A Columnist on Crete
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| (Roman Ladies Conversing, Painter Unknown) |
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[Pan in on Aeliana, the island of Crete's resident gossip news anchor.]
Hello, Hello, Hello my fellow residents of Crete! Its your favorite columnist who has got all the scoops of what is happening in our lovely island of Crete, Aeliana.
Today is a day for the books because over the weekend we had a love-filled update to all the happenings in King's castle as of late. Let's run down what we know so far, shall we?
This whole scandal started a long time ago when our seemingly ever faithful Queen Pasiphae fell in love with Taurus, the owner of Crete's biggest cattle range, and promptly cheated on King Minos. Granted this was all unknown up until the point Queen Pasiphae gave birth to an heir, only for the son to look nothing alike King Minos and too much like the not so handsome Taurus. Can we say gasp?!
Now we all know that King Minos immediately banished his wife's bastard son, Minotaur, to live in the family's vacation castle, fondly called the Labyrinth for its maze like architecture. But as any great scandal would have it, the story doesn't stop there.
Instead we throw in the mix of a heroic man and the King and Queen's daughter, Ariadne cast as the pair of young lovers! Fast forward to last year when our young princess, desperate to flee the island and her parents' hovering selves, turned to a young handsome man by the name of Theseus. Knowing he could only escape the island with Ariadne if she didn't have to deal with her half-brother, Minotaur, Theseus hatched a plan to sneak into the Labyrinth and kill the black sheep son of the royal family. And with the help of young and naive Ariadne, Theseus did just that.
After leaving the nation of Crete in shock at the death of worst kept royal secret, Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne, blinded by puppy love, left the island in a rush. Yet being the bad boy we know and hate, Theseus, after escaping our lovely island of Crete abandoned our princess on of the neighboring islands. Only to be meet with fandom backlash when he returned to Crete without Ariadne and with no information on her whereabouts.
That is until this past weekend when the entire island of Crete received wedding invitations in the mail for none other than Princess Ariadne and the god of all things: wine, theatre and ecstasy, Bacchus. Now there is a twist, us here at Crete's Column, did not see coming!
We learned by talking to sources close to the royal family that Bacchus and Ariadne could not be happier as they reach final preparations for the wedding. Apparently, the couple got together after Bacchus, while vacationing on the very same island Theseus abandoned Ariadne on, saved Ariadne from an untimely death. Could we ever even ask for more in our soon-to-be Prince? Okay, well it looks like we are all caught up with the latest in the day to day lives of our royalty! See you next time, fellow residents of Crete!
[Camera fades out on Aeliana waving.]
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Based off of Ovid's Metamorphoses III, Daedalus and Icarus as translated by Tony Kline (2000).
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Author's Note
For this week's story, I decided to retell Daedalus and Icarus as if there was a TV personality
relaying the story for a gossip segment on a show. This story has all the makings for modern scandal: a cheating wife, a bastard child, young lovers and a prince charming. While all of the major details are consistent with the original piece of literature, I did decide to focus only on the Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne part of the story. Giving this classical tale a modern twist came with a challenge of reigning in the more outlandish pieces of the story. Nonetheless, hopefully the original concepts and lessons came through the modern framework. Hope you enjoyed my retelling!
I really, really like what you did with this story actually. Greek and Roman mythology does read much like the celebrity drama that we all hear about all the time. This would actually make for a pretty interesting mini-series, or set of Youtube videos. Your voice for this piece was very convincing. The only thing I would suggest is to watch out for commas in your sentences. Sometimes it was hard to read, but overall it was very good!
ReplyDeleteI am only somewhat familiar with the story behind Daedalus and Icarus, but your Author’s Note helped me get the general gist of it. All of the aspects of the story (such as the cheating wife, young lovers, and bastard child) were well translated into your new story.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the columnist character. All of his/her commentary was funny to read and made the overall theme captivating.
Honestly, I was wondering how exactly the half-brother, Minotaur was killed. That is the only detail that left me curious.
What if you explained how Theseus and Ariadne killed the half-brother, Minotaur? The only reason being that when I am watching gossip segments like on “Extra,” they would typically specify something like that.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading your story! The way you decided to retell it by making it a gossip segment on a show made it unique and fun to read. Great job!
I think it’s so unique that you decided to re-tell this story like a gossip segment on a TV show! It makes the story more fun!
ReplyDeleteThe writing style you chose is also engaging and makes you want to keep reading. I could imagine this segment showing paparazzi
pictures in the corner as they were talking.
I have heard this story before, but it has been a long time. I really enjoyed your rendition. I felt like I was watching/ reading a gossip column and couldn’t scroll fast enough. I think taking this type of story and turning it into a gossip column is a very good idea. It takes old content and makes it more modern in a seemingly effortless way. I know it probably did take a lot of work, but it was so well written that it seemed effortless. I really enjoyed it, good job!
ReplyDelete