The speaker of the poem is the Minotaur, in the labyrinth built to contain him by the architect, Daedelus. The Minotaur was the product of Pasiphae's intercourse with a bull. In his great novel, "The Egyptian," Mika Waltari suggests an alternative, but very fascinating, interpretation of the minotaur myth. Of course, in both the original Greek myth and in Waltari's novel, the Minotaur comes to a well deserved death.