because of your forgetful mind, the same
sorrow he himself received.
The situation presented is proleptic. The sor-
row of the suffering woman dominates the scene.
Like Dido to Aeneas, Catullus’ Ariadne is the
savior of Theseus. He owes everything to her,
and his betrayal is the ultimate act of ingratitude.
Hyginus in his account of the same myth
somewhat mysteriously relates that Theseus
acted to avoidopprobrium futurum.Apollodorus
states:
Theseus arrives at Naxos by night with Ariadne
and the youths. There Dionysus fell in love
with Ariadne, kidnapped her, took her away
to Lemnos, and lay with her.... In Russian poetry, the myth of the love of
Ariadne and Theseus is employed before Brodsky.
In 1927, during her exile in Paris, Marina Tsve-
taeva published a classical play in verse,Theseus,
which consisted of two parts, ‘‘Ariadne’’ and
‘‘Phaedra.’’ Like Catullus, in the ‘‘Ariadne’’ she
concentrates on a broken relationship; but unlike
all ancient accounts, both protagonists experience
the same strength of love. At the moment when
Theseus declares to Ariadne (in her sleep) his vow
of fidelity, he is interrupted by the mysterious voice
ordering him to surrender Ariadne to Bacchus.
This voice which appears to be divine urges The-
seus to give Ariadne up so that she may enter a
world of the divine as a consort of Bacchus. The
play concentrates on the mature Tsvetaeva’s favor-
ite themes: the agonies of passion and the failure of
lovers to be joined together. Another psychologi-
cal theme that Tsvetaeva’s play emphasizes and
explores is more relevantto Brodsky’s rendition
of the Theseus myth: the isolation of the hero in the
world and the anti-heroic side of every triumph.
The Ariadne of his poem is a willing partic-
ipant in Theseus’ demise, for while he is exiled
she enjoys Bacchus’ embrace, forgetful of The-
seus as he exits the scene. The word ‘‘vorkovat’’’
(rendered into English by ‘‘murmur’’) has an
erotic connotation in Russian. Ariadne is whis-
pering ‘‘sweet nothings’’ in Bacchus’ arms, over-
whelmed by her new lover. Brodsky further
explores the myth with Vergilian echoes as a
paradoxical ethical law emerges, according to
which heroic accomplishments are followed by
the humiliation of the hero, rather than the
reward. The fulfillment of destiny is again
based on an ultimate sacrifice. For Aeneas, this
was the loss of Dido; for Theseus, Ariadne. But
in the fulfillment of the heroic act lies also the
undoing of the hero as an individual. That is
where the choice of Lycomedes as an addressee
of the letter becomes clear. Lycomedes is the one
at whose hands Theseus will die. Thus he repre-
sents to Theseus another version of the Mino-
taur, but this time the hero emerges from the
confrontation vanquished. Theseus leaves the
labyrinth foreseeing his imminent defeat, and
the triumph is replaced with resignation. He is
ready to meet in Lycomedes his darkest hour.
The idea ofpodvizhnichestvoas in the case of
Aeneas and Dido becomes again intertwined
with the humiliation of the heroic achievement.
The myth of Theseus, who after killing the
Minotaur loses his beloved Ariadne to Bacchus,
serves as a mask ‘‘for the real situation of the lyric
‘I’’’ and has already been noted by Kees Verheul.
In the first two lines the protagonist presents his
destiny as similar to that of Theseus. However,
later in the poem the similarity is never mentioned.
The protagonist becomes anonymous, and the
classical metaphor tells the story that the poet
wants to convey about himself. The poet becomes
the hero. The constant struggle of the poet with the
state is translated into the killing of the Minotaur.
In his book on Brodsky, Michael Kreps observes
that a mythological hero and his situation become
attractive to any poet because they offer a ready
formula for a conflict charged with psychological
turmoil. The name of the hero becomes a sign
conveying the undertext of trials and emotions
perceived by a poet as his own.
The pivotal point of this confession disguised
beneath a classical mask starts in the last phrase
of the first stanza ‘‘with no intention of ever com-
ing back.’’ The poem was written in 1967, a year
which in the poet’s life signified ‘‘a moment for
summing up both his youth and his poetic
apprenticeship.’’ For the three preceding years,
Brodsky had been subjected to severe government
persecution and was forced to flee from city to
city hiding from the police. Although political
motifs are very rare in Brodsky’s early work, the
allusion to the Minotaur in this poem can and
should be read in political terms. The Minotaur is
seen by the Russian reader not only as man-
devouring monster from the remote island of
Crete, but as a beast of the totalitarian regime
that is about to consume them. This feeling is
especially intensified with the phrase ‘‘we mortals
have a duty to take up arms against all monsters’’
and then with the hopeful phrase ‘‘who claims
that monsters are immortal?’’ The word choiceOdysseus to Telemachus