days, silkworm eggs were contraband transported from China to Byzantium by missionaries. A parallel is drawn when Desdemona, a raiser of silk cocoons, attempts to bring them to Detroit. Because the silkworm eggs are considered parasites by the immigration officials, Desdemona must dispose of them. Soar noted that "for the three generations of Greek Americans who people Middlesex, the mulberry trees of Mount Olympus are an appropriately antique beginning: they are the egg inside which everything began". Greek mythical allusions Middlesex has several allusions to Greek classical myths; for example, the protagonist is named after Calliope, the muse of heroic poetry. Eugenides was partly inspired by the explorations of hermaphrodism in Greek myths to write the novel about an intersex man. In Middlesex, Cal acts out the story of Hermaphroditus, the Greek deity of bisexuality and effeminacy, while eking out a living in San Francisco. While narrating, Cal enters his ancestors' thoughts and empathizes with them, an ability possessed by Hermaphroditus. The protagonist compared himself to another mythical figure—Tiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes; the omniscient seer lived seven years as a woman because of a curse. Eugenides and several critics compared Cal's condition to mythical creatures described by the ancient Greeks. The author alluded his protagonist's nature and heritage to the Minotaur, the half-man and half-bull creature. Cal's father is conceived after his grandparents' attendance of a theatric play entitled The Minotaur. The puzzle of Cal's genetic identity is akin to the creature's labyrinth, and the thread that leads out of the maze is held here by his paternal grandmother, a former silk farmer. Frances Bartkowski, a scholar of English, named Callie in her puberty as a chimera. The mythical monster is an analogy for a complex personality, a mixture of body parts from various animals that each represents a human aspect or characteristic. Similarly, adolescent Callie is an amalgamation of her genes, neither male nor female, neither adult nor child, and yet all of them at the same time. In her book column for the Detroit Free Press, Marta Salij said that Cal's identity crisis resembles Odysseus's fate. Whereas the mythical hero is troubled by Poseidon and succored by Athena, the intersex protagonist is affected by his chromosomes in a similar manner. John Sykes, professor of English and religion education, noted another Greek-hero reference. In a manner similar to Oedipus's fulfillment of Pythia's prophecy to slay his father