The Greek Islands by Lawrence Durrell Page B

house-parties. The most poetic of these was perhaps Leda’s swan; but it is much more important, as far as Crete is concerned, that he turned himself into a bull to court Europa.
    As Robert Graves points out: ‘In primitive agricultural communities recourse to war is rare and goddess-worship the rule. Herdsmen on the contrary tend to make fighting a profession and, perhaps because bulls dominate their herds as rams do flocks … tend to worship a male sky god, typified by a bull or ram.’ Perhaps Zeus came into this category. In any case, the bull motif is dense with echoes; and I am sure that a comparative ethnologic and religious study of the Mithraic echoes in the bull-mania of, say, Provence will one day link together not only the sacrificial side of bull-mythology in different countries but also link it with the ritual side of bull-baiting, as shown on the Cretan vases. Certainly, in Provence today a celebrated Spanish bull, after he has been killed, is eaten by the people; I have seen this often in Protestant Nîmes. The head is exposed in the butcher’s window with the name of the animal above it, and there forms a long queue of housewives who buy small quantities of the meat – as a token rather than as a meal. If asked, they will agree that the meat is not of the best quality, since it is flushed with blood from the exertions of the battle, and belongs to a creature that has been raised on oats to quicken its temper. The custom is a clear illustration of Freud’s Totem and Tabu which should always be within reach in the Greek islands! To make my point still clearer: in another part of Nîmes there is an after-the-corrida dinner party of officials, dignitaries and fighters with their trainers. They are solemnly offered a thicksoup, made from the testicles of the slain bull. There are similar customs in countries where the bull remains a symbol of force, fertility and the father-complex which might provide more solid material for the student of bull mythology.
    Wandering about the quiet and somehow reticent ruins of Knossos, whose proportions and orientation show that their architects had nothing to learn from ours, one wonders whether the matter will not one day simplify itself and bring the Minoans into much clearer focus for us. When the king gave judgment, for example, did he place the great bull’s head on his head and shoulders just as an English judge dons the black cap? And was the labyrinth both an execution ground for malefactors and a training-device for young gladiators – or even a place where initiates had to learn to find a way through the muddled penetralia of their own fears and desires? In these quiet precincts, which in fact may be simply administrative buildings, but which exhale the kind of equanimity and poise of an architecture at once beautifully proportioned and not too sweet, one feels the presence of a race that took life gaily and thoughtfully. What a pity we have not yet found something of interest in the scripts so far deciphered; it is tantalizing – wanting to work out their philosophic or religious views from something like an income tax declaration.
    A few thoughts on the Olympians might help to identify the Cretan mind or soul during the periods about which we know, if not everything, at least a bit. Hesiod has set out the history of the gods in fairly neat trim and there is no reason to distrust his pedigrees, for the little group finally, after mastering more tribulations than ever Odysseus faced, formed itself into the Parliament of Olympus and took an eager interest in what was happening on the earth. First of all, says the historian, there was no difference between the two lots, gods and men; they sat down to the same table to eat. Gradually they becamedifferentiated – gentlemen versus players; though even when Olympus became a workable headquarters and the gods a going concern, there seemed to be little qualitative difference between the two groups. The gods had more