrated from Britain, to live in a South African community of gay and lesbian expatriates. However, she was wary of identifying herself primarily by sexual orientation and was hostile towards the gay rights movement.

No doubt there are learned texts about the influence of Renault’s sexuality on her writing style, but if a writer’s sexuality has any relevance, then, in my opinion, here, it serves to make the clear air that contributes to the unfamiliar atmosphere and the timelessness of these gripping stories where there are abundant forms of sexuality and sex. Some of the most moving scenes involve love making, but of course, there is much more.

There are as many powerful women as there are men in these stories. I say stories because while the overarching story is of Theseus’s journey from boyhood to kingship, there are many sub-stories several of which: Medea and Phaedra are not contained within the arc of the narrative.

Regardless of the currency of her Greek scholarship, I found Mary Renault’s invocation of the cosmology of the Attic world with its gods and heroes utterly absorbing. So much of the power of this book is in the detail. Nowhere more than where death occurs. Many kings die, as they must in this world where succession needs be god-sanctioned.

The relationships between men, women and gods is both utilitarian and dutiful. But it is humanity that shines through: Men are only men

But I was in no danger of over-eating. It killed ones hunger to see even great lords (some of whom I knew to hate him) fawning upon Asterion, changing their faces in time with his like soldiers drilling. While he cracked coarse jokes, his eyes missed nothing. I saw him watch guess out of hearing as if he could read their lips, and his stewards lingered like spies. p.251.

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The story of the legendary Greek hero Theseus, told in exciting action-heavy prose, with a surprising eye to historical plausibility.

The myth of Theseus is particularly interesting from a historical perspective, because it was long thought that the Minoans of Crete were mostly mythological. Historical sources that tell the story of Theseus set the events in the ancient past. It wasn't until the 1920's that archaeologists dug up the palace at Knossos and documented the seat of Minoan civilization in detail.

This book, written in the 1950's, takes all of the details of the myth and imagines them through the lens of the available historical facts. There are very few anachronisms in this book. The ways that the people behave align perfectly show more with the world they are presented within. Theseus behaves like an ancient Greek, speaking and making decisions with the tone and priorities of a hero from the Iliad, but with the warmth and realism of a solid contemporary depiction. Theseus is bold, principled, honorable, and foolish. He is proud of himself and shamelessly absurdly horny, but with a layer of vulnerability and realistic self-awareness that comes across as charming. Theseus loves deeply and his perspective is usually generous, though some aspects of his character distance him from the modern reader: most notably his casual familiarity with death and killing. show less

A wonderful blend of myth and historical fiction, all told by Theseus as he progresses from childhood in Troizen, until he learns that his father is King of Athens. He starts for Athens by chariot, but is stopped in Eleusis, where he becomes the King who must Die. But this is not his fate (moira), and so he goes on to Athens where, having made himself known to the King, he gives himself the Cretan tribute takers, to honour Poseidon.
And so he comes to Minoan Crete, the Labyrinth and the Minotaur. A story splendidly reimagined.

I read Renault’s highly enjoyable Alexander novels about 35 years ago and I don’t know what has taken me so long to pick up this book. The language is slightly dated (published in 1958), but for me this show more captures the archaism when writing about the Bronze Age. [For example, She had that vein of wildness which stirs a man because it lies deep, like Hephaistos’ fire which only the earthquake loosens from the mountain.

Brilliant. show less