Plutarch gives us another version of the story of Theseus in the labyrinth. The minotaur speaks to Theseus before Theseus kills him. He says another minotaur is in the labyrinth, but the skein of thread in Theseus’s hand is not enough for him to find it and return. “Thus the complexity of the labyrinth,” writes Plutarch. “But it doesn’t matter,” says the minotaur. “After you kill me, the second minotaur will also die. He will die of loneliness.” Plutarch adds that Theseus slaughters the minotaur without blinking an eye and leaves the labyrinth. But because of his excessive pride, he cannot take credit for the death of the second minotaur—when he returns, he refuses to raise his ship’s white sail, the one meant to be a signal to his father, Aegeus, that his mission was successful. Here Plutarch’s story merges with the other versions of the return of Theseus. His father sees the ship’s black sail and hurls himself from the cliff, into the sea that has ever since been called the Aegean.
