# Pasiphaë (Πασιφάη)
**Pasiphaë** (Πασιφάη) is a figure of [Greek mythology](https://www.edgepedia.org/greek-mythology), the daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse, wife of King Minos of Crete, and mother of the [Minotaur](https://www.edgepedia.org/minotaur), the bull-headed monster conceived in her unnatural union with a bull sent by Poseidon[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/). Her name is explained as meaning "wide-shining" or "all-shining"[2](https://www.pasiphae-knossos.gr/) • [1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/), and in some parts of Greece she was worshipped not as Minos' wife but as a goddess, an epithet of the Moon[3](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/crete/page_007.html).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Parents | Helios the Sun and Perse (Perseis), an Oceanid; sister of the sorceress Circe and of Aeëtes, king of Colchis, and aunt of Medea[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/) • [4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) |
| Husband | Minos, king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) |
| Children by Minos | Androgeus, Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, Acacallis (Acalle), Xenodice, Ariadne, and Phaedra[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/) • [4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) |
| The bull affair | Poseidon, angered by Minos' failure to sacrifice the bull that rose from the sea, made Pasiphae conceive a passion for it[5](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D4) |
| The Minotaur | Named Asterius, with the face of a bull and a human body; confined by Minos in the Labyrinth built by Daedalus[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) |
| Sorcery | Like Circe and Medea, she knew spells; she bewitched Minos so that he killed the women he lay with by discharging wild beasts at them[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) |
| Cult | A dream-oracle of Pasiphae at Thalamae in Laconia, where Pausanias saw bronze statues of Pasiphae and Helios and identified Pasiphae as a title of the Moon[3](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/crete/page_007.html) |
## Family
Apollodorus calls Pasiphae the daughter of the Sun and of Perseis, and the sister of Aeëtes, who became king of Colchis, and of [Circe](https://www.edgepedia.org/circe); her mother, called Perse in Homer, was a daughter of Oceanus[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html). Through Aeëtes she was the aunt of the enchantress Medea[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/). She married Minos, son of Zeus and [Europa](https://www.edgepedia.org/europa-consort-of-zeus), and lived in Crete[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html).
Apollodorus lists her children by Minos as the sons Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeus, and the daughters Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne, and Phaedra[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html). Two daughters belong to the Theseus cycle: Ariadne gave Theseus the thread that let him escape the [Labyrinth](https://www.edgepedia.org/labyrinth), and Phaedra later married Theseus, her passion for her stepson Hippolytus leading to both their deaths[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html). Other traditions also make her the mother of Cydon, a hero of the Cydonian colony on Crete, and of Ammon, the hero and Libyan deity[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/).
## The bull and the Minotaur
The best-known story begins with Minos' claim to the Cretan throne. To prove his divine right to rule, he prayed to his uncle Poseidon for a bull to rise from the sea, promising to sacrifice it. A beautiful snow-white bull appeared, but Minos, struck by its beauty, sent it to his herds and sacrificed another in its place[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/). Apollodorus says that Poseidon, angry at the broken promise, "made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it"; the punishment aimed at Minos fell on his wife[5](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D4).
Pasiphae turned for help to the craftsman Daedalus, an Athenian banished for murder who was living in Crete. Daedalus placed the wheeled, hollow wooden cow, wrapped in the hide of a skinned animal, in the meadow where the bull fed; Pasiphae got inside it, and the bull mounted it, taking it for a genuine cow.[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) From this union she gave birth to a monster named Asterius, called the Minotaur ("Bull of Minos"), with the face of a bull but the rest of him human. On the advice of oracles, Minos shut him up in the Labyrinth, the building Daedalus designed[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html).
**Variant causes and endings.** Hyginus offers another explanation: for several years Pasiphae had failed to honor Venus's rites, and as punishment the goddess afflicted her with this perverse desire; according to him, Minos locked up Daedalus after discovering what had occurred, and it was Pasiphae who set him at liberty before he crafted wings for himself and Icarus[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html). Other versions say Pasiphae neglected [Aphrodite](https://www.edgepedia.org/aphrodite), or that Minos offended Zeus rather than Poseidon[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/). [Diodorus Siculus](https://www.edgepedia.org/diodorus-siculus) says that Daedalus, fearing Minos' wrath for his part in the affair, escaped with his son Icarus on a ship that Pasiphae provided[6](https://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4D.html) • [4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html), and another tradition holds that Minos locked both Daedalus and Icarus in the Labyrinth and that Pasiphae freed them[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/).
## Pasiphae the sorceress
Like her sister Circe and her niece Medea, Pasiphae knew spells. According to Apollodorus, Pasiphaë cast a spell on Minos in retaliation for his unfaithfulness with numerous women: from then on, any woman who joined him in bed had wild creatures spewed upon her, which killed her; before going to bed with him, the Athenian Procris guarded herself by means of the "Circaean root," and in return he gave her a hound and a dart that never missed its mark[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html). The Greek mythological lexicon of the Center for the Greek Language reads this power over Minos' sexuality, together with her solar descent and her Laconian oracle, as evidence of a strong Minoan goddess behind the figure[3](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/crete/page_007.html).
## Cult and the moon connection
In Laconia there was a dream-oracle at Thalamae. Plutarch speaks of a temple of Pasiphae there whose oracle was held in honor, and of a Spartan ephor who slept in her precinct to receive a dream[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html). After visiting the site, Pausanias reports that the sanctuary belonged to Ino and stood in a courtyard holding bronze images of Pasiphae and Helios; he adds that the name Pasiphae, in that place, designated the Moon rather than Minos's spouse.[4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html) • [3](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/crete/page_007.html) Cicero, in his *De Divinatione*, mentions that the kings of Sparta slept in a shrine dedicated to Pasiphaë so she could send them prophetic dreams[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/).
## Literary treatment
The story is told by many ancient authors, including Ovid, Pseudo-Apollodorus, and Seneca, and it featured in [Euripides](https://www.edgepedia.org/euripides)' lost play *The Cretans*, of which only a small fragment survives, including a speech in which Pasiphaë defends her actions[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/). In the surviving fragment of that defense, Pasiphae says she was maddened by the attack of the god, that her suffering "is not a voluntary bad", and that the ultimate cause was Minos' failure to slaughter the bull he had promised to sacrifice to the sea-god[7](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694569). A modern analysis of the speech shows how she dissociates herself from her past actions by appealing to divine intervention, the role of Minos, and a hedonistic understanding of human motivation[8](https://ricerca.sns.it/handle/11384/95740).
In Latin poetry, Pasiphae tends to receive brief, frowning references, a shorthand for the worst excesses of female passion and deceitfulness. Yet the two substantial Augustan treatments differ: Rebecca Armstrong, Fellow and Tutor in Classics at St Hilda's College, Oxford, argues that Vergil offers an unusually subtle, sympathetic account of the queen's love, while Ovid takes a more traditional tack, mixing disapproval with ridicule, in the *Ars Amatoria*, where Pasiphae jealously drives her cow rivals from the pasture and wears her finest clothes whenever the bull might see her[9](https://academic.oup.com/book/5404/chapter-abstract/148236011) • [4](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html).
Ancient readers also rationalized the tale. Lucian explains the union of Pasiphae with the bull as a natural allegory and reports a tradition in which Daedalus initiated Pasiphae into mysteries, showing her the bull visible among the stars; this initiation was taken as a marriage, so that people believed Daedalus had betrothed her to the bull[10](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/water/page_043.html).
## Legacy
Pasiphaë appears in modern adaptations including the BBC fantasy series *Atlantis* (2013–2015), Dante's *Inferno*, [Rick Riordan](https://www.edgepedia.org/rick-riordan)'s *The House of Hades* (2013), [Madeline Miller](https://www.edgepedia.org/madeline-miller)'s *Circe* (2018), and [Jennifer Saint](https://www.edgepedia.org/jennifer-saint)'s *Ariadne* (2021)[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/). Her name also belongs to a moon of Jupiter, the largest member of the Pasiphaë group of satellites, discovered in 1908[1](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/).
## References
1. [Pasiphaë, World History Encyclopedia (Liana Miate, 2023)](https://www.worldhistory.org/Pasiphae/)
2. [PASIPHAE Restaurant, Knosos (name meaning)](https://www.pasiphae-knossos.gr/)
3. [Μορφές και Θέματα της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Μυθολογίας, Center for the Greek Language](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/crete/page_007.html)
4. [Pasiphae, GreekMythology.com](https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Pasiphae/pasiphae.html)
5. [Apollodorus, Library 3.1.4, Perseus Digital Library](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D4)
6. [Diodorus Siculus, Library of History Book 4.59–85, Theoi Classical Texts Library](https://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4D.html)
7. [Cannibalism, Vegetarianism, and the Community of Sacrifice: Rediscovering Euripides' Cretans, Classical Philology 112.4](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694569)
8. [Fragmented Self and Fragmented Responsibility: Pasiphae in Euripides' Cretans, Scuola Normale Superiore research repository](https://ricerca.sns.it/handle/11384/95740)
9. [Rebecca Armstrong, Cretan Women: Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Phaedra in Latin Poetry, Oxford University Press, 2006](https://academic.oup.com/book/5404/chapter-abstract/148236011)
10. [Μορφές και Θέματα της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Μυθολογίας (Lucian on Pasiphae and the bull), Center for the Greek Language](https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/water/page_043.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Philosophy, religion, and mythology › Mythology and folklore › Greek mythology › Heroes and mortal figures*
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