Not but that the real and artful labyrinth might have been, for all we know. A very real one, indeed, was built by twelve brotherly kings in Egypt, in two stories, one for men to live in, the other for crocodiles;—and the upper story was visible and wonderful to all eyes, in authentic times: whereas, we know of no one who ever saw Jack’s labyrinth: and yet, curiously enough, the real labyrinth set the pattern of nothing; while Jack’s ghostly labyrinth has set the pattern of almost everything linear and complex, since; and the pretty spectre of it blooms at this hour, in vital hawthorn for you, every spring, at Hampton Court.

Now, in the pictures of this imaginary maze, you are to note that both the Cretan and Lucchese designs agree in being composed of a single path or track, coiled, and recoiled, on itself. Take a piece of flexible chain and lay it down, considering the chain itself as the path: and, without an interruption, it will trace any of the three figures. (The two Cretan ones are indeed the same in design, except in being, one square, and the other round.) And recollect, upon this, that the word “Labyrinth” properly means “rope-walk,” or “coil-of-rope-walk,” its first syllable being probably also the same as our English name “Laura,” ‘the path,’ and its method perfectly given by Chaucer in the single line—“And, for the house is crenkled to and fro.” And on this, note farther, first, that had the walls been real, instead of ghostly, there would have been no difficulty whatever in getting either out or in, for you could go no other way. But if the walls were spectral, and yet the transgression of them made your final entrance or return impossible, Ariadne’s clue was needful indeed.

Note, secondly, that the question seems not at all to have been about getting in; but getting out again. The clue, at all events, could be helpful only after you had carried it in; and if the spider, or other monster in midweb, ate you, the help in your clue, for return, would be insignificant. So that this thread of Ariadne’s implied that even victory over the monster would be vain, unless you could disentangle yourself from his web also.

So much you may gather from coin or carving: next, we try tradition. Theseus, as I said before, is the great settler or law-giver of the Athenian state; but he is so eminently as the Peace-maker, causing men to live in fellowship who before lived separate, and making roads passable that were infested by robbers or wild beasts. He is the exterminator of every bestial and savage element, and the type of human, or humane power, which power you will find in this, and all my other books on policy, summed in the terms, “Gentleness and Justice.” The Greeks dwelt chiefly in their thoughts on the last, and Theseus, representing the first, has therefore most difficulty in dealing with questions of punishment, and criminal justice.

Now the justice of the Greeks was enforced by three great judges, who lived in three islands. Æacus, who lived in the island of Ægina, is the administrator of distributive, or ‘dividing’ justice; which relates chiefly to property, and his subjects, as being people of industrious temper, were once ants; afterwards called Ant-people, or ‘Myrmidons.’

Secondly, Minos, who lived in the island of Crete, was the judge who punished crime, of whom presently; finally, Rhadamanthus, called always by Homer “golden,” or “glowing” Rhadamanthus, was the judge who rewarded virtue; and he lived in a blessed island covered with flowers, but which eye of man hath not yet seen, nor has any living ear heard lisp of wave on that shore.

For the very essence and primal condition of virtue is that it shall not know of, nor believe in, any blessed islands, till it find them, it may be, in due time.

And of these three judges, two were architects, but the third only a gardener. Æacus helped the gods to build the walls of Troy. Minos appointed the labyrinth in coils round the Minotaur; but Rhadamanthus only set trees, with golden fruit on them, beside waters of comfort, and overlaid the calm waves with lilies.

They did these things, I tell you, in very truth, cloud-hidden indeed; but the things themselves are with us to this day. No town on earth is more real than that town of Troy. Her prince, long ago, was dragged dead round the walls that Æacus built; but her princedom did not die with him. Only a few weeks since, I was actually standing, as I told you, with my good friend Mr. Parker, watching the lizards play among the chinks in the walls built by Æacus, for his wandering Trojans, by Tiber side. And, perhaps within memory of man, some of you may have walked up or down Tower Street, little thinking that its tower was also built by Æacus, for his wandering Trojans and their Cæsar, by Thames side: and on Tower Hill itself—where I had my pocket picked only the other day by some of the modern Æacidæ—stands the English Mint, “dividing” gold and silver which Æacus, first of all Greeks, divided in his island of Ægina, and struck into intelligible money-stamp and form, that men might render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.

But the Minos labyrinth is more real yet; at all events, more real for us. And what it was, and is, as you have seen at Lucca, you shall hear at Florence, where you are to learn Dante’s opinion upon it, and Sandro Botticelli shall draw it for us.