How I Fell in Love with the Daughter of the Minotaur

An encounter with Leonora Carrington's painting

I recently heard the feminist art historian Gloria Orenstein talk about the time she met Leonora Carrington.  It was in the 1970s and, once Gloria had won her trust, Leonora explained, completely seriously, that she had visions of mythical animals.  These, surely, were the origins of pictures like this one, and I find that to spend time looking at it is almost like encountering a mythic beast or scenario myself. So this is my encounter with And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, which was painted in the early 1950s. I did not expect to fall in love but, when meeting a creature out of space and time, anything can happen. 

And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur by Leonora Carrington, 1953

The children came to me and said ‘We have found a place with a monster, a dancer and a woman cow.  And there are dogs, too.  Come and see!’

So I went with them, turning over in my mind the story of the minotaur: a hybrid of human and bull born from Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos of Crete, and a sacred white bull sent by the god Poseidon. I remembered how the minotaur was imprisoned in a labyrinth and that Pasiphae’s daughter Ariadne arranged for her lover, Theseus, to go in, kill the minotaur and find his way out using the ball of yarn she had given him. I wondered if the minotaur could have fathered a daughter.

All these thoughts went out of my head when I entered the windy, cloud-hung colonnade and saw you, the minotaur’s daughter, for the first time.  Next to you stood a tall creature with leaves for a face and just outside was a person with delicate limbs and a magical, light-shedding flower extending from her head, dancing.  You were sitting quietly, beside a table covered with a gold cloth.  The moment I saw you, I fell in love.

I saw with rapture the delicacy of your hands and the daintiness of your hooves. I lost myself in the utter beauty of your deep brown eyes.  I delighted in your perfect small mouth, neat nose and exactly proportioned face.  How I yearned to caress the curve of your horns and touch the softness of your ears.  I longed to rest my cheek on your broad chest of warm white fur and, comforted, sigh out my troubles under your soft orange velvet cloak.  Your tail enchanted me and lightened my heart as it twitched with intelligence. Everything about you was clean, strong, and safe.

I wanted so much to be alone with you and to declare my love immediately, recklessly, but you were in company with the others whose claim on you was greater than, and prior to, my own.  The leaf-headed goddess, who was issuing all our fates in crystal balls, was owed your respect and attention and I could see that the dancer was under your protection, perhaps even under your spell.  Even the dogs were your responsibility; they were yours to care for.

So, while the children stepped up boldly and stared at you, I held back.  To see you was to be lost to every human vanity and pettiness and to forget every empty ambition. 

Just for a moment, you turned and fixed me with your liquid, sage, eyes.  And, just for a moment, I knew that you loved me too.