This is my final post about The King Must Die. It will have spoilers. They will be the sort of spoilers that make you want to read the book.

Like any good literary book with a strong theme, this one announces the theme in its title. The King Must Die. Why? Why must the king die? The entire story is an effort to provide the answer.

A Rude Awakening: the Death of the King Horse

The first major incident in the book involves the slaughter of a sacred horse. Theseus, who is about seven at the time, loves this horse. It is the “king horse,” the stallion of the sacred herd. Theseus, who has been told that the god Poseidon is his father, thinks of this horse as his literal brother. He is taken to the sacred island to attend a special ceremony. He has no idea that this ceremony is going to culminate in the slaughter of the horse he adores.

It was a good clean killing. I myself, with all Athens watching, am content to do no worse. Yet, even now, I still remember. How he reared up like a tower, feeling his death, dragging the men like children; the scarlet cleft in the white throat, the rank hot smell; the ruin of beauty, the fall of strength, the ebb of valor; and the grief, the burning pity as he sank upon his knees and laid his bright head in the dust. That blood seemed to tear the soul out of my breast, as if my own heart had shed it.

As the newborn babe, who has been rocked day and night in his soft cave knowing no other, is thrust forth where the harsh air pierces him and fierce light stabs his eyes, so it was with me.

p. 13

This is the first king to die in the story. And for Theseus, it is also a kind of death, and a kind of birth. He is the grandson of a king, and this is his birth into the world where the king must die.

Then Theseus is “dedicated.” This involves smearing the horse’s blood on his forehead. But when his older cousin tells him “Come, you must be dedicated,” he thinks that he is about to be sacrificed like the King Horse. So the little boy steps forward in his first act of courage, ready to give his life. And for the first time, he senses the presence of the god Poseidon with him.

Theseus’s grandfather, the king, notices that his grandson is struggling with what just happened. Later, in grandfather’s upper room, the two of them have a talk.

The Lord Poseidon, who rules everything that stretches under the sky, the land and the sea. He told the King Horse, and the King Horse led [our ancestors to new grazing grounds].”

I sat up; this I could understand.

“When they needed new pastures, they let him loose; and he, taking care of his people as the god advised him, would smell the air seeking food and water. Here in Troizen, when he goes out for the god, they guide him round the fields and over the ford. We do that in memory. But in those days he ran free. The barons followed him, to give battle if his passage was disputed; but only the god told him where to go.

And so, before he was loosed, he was always dedicated. The god only inspires his own. Can you understand this, Theseus?

The King Horse showed the way; the barons cleared it; and the King led the people. When the work of the King Horse was done, he was given to the god, as you saw yesterday. And in those days, said my great-grandfather, as with the King Horse, so with the King.”

I looked up in wonder; and yet, not in astonishment. Something within me did not find it strange.

“Horses go blindly to the sacrifice; but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira [=destiny]. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never.

“Later the custom altered. Perhaps they had a King they could not spare, when war or plague thinned the Kindred. Or perhaps Apollo showed them a hidden thing. But they ceased to offer the King at a set time. They kept him for the extreme sacrifice, to appease the gods in their greatest angers … And it was no one’s place to say to him, ‘It is time to make the offering.’ He was the nearest to the god, because he consented to his moira; and he himself received the god’s commandment.”

He paused; and I said, “How?”

“In different ways. And so it is still, Theseus. We know our time. Listen, and do not forget, and I will show you a mystery. It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all. It washes heart and mind from things of no account, and leaves them open to the god. But one washing does not last a lifetime; we must renew it, or the dust returns to cover us.”

pp. 16 – 19

Thus the king of Troizen lays out the entire rationale for Hellene royal sacrifice. Perhaps you have already noticed a few Bible Easter eggs. “Behold, I tell you a mystery” and Jesus saying, “The Father loves me because I lay down my life. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:17 – 18) Those few lines map exactly onto what Theseus’s grandfather has just told us, albeit with perfect clarity instead of wrapped in mysterious ancient customs.

Was all this really present in the culture of the ancient Greeks and their Indo-European forebears? Or is Renault reading it back into that culture from the Bible? Or, did Jesus borrow all this from the ancients? I’m looking into it.

You might think that Theseus’s grandfather’s speech is too heavy-handed; showing instead of telling. But Renault knows what she is doing. This is not the whole secret of the book laid bare within the first twenty pages. It is only the beginning. This instruction from his grandfather sets Theseus’s attitude towards the god, himself, and his duty. It will guide how he responds to things throughout the rest of the book.

All the Kings that Die

Spoiler time. Here is a quick list of all the kings whose death Theseus causes or witnesses in this book:

• Kerkyon, the “king” of Eleusis. This young man is a “solar king,” that is, he lives in a matriarchal society where the king reigns for only one year and then is killed by his successor. Thesus gets chosen as the next solar king and kills Kerkyon in hand to hand combat. Then he becomes the next Kerkyon.
• Minos. Minos is dying and has no legitimate heir. He eventually becomes aware of Theseus and asks him to kill him using the sacred double-headed axe that has been used by kings in Crete from ancient times.
• Astarion, the “Minotaur.” In this version of the story, Astarion is Pasiphae’s illegitimate son by an Assyrian bull-dancer. He is angling for the throne of Crete, and after Minos dies he has himself crowned king. A priest anoints him with oil and puts on him the sacred gold bull-mask. Theseus interrupts the ceremony and fights Astarion, who is still wearing the sacred mask. Though he gained the throne by illegitimate means and held it for only a few minutes, technically Astarion is another king whom Theseus kills.
• The solar king on the island of Dia. Theseus, Ariadne, and the fleeing bull-dancers make a stop on this island on the way home to Athens. It happens to be on the day of the year that the Dionysian rite will take place, where the past year’s king is torn to pieces by the Maenads.
• Theseus’s father Aigeus. Aigeus kills himself by leaping from the cliff of Athens when he sees that the returning ship is bearing a dark blue Cretan sail instead of a white one. Leaping from the cliff is the traditional way that kings of Athens have been known to “make the sacrifice” when the god calls them.

All of these tragic events might seem like an unrelated potpourri of senseless suffering. But actually, they are all closely bound up with each other, and we can see it if we look at the Hellene, Minyan, and Cretan attitudes towards sacrifice.

Other Sacrifices

Sacrifice is everywhere in this ancient world. Every year, the people of Troizen kill a “scapegoat,” a non-royal person that they have decided is causing their troubles. There are animal sacrifices, there are libations of wine poured out, and so forth. The priestess, when she goes to do divination, offers the “house snake” a dish of milk. In Crete, when a man is going to become king, he throws a ring into the sea to “marry the sea lady.” I want to here mention two notable sacrifices that royal characters make.

Early in the book, we learn that during a time of drought and plague, Theseus’s mother sacrifices her virginity. Typical of ancient pagan thinking, when none of the gods of the Hellenes claimed responsibility for the plague, the king, with increasing desperation, finally figured out that the god who was angry was “the Mother.” He offers a “holocaust” (a burnt offering) of pigs all around the large mossy rock in the Mother’s shrine, but apparently this is not sufficient. The old priestess, who is unattractive and dislikes pretty girls, tells the king that his fifteen-year-old daughter must “hang up her girdle for the Mother.” This means she must go to the “myrtle house” (a shrine on the sacred island) and give herself to the first man who shows up, as an offering to the Mother. Then the drought will stop.

It’s an incredibly poignant scene as the king, now a grandfather, describes to Theseus how he felt he could not get out of this. He goes to his daughter about it, and she says of course she is willing to make this sacrifice to save the life of the people.

As it happens, the king of Athens is visiting Troizen, and he agrees to go and visit the young princess on the island so that at least her experience will be with a man who is kind, and whom she has met before. But the king of Troizen cannot tell his daughter that this is going to happen, because as a member of the royal family, she has to go to the sacrifice consenting. “The readiness is all.” So the king of Athens swims over to the sacred island and becomes Theseus’s father. As he jumps into the water, a thunderstorm is already coming to end the drought.

Later, Theseus sacrifices himself for his people when he volunteers to go to Crete as part of the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. He feels the god Poseidon calling him to do this, “sending him to the bulls.” (The bull-dance of Crete is actually a sacrificial rite in honor of Poseidon.) At first, Theseus resists. He tries to offer the god his horses instead, but he can feel the presence of the god withdrawing from him in response to this. So, in a moment of anguish, he makes the decision to give up his life in Athens, with his father and eventually the throne. Going to Crete does not mean instant death, though it’s understood that bull-dancers last a maximum of six months in the ring. But it is a death to all of Theseus’s hopes and dreams.

Two Attitudes to Sacrifice

As I’ve hinted in this and in previous posts, the customs of the earth-mother-worshipping Minyans differ quite a bit from those of the sky-god-worshipping Hellenes when it comes to sacrifice. In contrast to the Hellene approach laid out in the first section of this post by Theseus’s grandfather, the Minyan solar “kings” are not really kings at all, but more like sacrificial animals. The “king” serves as the consort of the priestess/queen for one year. During this time, he is pampered in every way, sort of like fattening an animal for slaughter, but he has no real power. The queen, together with the other matriarchs, is one who conducts the business of the land. In Eleusis, the war chief is not the queen’s husband but her brother. In these “earthling” societies, the important thing is not how the king dies but simply that he die.

Just inshore, the road sloped upwards to a flat open place at the foot of a rocky bluff. Stairs led up to the terrace where the Palace stood: red columns with black bases, and yellow walls. The cliff below it was undercut; the hollow looked dark and gloomy, and had a deep cleft in its floor that plunged into the earth. The breeze bore from it a faint stench of rotten flesh.

She pointed to the level place before it, and said, “There is the wrestling ground.”

I looked at the cleft and said, “What happens to the loser?”

She said, “He goes to the Mother. At the autumn sowing his flesh is brought forth and plowed into the fields, and turns to corn.”

ibid, p. 68

It is not the king’s life, his attitude, his self-sacrifice, or his leadership that the goddess-worshippers need, but only his rotting body, his symbolic and literal death.

This system produces a fatalism in Minyan “kings” that is very different from the warrior spirit of the Hellenes.

As we met each other’s eyes, I thought, “He has stood where I stand now, and the man he fought with is bones under the rock.” And then I thought, “He has not consented to his death.”

I drank of the mixed drink, and the priestess gave it to the King. He drank deep. The people gazed at him; but no one cheered. Yet he stripped well, and bore himself bravely; and for a year he had been their king. I remembered what I had heard of the old religion. “They care nothing for him,” I thought, “though he is going to die for them, or so they hope, and put his life into the corn. He is the scapegoat. Looking at him, they see only the year’s troubles, the crop that failed, the barren cows, the sickness. They want to kill their troubles with him, and start again.”

I was angry to see his death not in his own hand … But I saw from his face that none of this came strange to him; he was bitter at it, but did not question it, being Earthling as they were.

“He too,” I thought, “would think me mad if he knew my mind.”

ibid, pp. 69, 71

Theseus encounters this same unbridgeable disconnect again near the end of the book, when on the island of Dia he meets their sixteen-year-old “king.”

There was something about him I could put no name to, a daimon in his eyes; not that they wandered, like men’s eyes whose wits are troubled; rather they were too still. Whatever he fixed his gaze on, it was as if he would drain it dry.

Something oppressed me in his silence, and I said only to break it, “You have a god’s feast here tomorrow.”

“Yes.” That was all; but something woke in my mind, and of a sudden I saw everything. I remembered Pylas saying to me in the mountains above Eleusis, “I know how a man looks who foreknows his end.”

He read it in my face. For a moment our eyes met, seeking to speak together. It was in my mind to say, “Be on my ship before cocklight, and with the dawn we will be away. I too have stood where you stand now; and look, I am free. There is more in a man than the meat and corn and wine that feeds him. How it is called I do not know; but there is some god that knows its name.”

But when I looked into his eyes, there was nothing in them that I could say it to. He was an Earthling, and the ancient snake was dancing already in his soul.

ibid, pp. 319 – 320

The Minyans kill their king, and “do not share the sacrifice, offer nothing of their own.” This attitude is even more pronounced in Crete, as Theseus finds when he goes there.

Theseus takes his call to go “to the bulls” very seriously, as a form of sacrifice. Indeed, the bull-dancing developed from an original simple human sacrifice where a single victim was thrown into a pit to be gored by a bull, representing the god. But in the aeons since then, it has developed into entertainment. Originally, it was the youths of the noble families of Crete who would dance with the bulls until the day they were killed. Even then, they were celebrities. But now, the people of Crete do not enter the bull-ring themselves. Instead, the bull-dancers are slaves taken as tribute, captured, or bought from all corners of the world: not only the Greek islands but Libya, Phoenicia, Assyria, Scythia, even Israel. The Cretan upper classes adore these teenaged bull-dancers. They bet on them, send them gifts, have affairs with them, invite them to parties. They cry over their deaths. But ultimately, what is life and death to the bull-leapers is, to the Cretans, a diversion.

Avoiding the Sacrifice

Theseus does not resent being the one to put his life on the line in the bull-ring, because the sport itself is intoxicating, perfect for a teenaged adrenaline junkie. But he observes more than once, “These people only play at their sacrifices.” For example, the Cretan upper classes have dolls made of themselves which they hang on the trees every year in their place, at the time of year when, in ancient times, a royal person would be sacrificed.

“But that is a …” She checked herself and said, “only a mainland custom. Here in Crete no king has been sacrificed for two hundred years. We hang our dolls on the trees instead, and the Mother has not been angry.”

I made over her the sign against evil.

p. 253

As a result of this unwillingness to do the actual sacrifice, even the family of Minos no longer have the presence of the god. Theseus is appalled when Ariadne tells him how she plans to fake a fit of prophecy in her capacity as priestess. And he is stunned to find that Minos does not hear the voice of the god.

“Come,” he said, “tell me of this. The god spoke to you, you say. You have heard the voice that calls the king. How does it speak? In words? In a sound of music, or the wind? How does it call?”

I stared at him. Amazement rooted my tongue. I thought I must have heard wrong, yet knew not how to ask. We were silent, looking at each other.

He was the first to speak. He leaned his head on his hand, and said in his sad muffled voice, “Boy, how old are you?”

I said, “If I live to spring, my lord, I shall be nineteen.”

“And after dark, when the bats fly over, you hear their cry?”

“Why, yes,” I said. “Often the night is full of it.”

“They cry to the young. And when the old man passes, they are not silent; it is his ear that has hardened. So also with kings’ houses; and it is time then to think of our going. When the god calls you, Theseus, what is in your heart?”

Finding what words I could, I opened my heart in this small closed room to Star-Born Minos, Lord of the Isles.

When I had said my say … he raised his crystal eyes again, and slowly nodded. “So,” he said, “you made the offering. And yet, it is your father who is King.”

His words went sounding through me, deeper even than my grandfather’s long ago; deeper than my own thought could follow. “No matter,” I said. “A good Shepherd will give his life for the sheep.”

pp. 265 – 266

So Minos has lost, but he knows what he has lost. There is an even deeper depth of cynicism displayed in his stepson, Astarion, Pasiphae’s illegitimate child by a bull-leaper. When Theseus finds out that Astarion is planning to become king by a political coup, he can barely comprehend it:

“But,” I said, “then Crete is being ruled by a man who does not belong to any god; who was never dedicated. He has all power; yet he has not consented to make the sacrifice. Has he consented?”

There was a shadow on her cheek, as if she would smile; but her face grew grave, and she shook her head.

“Then,” I said, “the god will never speak to him. How can he lead the people? Who will see their danger coming? What will happen, if the god is angry, and there is no one to offer himself? He takes service, tribute, honor; and he gives nothing! Nothing! He will be death to your people if they let him live.”

p. 256

Theseus understands what many Cretans, and many in our godforsaken time, do not: that being a king is about more than just power.

Eventually, Astarion commits what reads to Theseus as the ultimate sacrilege. Astarion has sponsored Theseus’s team of bull-leapers for almost a year. Hard up for money, and with no access as yet to the royal treasury, Astarion seeks to make some money off his team. He places bets that they will die in the next dance, and then secretly has their bull drugged to madden it. Though Theseus is gored, the team manages to survive for a few minutes, and then the stratagem backfires when the bull dies of the drugs. The team, when they realize what he has done, are furious: “How this man has despised us!”

But Astarion has not only despised his team. He has despised the bull, the ritual, and hence, the god. Within twenty-four hours, Theseus is feeling the warning in his body and spirit that always comes over him right before Poseidon sends an earthquake. But this time, it is stronger than ever before.

The noise tormented me; the warning surged and roared and crashed through my head, or withdrew leaving a dreadful hollow hush filled with the tread of the approaching god. The awe and terror which it is man’s nature to feel before the Immortals goaded and spurred me to fly for my life. And when I held my ground, the madness burned me up, and the warning would not be contained within me. I shook Amyntor off and leaped on the table among broken winecups, and shouted it aloud.

“Poseidon is coming! Poseidon is coming! I Theseus tell you so, I his son. The sacred bull was killed and the Earth Bull has wakened! The House of the Ax will fall! The House will fall!”

p. 294

After the massive earthquake, when Theseus defeats Astarion,

Now I saw his face, grimacing with bared teeth. I stepped up to him, to hear what he would say to me. But he only stared at me as at some shape of chaos, seen in a dream when nothing makes sense. He who had thought to rule without the sacrifice, who had never felt the god’s breath that lifts a man beyond himself, had nothing to take him kinglike to the dark house of Hades.

p. 312

By denying the gods and expecting others to sacrifice for him, Astarion has destroyed his own mind and ushered himself into hell. This is the darkest place. It is darker even than the Minyan solar kings. Though they are about 90% scapegoat and only about 10% king, yet even they, because the Minyans still take their sacrifices seriously, provide some faint foreshadowing of Christ. When the young king of Dia rides off in a cart to go up the mountain and be torn to pieces, he goes crowned with ivy, raising a wine cup in his hand, and scattering wheat (bread) onto his people. Apparently, this is part of the deep structure of a properly done sacrifice: sharing out the bread and the cup before one’s death. Going up the hill. A vegetable crown.

And Today?

What did I mean, “And Now”? I can barely remember why I put that in the title.

Obviously, we no longer live in a world where human sacrifice is necessary to keep ourselves alive. Arguably, it never was, but I think this novel makes a pretty good case that there was something deep going on there. Human sacrifice bad, yes, but we cannot by the same token say paganism worthless, with no glimpses of the truth and with nothing to teach us.

Regarding the question of where these resemblances came from, I do not have time to go into whether Christianity “copied” from ancient Greek mystery religions, was not even aware of them, or was aware of them and did some riffing on them. But in the providence of God, I recently ran across a book that looks into exactly that. I’ll be back when I’ve read it, with a more robust case that these types and shadows found in paganism had their source in God.

The book of Hebrews–and in fact the entire New Testament–makes a strong case that, when our King laid down His life, that was the last, sufficient sacrifice, making it no longer necessary even to sacrifice animals. The only reason Theseus comes out looking so heroic is because of his resemblance to the King of Kings. And a Happy Easter to you. He is risen indeed!

But there is a miniature version of “the king must die” that applies in the daily life of every Christian, indeed of every adult. Being a king is about much more than just power, and this goes for every kind of leader. In order to be a good parent, you should be sacrificing yourself for your children much more often than you expect them to sacrifice for you, although of course this doesn’t mean that you let them be in charge. Most of a parent’s sacrifice is invisible to the children. And in fact, the one who sacrifices the most is the one who has the most authority. Otherwise, how will the unction of the god fall upon you to lead your people? Who will see danger coming?

Similarly, a good boss or manager works harder than any of his employees. A major principle of leadership and love is “my life for yours.” As Jesus said, “Whoever wants to come after me must deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow me.” “Pick up their cross” corresponds to getting in the cart, the one that takes you up the hill. So, you, know, in a small way, we should all strive to be Theseus and not Astarion.