Monday, March 15, 2010

Myths and Legends: Pasiphae and the Minotaur

Pasiphae and the Minotaur. To find out more about Pasiphae, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

This wonderful vase painting shows Queen Pasiphae with the little baby Minotaur! She had a daughter, Ariadne, with her husband, King Minos, but she also fell in love with a bull (that's a separate story) and gave birth to this child, half-man and half-bull, a.k.a. the "Minotaur." This strange monster was locked up in the Labyrinth until the hero Theseus arrived and killed him - with Ariadne's help. You can read more about this very dramatic story at Wikipedia.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of March 11-17 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.