One of the most controversial and unusual stories in ancient Greek mythology tells of Pasiphae and the bull. What subtext does this legend carry? From this article you can learn the content of the myth about Pasiphae and the bull, as well as its meaning and reflection in world culture.
Pasiphae
Before analyzing the legend, you need to familiarize yourself with its characters. The main character, of course, is Pasiphae herself. She was born in the union of the sun god Helios and the oceanic princess Perseid. The name Pasiphae translates as “luminous”, “shining” and personifies the light of the sun reflected in the water. Below you can see a fragment of a mosaic with a portrait of Pasiphae.
Minos
When the time came to get married, Pasiphae became the wife of Minos, a demigod, son of Zeus and king of Crete. Before the events described in the legend of Pasiphae and the bull, the picture of the Minos myths shows Pasiphae as a beautiful, meek and loving wife. She suffered from her husband's infidelities, but she herself was always faithful to him.
Cretan bull
Since Minos was the son of the supreme god Zeus, he won the trust of the Cretan people through his connection with the gods. But for this he was obliged to regularly make sacrifices to his father, most often these were bulls. There is no definite statement about who the bull who seduced Pasiphae actually was - most often he is mentioned as the best bull of Olympus, beautiful and powerful, which Poseidon sent to Minos for sacrifice to Zeus. But there are versions in which Poseidon or even Zeus himself turned into the Cretan bull. Below is a photo of a mosaic in which a Cretan bull fights Hercules - after the events of the myth of Pasiphae, the bull went mad. He was first pacified by Hercules (seventh labor), and then killed by Theseus.
Pasiphae and the bull: description of the myth
There are several versions of this legend. The most common one says that when the time for the next sacrifice to Zeus approached, Minos asked Poseidon to deliver him the best bulls. The God of the Seas fulfilled his request - and a whole herd of the most beautiful bulls emerged from the water onto the shore of Crete, but one of them was the best of the best - huge, powerful and snow-white. It was he who was intended for Zeus. However, the delighted Minos could not lay down such a good beast and sacrificed the second most beautiful one. Upon learning of this, Poseidon became angry and, in revenge, bewitched Minos' wife, Pasiphae, giving her an animal attraction to this bull. Below is an embrace of Pasiphae and a bull in a photo of an ancient Greek section on stone.
The spell worked - and from that day on Pasiphae could not take her eyes off this bull. At first, Minos thought that his wife was simply fascinated by the majestic animal and was once again glad that he had not sacrificed it. But he soon noticed that Pasiphae began to visit the pasture too often. Not only Pasiphae was crazy about the bull, but also all the Cretan cows - they fought until they bled, trying to expose their backs to the magnificent bull. Seeing this, Pasiphae boiled with jealousy and ordered from that very moment to graze the bull separately from all other animals. After a couple of days, the woman’s madness reached the point that she forbade anyone to approach the bull, and she herself began to take him out to pasture, while dressing up in the best dresses and jewelry. She spent whole days next to him, fed him blades of grass from her hands and decorated him with flowers, hugged and kissed him like a lover. She stopped paying even the slightest attention to her husband Minos.
And so, when Pasiphae’s passion became unbearable, she turned to Daedalus, an engineer who would later construct the Cretan labyrinth and wings for herself and her son Icarus. He puzzled over the request of the Cretan queen for a long time and finally came up with the idea of making a wooden cow (according to another version it was a bull), empty inside and with a hole in the genital area. He covered the finished product with the skin of a real cow, and when Pasiphae climbed inside, he rolled the cow to the famous Cretan bull. Having long missed the company of cows, the bull did not notice the catch and hastened to copulate with the false female. Thus, both Pasiphae and the bull satisfied their long-standing passions. The photo below shows a sculpture located on one of the coasts of Catalonia. It depicts Pasiphae in the belly of a bull (or cow) made by Daedalus.
The further development of the legend was reflected in the myths about Hercules - a bull enchanted by the gods went mad after intercourse with a human woman (according to other versions, madness was associated with the abandonment of the bull's body and mind by Poseidon or Zeus). In any case, the animal went wild and began to rush along the shores of Crete, ravaging villages, destroying crops and trampling everything in its path - people and animals. Only Hercules was able to defeat him, completing his heroic seventh labor and sending the bull to the Peloponnese. Later, the beast, which had not lost its rage, was killed by Theseus.
Minotaur
After what happened between the bull and the queen, Pasiphae gave birth to a monster, which was dubbed the Minotaur - a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. Other versions of the legend of Pasiphae and the bull report that after Minos’s misdeed, Poseidon not only bewitched his wife, but also inhabited the body of a beautiful bull. If you believe this version, then the Minotaur is a demigod and the son of Poseidon.
There is another version of the myth - in it, it was not Poseidon who was angry with Minos, but Zeus himself. He did not cast a spell on Pasiphae, but also inhabited the body of a bull, and the queen was truly fascinated, since Zeus gave the animal his anthropomorphic features and sexual power. If we adhere to this version, the Minotaur should be considered not only a demigod, but also the brother of Minos. Below is an image of Pasiphae with the newborn Minotaur.
Having given birth to a monster, Pasiphae aroused the wrath of Minos - he ordered his wife to be imprisoned in prison, where she died. Minos ordered the Minotaur to be hidden forever in a labyrinth, which was built especially for this purpose by the same Daedalus. Every year, seven girls and seven boys were sent to the monster’s labyrinth, whom he killed and ate - this continued until Theseus, who had previously destroyed the Minotaur’s father, sailed to Crete and defeated the monster. The death of Pasiphae, the bull and their offspring the Minotaur ends the myth about the bull and the Cretan queen.
The meaning of the myth
According to those Renaissance philosophers who adhered to the theory of humanism, in mythology Pasiphae and the bull were intended to personify a conscious mockery of the natural laws of human love and marriage. In subsequent works by psychologists, Pasiphae was called upon to personify animal, unbridled passion, before which the call of reason and reason fades.
Use of legend in art
In the most ancient works of literature, Pasiphae and the legend about her and the bull appear in the tragedy "The Cretans", written by Euripides, and in the comedy "Pasiphae", written by Alcaeus. In 1936, Pasiphae and the bull again became literary heroes - the French writer Henri de Monterlant wrote his drama “Pasiphae” about them. In addition, this legend is mentioned in the 2002 novel “The Cry of the Minotaur” by Javier Azpeitia and in the 2009 play “Pasiphae, or How to Become the Mother of the Minotaur” by Fabrice Hadjaj.
In addition to literature, Pasiphae and the bull became the heroes of a huge number of works of painting and architecture, both in ancient times and in modern times. In addition to those already mentioned above, it is worth mentioning the sixteenth-century painting of the same name by Giulio Romano, a nineteenth-century painting.
Also a series of abstract paintings by Andre Masson and Jackson Pollock, painted independently of each other in the forties of the last century. One of the latter’s paintings on this topic is presented below.
Screen adaptation
The myth of Pasiphae and the bull was also reflected in cinema - in the fall of two thousand and thirteen, a British-produced series called “Atlantis” was released. Despite the name, the plot is based on a large number of ancient Greek myths that have nothing to do with Atlantis, and the main characters are Hercules, Jason and Pythagoras.
In the episode leading up to the seventh labor of Hercules, the legend of the bull and the Cretan queen is told. The role of Queen Pasiphae was played by British actress Sarah Parish.
LUST FOR THE WHITE BULL
All this happened in the 2nd millennium BC on the beautiful Greek island of Crete (included in the Schengen zone, from 25 thousand rubles per week, your advertisement could be here).
The local ruler Minos Zeusovich had a clear algorithm for governing the state - pray and sacrifice (in the Russian Federation he has many followers among government officials, definitely). But even with such a simple matter he could not cope properly (in the Russian Federation he has a lot... etc.).
Gustav Moreau. Pasiphae. 1880s.
Let us clarify: in those wild times, believers did not donate candles or money, but killed animals.
It’s just that money had not yet been invented, candle factories could not be opened (the infrastructure was a little underdeveloped), and everything was very conveniently arranged with animal sacrifice.
After a cow or goat was killed at the altar, its inedible offal and bones were burned, i.e. “telegraphed” their respect to the gods with the help of smoke. And delicious brisket, legs, etc. were fried and shared among everyone who did not miss this cleanup day.
Arranging in this way abs. non-vegetarian lunch - which was a big profit during that period of constant shortage of meat food.
Therefore, sacrifices were such holidays for the entire people.
Scene of sacrifice. Red-figure painting, 5th century BC.
(Skeweres and lighter fluid, as you can see, have already been invented).
So, the god Poseidon sent a huge white bull of extraordinary beauty to Crete with the goal that Minos would sacrifice this animal to him. Strange recursion, but oh well.
In Crete, in general, there was a particularly strong veneration of bulls
and, judging by the frescoes, they staged something like a bullfight with sacred animals, only with elements of acrobatics.
Read more in the purely realistic novel “Theseus” by Mary Renault, where there is no magic-deity at all, it’s just amazing that a person tried to interpret the myths, to dodge. I recommend.
Bull dance. Fresco from the Cretan Palace of Knossos, 1450 BC.
However, King Minos felt sorry for letting such a luxurious animal go under the knife, and he, thinking not as a king-priest, but as a zealous head of a collective farm, wanted the bull to live in his herd and work as an inseminator. And instead he sacrificed the second most beautiful bull of his herd, the runner-up, so to speak.
God Poseidon, who sent a white bull COD for a specific purpose, was very offended and sent the bull into rabies. He began running around the island, trampling crops, butting goats, villagers and illegally parked cars.
And this bull was so powerful that just his capture (not even killing!) became the whole Labor of Hercules (No. 7), who was traveling in that area.
A. Kriesman. Hercules and the Cretan bull. 1853.
But before Hercules came and saved everyone, as a bonus, Poseidon decided to send another trouble to the royal family.
He made Queen Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, fall in love with this bull.
However, according to another version of the myth, it was not Poseidon who cursed, but Aphrodite. Because Pasiphae's father, the sun god Helios, told Aphrodite's husband about her betrayal.
In general, the version that Aphrodite set up this dirty trick seems more plausible to me.
Firstly, the dirty trick is too complicated, feminine.
Secondly, Poseidon is the god of the ocean, so he sent earthquakes and floods. And Aphrodite is the goddess of love. Lust is her professional tool.
So Pasiphae fell in love with a bull.
Margarita Kolobova. Pasiphae. 2010s.
And, as happens with women in love, I terribly wanted to have sex with the object of my love.
The queen’s sex life in her marriage was apparently in complete disarray: her husband Minos cheated on her so often that she harbored a black grudge.
When an ordinary woman harbors a black grudge, it can lead to bromine in the soup, a scratched car, huge loans and a grumpy divorce.
When Pasiphae, the sister of the sorceress Circe and the aunt of the sorceress Medea, harbors a black anger against women who reject “Domostroy” and Vedic femininity for the sake of sulfuric acid and dismemberment of men with a hacksaw (here you should include the song “An Incident in Elanskaya” by the Tuzlov brothers), it turns out much more interesting.
Pasiphae, who, according to family tradition, was a sorceress, cast a spell on her husband - everything remained excellent with friction, but he had problems with ejaculation. As soon as Minos came, his sperm turned into poisonous snakes and scorpions, stinging his partner to death.
(No, I don’t know the exact recipe for the spell).
Cesare Zocci. Minos. 2nd half 19th century
In principle, this did not really bother Minos himself - he still couldn’t do it more than once a night.
But word of mouth worked well, and after a while Minos had a shortage of partners, even though he was a king.
He was seen by all sorts of urologists and, just in case, proctologists - all to no avail.
It was not proctologists who helped him, but Procris, who was the next line in the telephone directory - an Athenian princess who fled to Crete when her husband caught her with her lover. In Crete, she apparently wanted to oust Pasiphae and become a queen herself, but the lack of such a manipulation tool as sex made this mission difficult for her. The recipe for how to cure Minos from a “venereal” disease was given to the girl by the sorceress Circe, Pasiphae’s sister.
She probably wanted to do something nasty to her sister.
Quite a real life situation.
The recipe for the medicine was that the princess told Minos to cum in the bladder of a goat (the topic of the post, let me remind you, is bestiality), and then go have sex with his own wife.
It seems to me that the goat in the list of ingredients was simply because Circe was harmful, and he was cured because for the first time in all his time he tried to sleep with Pasiphae, so she bewitched him herself in order to survive.
The night turned out to be hot.
The Athenian princess was sent home with a bang, having paid for the taxi in advance, but not allowing the silver spoons to be stolen.
But I was distracted by the insert novel. Let's return to the bull.
So Pasiphae fell in love with him.
(Sister Circe, let me remind you, turned all men into animals. According to the official version, so as not to be pestered, but now I have doubts on this issue).
Dmitry ILyutkin. Pasiphae
Pasiphae suffered.
Women are usually worried about psychological incompatibility with their loved one, but here - a rare case, there was physiological incompatibility.
The Cretan bull was a completely standard bull, a cloven-hoofed animal of the bovid family, without any details and sizes commensurate with humans.
No way to dock!
Fortunately for Queen Pasiphae, the brilliant artisan Daedalus, such a local Leonardo da Vinci, a jack of all trades, lived in exile at the Cretan court.
He hid on the island because in Athens he deliberately killed his young nephew and student when it became clear that he had surpassed him. He took me up the mountain and pushed him into the abyss.
Considering that Daedalus’s son Icarus would also die later, falling from a height - according to the official version, due to a technical defect of Daedalus - the wax that held the feathers in the wings melted (“ah, I’m an old fool, I didn’t think that the sun was hot !"), then the modus operandi is visible and the question arises: maybe Icarus was too smart too?
In general, the moral issues of this inventor Daedalus, as you understand, were not very burdensome, and he perceived the queen’s problem simply as a technical challenge.
And he came up with an idea: he made a wooden cow.
Daedalus makes a "cow". 16th century pottery
Pasiphae climbed inside, and the “cow” was towed to the field where the bull was located.
Giulio Romano. Pasiphae climbs into the "cow". 16th century.
The "cow" had a hole in the right place.
And also the correct, as BDSM and Shibari experts tell me from the spot, hard fastenings.
And pads! as humanists tell me.
Like Leonardo, Daedalus was not only a brilliant technician, but also knew how to create amazingly beautiful things.
The “cow” was distinguished by its extraordinary beauty, and when the bull saw her, he immediately became excited, climbed onto her, and satisfied Pasiphae’s desire.
Andre Masson. Pasiphae and the bull. 1937
It is not very clear whether this was a one-time occurrence and whether Pasiphae was cured of her obsession after this.
Or the procedure was repeated several times.
Or maybe the lovers were simply separated by Hercules, who urgently needed to complete feat number seven.
Maggie Hambling. Pasiphae and the bull. 1897.
Pasiphae turned out to be pregnant, and after the due date she gave birth to a monster with a human body and a bull's head - the Minotaur.
My favorite freaks are supporters of the theory of paleocontact, who consider it a hybrid, the result of a genetic experiment that the Olympian gods (alien spacemen) performed on earthlings. Human DNA doesn't interbreed with animals, right? only in laboratories, right? and look how many of them there were in that era - centaurs, fauns, tritons. The aliens really did their best! Hello Dolly the Sheep.
I love freaks and their flights of imagination.
Pasiphae holding the baby Minotaur, 4th century BC.
What King Minos said when he learned that his wife gave birth to an unknown animal is unknown. But he did not kill her. She him too. Which for the Colchian princess is an example of great willpower, by the way.
And the Minotaur was imprisoned in a labyrinth so that it would not shine.
Beautiful young men and women were thrown into the labyrinth for him to eat (and probably something else).
Wait! for what food? According to his father, he is a ruminant herbivore! Oops, the chances are getting smaller.
Pablo Picasso. Minotaur and sleeping woman
And then Theseus wormed his way among them, who did not want to be torn to pieces or the title topic of this post.
And he stabbed the poor Minotaur.
Morality: if you go to have sex with a temperamental sexual partner who does not want to bother with issues of contraception, take care of it yourself. The consequences can be unpredictable.
Sh.E. Shez. Victory of Theseus over the Minotaur. 1790s
PLOTLESS INTERLUDE
Pan and goat. 1st century BC - 1st century AD
Now some painted pottery, dating back to the 5th century BC.
Well, what about fauns and satyrs - they themselves are hybrids.
It doesn't have hooves, but notice it has a tail.
Here the tail hangs down dejectedly.
And here the tail flutters proudly
So the real people came.
A woman (bacchante) and some kind of donkey
Dog blowjob and anal fisting
Amazing version of the 69 position
What entertainers, these ancient Greeks!
Relief depicting a temple with a phallus inside. Found during excavations in Pompeii
From literary works, the theme is fully disclosed in Apuleius’s novel “The Golden Ass” (second century AD).
The main character of which, a man turned into a donkey, is used by noble ladies for a very specific purpose.
she began to kiss me and talk to me as if I were the person she loved, grabbed me by the reins and pulled me towards the bed. I did not need any insistence for this: intoxicated by old wine, drunk in large quantities, and excited by the smell of perfume, seeing in front of me a young and in all respects beautiful woman, I lay down, but was very confused about how to cover the woman. After all, since I turned into a donkey, I have not experienced the love characteristic of donkeys, nor have I had anything to do with donkeys. Moreover, I was in considerable difficulty lest I mutilate her and be punished for killing a woman. But I didn't know that I was needlessly afraid. The woman, seeing that I was not hugging her, drew me to her with kisses and all sorts of caresses, lying as if with a man, she hugged me and, rising, accepted all of me. I still didn’t dare and, out of caution, quietly pulled away from her, but she squeezed me tightly in her arms, didn’t let me move away and caught me as I left. Having finally fully understood what was missing for her enjoyment and pleasure, I did the rest without fear, thinking to myself that I was no worse than Pasiphae’s lover.
At the end of the novel he turns back into a human. And he shows up to that same woman.
But she drives him away in indignation, because he has lost the main sign of a donkey, for the sake of which she welcomed him.
Jean de Bosschere. Illustration for "The Golden Donkey", 1930s
HOW WE MADE ELENA THE BEAUTIFUL
God Zeus loved to cheat on his wife Hera.
She tried to somehow stop this, but she was far from the ingenuity of the Colchian princess Pasiphae. She made a mess of little things.
Therefore, Zeus practically did not limit himself to anything.
But he got bored with this permissiveness, and he began to pick up women under different avatars.
Educational program! An avatar is not just an icon on your profile! In Hindu mythology, the word “avatara” means the form of incarnation of God into another being. The pioneers of the Internet were educated people with a sense of humor. For example, the yahoo search engine is in honor of the Yahoos from Gulliver's Travels - stupid humanoid creatures. Hello, schoolboy!
J. Engr. Zeus and Thetis. 1811
To seduce a woman into sex, Zeus turned into: a) a snake; b) bull; c) cloud; d) eagle; e) swan; e) quail; g) ant; h) pigeon; i) stallion; j) fire; j) golden shower; k) woman; l) satire; m) shepherd, and so on.
Really, such ingenuity, as if he is the founder of a pickup course and he needs to promote his channel on YouTube.
Correggio. Zeus seduces Io by taking the form of a cloud. 1530s
But the science fiction writers Oldie in “The Achaean Cycle” (I highly recommend) have a completely convincing theory that somehow Zeus had sex in ordinary human form, but it didn’t work out. Psychotrauma arose, psychotrauma took hold.
And from then on, he only got hard if he took the form of an animal, etc. (Google plushophilia, furries and loopholes).
Francois Boucher. Leda and the swan. 1740
The rationalistic explanation looks like this: Zeus chose not just anyone, but queens and princesses, who were guarded very seriously. It was impossible to just get close to them. That's why he turned into someone harmless to sneak up on.
But this seems like a pathetic excuse for a god who has teleportation technology...
Leda and the swan. Ancient Rome, ca. 130 AD
Leda was also a queen - the city of Sparta, one of the most powerful political centers of that era.
One day she was walking with her maids on the banks of the Eurotas River and saw a swan of extraordinary beauty (and size).
Leda and the swan. OK. 330 BC.
In general, in those days, given the population density, if you were a queen and a beauty, you should be suspicious of the appearance of non-standard animals, see points a) b) c) and so on above. But naive Leda did not think anything bad, she began to play with the cute bird, feeding it with the bread that she had brought to feed the ducks on the pond.
In general, how was she not scared? Such birds with a huge beak are generally very scary in real life.
Jerzy Hulevich. Leda and the swan. 1928
They played cuddling games, cooed... But then the giant swan with his bird-like erection pounced on Queen Leda and began to trample her, to use the slang of a young naturalist.
Rubens (copy from a lost original by Michelangelo). Leda and the swan. 1600.
Ancient Roman relief, 1st-2nd centuries. AD
As they clarify here in the comments, Saltykov-Shchedrin would approve of the section. He wrote about this event:
“...one day, dressed as a swan, he swam up to a bathing maiden, the daughter of noble parents, whose only dowry was beauty, and while she was stroking his head, he made her unhappy for the rest of her life.”
Artist Heinrich Lossow, 2nd half. 19th century
Federico Beltran Masses. Leda and the swan. 1920s(?)
Paul Matthias Padua. 1965
(there is clearly a cry of joy here)
Botero. Leda and the Swan, 2006
After this, the tired and satisfied queen returned home to the palace.
And her legal husband, King Tyndareus, had sex with her.
She became pregnant from both men at once (hello telegony).
And in due time she gave birth to 4 children, two boys and two girls.
Moreover, from Zeus a boy and a girl, and from a mortal man similarly.
The children from her god were Helen the Beautiful (whose beauty will burn Troy) and Polydeuces, and from her husband - Clytemnestra (the wife of Agamemnon with an ax, read the tag issue 1) and Castor.
To be more precise, she didn’t “give birth”, but laid it in an egg.
Baby Helen of Troy in an egg, ancient Greek sculpture of the 5th century. BC.
Bakkyaka. Leda and her children, 16th century
How it ended, see the director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's film "Troy" (2004, Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana).
Well, or read Homer if you want to show off in front of your fellow travelers on the subway.
Morality: do not lose your vigilance on the banks of water bodies, especially if you are intoxicated! No matter how white and fluffy the seekers of one-time sex pretend to be.
G. Klimt. Leda and the swan. 1917
***
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In his commentary on the Hierophant in The Book of Thoth, Crowley states:
“There is a distinct sadistic connotation in this card, and this is quite natural, for it goes back to the legend of Pasiphae - the prototype of all legends about the divine Bulls. These still persist in some religions, for example, in Shaivism and even (after several stages of degeneration) in Christianity.”
In his usual manner, Crowley does not develop the topic, leaving the curious reader to explore this casually dropped remark on their own. So, what is the meaning of the legend of Pasiphae and how does it relate to the Hierophant and the New Aeon? Fragments of the answer to this question are scattered throughout Crowley's writings, and we will try to collect them, but first of all, let's remember the legend of Pasiphae itself.
The action of this legend takes place in ancient Crete. God Poseidon sends King Minos a beautiful snow-white bull from the sea. Minos must sacrifice him to Poseidon. However, struck by the beauty of the bull, the king keeps it and in return sacrifices another bull from his herds. Insulted, Poseidon angrily decides to punish Minos and instills in his wife Pasiphae an insane passion for this white bull. With the help of Daedalus, who built for her a hollow wooden cow covered with real cow skin, Pasiphae copulates with the bull and gives birth to a monster - the Minotaur.
Daedalus and Pasiphae. Fragment. Fresco from the Pinacoteca of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, 60-79.
Crowley does not mention Pasiphae very often, but the few comments and observations on this myth that can still be found in his works clarify a lot. In The Making of Paris, Crowley states the general idea behind the legend of Pasiphae:
“This is the great idea of magicians of all times - to produce a messiah through some modification of the sexual process.
In Assyria they tried to use incest, as in Egypt: the Egyptians - between brothers and sisters, the Assyrians - between mothers and sons. The Phoenicians are between fathers and daughters. The Greeks and Syrians mostly tried bestiality. This idea came from India. The Jews tried to achieve the same goal through witchcraft. The Mohammedans tried homosexuality; medieval philosophers tried to obtain a homunculus through chemical experiments with seeds.
But the main idea is that any method of reproduction that differs from the usual one is likely to lead to magical consequences.
In this case, either the child’s father must be a symbol of the sun, or the mother must be a symbol of the moon..
(The Equinox
Pasiphae enters the wooden heifer built by Daedalus. Giulio Romano, ca. 1530
“SPRING CEREMONIES IN CRETE
They had a labyrinth. They borrowed from the Egyptian cult of Apis.
In this labyrinth there was a sacred bull, white, without a single spot. On the spring festival, twelve virgin sacrifices were offered to him.
"Et crudelis amor tauri et supposita furto,
Pasiphae..." ("Aeneid", canto VI) They wanted to get the Minotaur, the incarnation of the sun, the messiah. They claimed they already had it, but they didn't.".
(The Equinox, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 386-387.)
Here Crowley cites the legend of Pasiphae as a historical example of “a mode of reproduction different from the usual.” He mentions the sacred white bull and the Apis bull, which was worshiped in Egypt, the hero of another of the “legends of the divine Bulls.” Every spring, the virginity of twelve women was sacrificed in the hope that one of them would give birth to the Minotaur - to produce offspring of a “magical nature.”
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Gustave Moreau. Pasiphae. Sketch, 1867
Gustave Moreau. Pasiphae. OK. 1876-1880
The legend of Pasiphae is also interpreted at the beginning of the description of the 16th Aether in The Vision and the Voice, where we finally begin to understand its meaning:
“Against the background of a foggy landscape, ghostly, flickering images flash, very unstable. But the overall impression is the moon rising at midnight and a crowned maiden riding a bull.
Here they rise to the surface of the stone. And the maiden lifts up a song of praise: “Glory to him who has taken on this form of toil. For through his work my work is accomplished. For I, being a woman, always desire to have intercourse with a certain beast. And this is the salvation of the world: that I am always deceived by some god and that my son is the guardian of the labyrinth of seventy-two paths.”.
This woman is Pasiphae, the crowned queen of Crete. The bull was originally considered a symbol of the Sun and was dedicated to Apollo. The son of Pasiphae is the Minotaur-Asterius, “solar”. The labyrinth in question here is the sky itself, divided into 72 zodiacal semi-decanates through which the Sun makes its annual journey.
The commentary that Crowley gives to this fragment from the description of the 16th Aether contains an indication of the modern interpretation of the legend of Pasiphae, presented in the Tarot of Thoth:
“This is an allusion to Pasiphae and the Minotaur. A similar mystery of woman and beast lies at the center of the cult of all mythologies. It is noteworthy that some tribes in the Terai to this day annually send their women into the jungle and worship the prosimians born from this in their sanctuaries. This mystery is revealed in Atu XI and is constantly found in the higher Ethers.".
The Lust card - Atu XI - shows a woman riding a lion-like beast; this image is almost identical to the one that appeared in the vision of the 16th Ether.
The description of this card in the Book of Thoth explains the legend of Pasiphae in terms of the new Aeon:
“The main mystery of the past Aeon was the mystery of the Incarnation: at the heart of all legends about the God-man lay a symbolic story of this kind. The essence of any such story was that the hero or god-man was denied descent from a father belonging to the human race. In most cases, the father was declared to be a god in the guise of some animal - an animal chosen in accordance with what qualities the creators of the cult wanted to see in the child he begot.
Thus, Romulus and Remus were twins born of a virgin from the god Mars and suckled by a she-wolf. This legend is the basis of the entire magical formula of the city of Rome.
The legends of Hermes and Dionysus have already been mentioned above in this study.
The father of Buddha Gautama was considered to be an elephant with six tusks, which appeared to his mother in a dream.
There is also a legend about the Holy Spirit in the guise of a dove, which impregnated the Virgin Mary. There is a hidden reference here to the image of a dove released from Noah’s ark, flying over the waters and bringing the good news of the salvation of the world. (The inhabitants of the Ark are the fetus in the womb, the waters [of the flood] are amniotic fluid.)
Similar traditions are found in all religions of the Aeon of Osiris. This is the standard Dying God formula.
So, in this card we see the legend of a woman and a lion, or rather a serpent (the card corresponds to the letter Teth, meaning snake.) At the dawn of the Aeon of Osiris, the prophets foresaw the appearance of the coming Aeon - the one in which we live now - and he inspired They were in extreme horror and fear, for they did not understand the principle of the change of Aeons and perceived each change as a catastrophe. This is the true interpretation and reason for the furious blasphemy against the Beast and the Scarlet Woman in the 13th, 17th and 18th chapters of the Apocalypse. However, on the Tree of Life, the path of Gimel - the Moon - descending from the very heights, intersects with the path of Teth - Leo, the abode of the Sun, and, therefore, the Wife on this map can be considered the image of the Moon, completely illuminated by the Sun and merging with it in love intercourse, in order to give birth , in flesh and in human form, a messenger or messengers of the Lord of this Aeon". (“The Book of Thoth.”)
Here the Beast and the Scarlet Woman appear as modern personifications of the characters in the legend of Pasiphae. In the Book of the Law they are identified with the Sun and Moon:
“Know that the chosen priest and messenger of infinite space is the Beast, the prince-priest; and to his wife, called the Scarlet Woman, was given all power. They will gather my children into their fold; they will bring star glory into the hearts of men.
For forever and ever he is the sun, and she is the moon. But for him it is a winged secret flame, and for her it is starlight descending from the heights.”(I, 15-16).
The last verse identifies the Beast with Hadit ("winged secret flame") and the Scarlet Woman with Nut ("starlight descending from the heights"). In the Liber Reguli they are also described as "earthly messengers of these Gods." Such are the roles of the Priest and Priestess in the Gnostic Mass.
It is worthy of note that all male entities in the teachings of Thelema are endowed with animal traits, and all these animals are of a solar nature: Hadit - “the winged serpent of light” (“Book of the Law”, III, 38), Horus - “Falcon-headed Lord of Silence and Strength” ( “Book of the Law”, III, 70), The Beast is the Serpent. All of them are symbols of the Sun, the true Father in all Crowleyan interpretations of the legend of Pasiphae.
Translator's Notes
Apis is a sacred bull in ancient Egyptian mythology. Originally it was a living symbol of Osiris (who himself was called the “bull of the underworld”) or Ptah; later he began to be revered as an independent fertility deity. Once every 25 years (or more often, in case of early death of the animal), a living bull was chosen as Apis in Memphis, which was supposed to have a number of special features.
. “Here is Pasiphae, drawn to the bull by cruel passion, // Shameful cunning...” (translated by S. Osherov).
. Author's inaccuracy: the name "Asterius" means "starry". However, in the system of Thelema, at one level the sun is considered to be essentially identical with any of the stars, so this argument remains acceptable.
. In the note, the author makes a reference to “Myths of Ancient Greece” by Robert Graves. Apparently, the following fragment is meant: “Since, according to Pausanias (III. 26.1), “Pasiphae” is an epithet of the moon […] the myth of Pasiphae and the bull indicates a ritual marriage between the priestess of the moon, decorated with cow horns, and the king -Minos, who wore a bull mask. [...this] sacred marriage was perceived as a marriage between the sun and the moon.”
. A period of approx. 4000 - approx. 2000 BC, when the vernal equinox was in the constellation Taurus.
. Serapis is a syncretic Egyptian deity of the Hellenistic era, combining the images of Osiris and Apis. He was revered as the lord of the elements and natural phenomena, the god of fertility, water and the sun, a healer, a predictor of the future and a savior from misfortune, and was also associated with the afterlife. He was identified with a number of Greek deities - Hades, Poseidon, Apollo, Zeus, Asclepius.
. In fact, “stellar”, see note. 3.
. Those. 72 ecliptic sections of 5?.
. The Terai is a forested region at the southern foothills of the Himalayas, in India and Nepal.
. Wed. description of Hanuman, the monkey god, from Atu I.
. Those. the path connecting Kether with Tiphareth and corresponding to Atu II (High Priestess, Arcana of the Moon).
. The Path of Tet, corresponding to Atu XI (Lust), connects Chesed and Geburah. The zodiac sign Leo is the abode of the Sun.
. In the teachings of Thelema, Nut and Hadit are the two highest cosmic principles. Hadith - “great god, lord of the sky”, Father of the Supreme Trinity of deities, husband of Nut. It is defined as the infinitesimal point in the center of a circle, the hub of a wheel, the cube in a circle, "the flame that burns in the heart of every man and in the core of every star," and as the inner self of man. Depicted as a winged solar disk. Nut (Nuit) - Mother as part of the Supreme Trinity of Deities, the image of which goes back to the Egyptian goddess Nut, the personification of the firmament. She is called the Queen of Infinite Space, the Lady of the Stars, the Lady of the Starry Heavens. Defined as a circle whose circumference is infinite and whose center is everywhere. From the intercourse of these two cosmic forces the Universe is born, identified with the divine son of Hadit and Nut - Heru-Ra-Ha (see note 2 to part II).
. Gnostic Mass - in the system of Thelema: Eucharistic ceremony, the main ritual of the Gnostic Catholic Church (Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica) - the ecclesiastical division of the O.T.O. The text of the mass was written by Crowley in 1913.
© Anna Blaze, translation, 2007
whose name means refreshing. They talk noisily and cheerfully about the approaching bullfight, which King Minos will soon organize. Just one of his military leaders returned victorious from distant countries and brought with him many slaves. Some strange, barbaric people speaking an incomprehensible language. Boys and girls with wonderful features, fair hair, blue eyes. The most beautiful ones were chosen from them, and now, under the supervision of the royal games manager, they are taught the art of fighting an angry beast. This requires great strength, flexibility and dexterity of movement. You need to jump onto the bull’s backbone while running and stick a sharp dart into its withers. They say that one girl is especially distinguished in these games, and she is so resourceful and beautiful that the court sculptor will make a wonderful figurine of her. Queen Pasiphae wants to have one - small, made of ivory, depicting the moment when a girl rushes through the arena on a bull, holding on to its horns.
The maids look at her strangely, talking about the beauty of this barbaric girl. Queen Pasiphae sees this, understands and smiles imperceptibly. She is too confident in her Minos. Oh, it wasn't always like this! Not so long ago, the “sweet maiden” Britomartis, the favorite of the fleet-footed Artemis, fleeing from the obscene passion of the king, threw herself into the sea. And then for the first, and perhaps the last time, Pasiphae used her miraculous power, inherent in the entire family of Helios - the power that so helped her niece Medea from the unknown distant Colchis.
Queen Pasiphae bewitched King Minos. She did something, cast some spells, burned such and such potions - and now the spell worked: King Minos is not able to have a love affair with any stranger. No matter how many times he tried, vile reptiles came out of him, snakes, scorpions, which, once in the womb of the virgin, led to death. This was done by a jealous wife. From then on, she alone would be his lover and wife, she would bear him children, and so that they would all be as beautiful as her daughter, the lovely Ariadne.
Pasiphae is proud of her noble descent from the radiant sun god. Just at this moment, looking at the fading glare that penetrates even into her chambers from her father’s chariot, she proudly thinks that few maidens of this earth can boast of such a relative. And she doesn’t know that right now she least of all arouses envy. For Helios bears the wrath of Aphrodite. Of course, no one except Zeus has power over the fire god. But there are his children on earth on whom she can take out her revenge.
Queen Pasiphae fell under the wrath of the great goddess. Due to the fault of the father, who too diligently guarded the marital honor of Hephaestus, punishment will befall his daughter. This is fair and wise. And the punishment will be severe and very inventive. Early in the morning, when Pasiphae leaves her decorated bath and, dressed in all the clothes befitting her position, heads to the holy grove, on the way she will be seized by a feeling of passion so monstrous that it will cause amazement in later generations and dishonor her entire family.
Numerous royal herds grazed in the shady valleys of the forested Cretan Ida. Among them was one white bull, especially beautiful, a gift from Poseidon. He had a black mark between his horns, and he himself was all white, like milk. Cow cows from all over the area dreamed of holding him on their backs for at least a few minutes. Minos said that there is no other bull like this in the whole earth. Perhaps it was he who was like the bull into which Zeus kidnapped Europe.
Pasiphae knew this bull and often stroked his shiny neck. That same day, leaving the painted bathhouse in the morning, it was as if I saw him for the first time in my life. He seemed to her incomparably beautiful, beautiful not like a bull, an animal, but like a beautiful person, a handsome man. And an inexplicable feeling came over her; she wanted to become the bull’s mistress. She forgot that she was in her morning attire, forgot about the holy grove, about her maids, and ran to confess her love. The bull turned his big, clear eyes to her, and then continued to graze. The queen commanded that from now on the beautiful bull be grazed separately: she was jealous of him for each heifer.
Pasiphae spent whole days next to the bull. The court girls did not see her and wondered why the queen suddenly had such bucolic moods. It even became fashionable, and noble Cretan ladies began to walk through the fields with bundles of fresh grass, imitating Queen Pasiphae, who with her white, sleek hands reaped young twigs and selected herbs for her beloved bull.
But there were worse things. The queen, always so pious, suddenly became indifferent to holy rites. They did not see her at religious celebrations, and her own temple, in which she daily made sacrifices to the Great Mother - the mistress of the mountains and forest thickets, the kind queen of lions, was empty and did not show off fresh flowers.
And even worse. She neglected not only royal duties, but also marital duties. Minos was surprised and saddened to find the passage from his rooms to the queen’s apartment closed. The bull conquered the heart of Pasiphae Minos!
Queen Pasiphae got up early every day. She bathed in warm water infused with incense, braided her hair in pigtails, put on her most beautiful dresses with multi-colored frills, pulled her waist together with a bodice and with her chest open, in court fashion (and her breasts were magnificent), with an elegant hat on her head, she went to her to the beloved. On the way, she took out a mirror, straightened her hair, and swapped precious jewelry so that her lover would appreciate it all. In elegant shoes, she wandered through the mountains and in the evening returned tired, with broken legs, in a dress so tattered that it was just right to give it to one of the kitchen girls.
She closed herself, didn’t want to see anyone, and if she called the servants, it was only to give the order to slaughter such and such a trap - and immediately! Tormented by jealousy and unsatisfied passion, the queen fell asleep in a heavy sleep, full of sultry visions and mirages. No one could advise her to go to Achaea: the miraculous Selemnus River flows there, and as soon as you bathe in its waters, you will forget all the torments of love and melancholy.
Seeing no salvation from anywhere, Pasiphae decided to trust the only person who was able to help her. She went to Daedalus, an Athenian. It was known that he could do everything: cut stone, fix water pipes, and build a canal. As it turned out later, he even knew how to fly through the air. Pasiphae confessed her difficulties to him. At first he didn't understand why she was telling him this. The queen promised him gold and threatened him with punishment, but did not directly say what she wanted. At the end, she made him understand that she needed to impress her lover as if she were a cow. Maybe something artificial, some kind of machine will do... Daedalus understood, nodded his head and got to work.
A few days later everything was ready. The master whittled a very suitable cow out of wood and covered it with skin so skillfully that even the most cunning bull would not have discovered the trick. A cavity was hollowed out inside. Pasiphae climbed the gangplank and took refuge there. They brought the cow to the meadow and brought the bull. The most terrible passion that has ever burned a woman from the inside has been satisfied. Wild cries of frantic pleasure burst out through the wooden muzzle of an imaginary cow.
It is unknown what became of the bull. Pasiphae, at the appointed hour, gave birth to a monster; it had the head of a bull, and the rest of the body was human. They called him the Minotaur. He was indomitable and thirsted for human blood. He was killed by Theseus, a young Athenian hero. Minos ordered Pasiphaeus to be imprisoned. The daughter of the sun god died in sadness and sorrow.
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. The Minotaur was the fruit of the love of the Cretan queen Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, and a bull sent by Poseidon himself. Due to the terrible appearance of the Minotaur, King Minos ordered the master Daedalus and his son Icarus to build a huge labyrinth in which the monster would hide from people. The Minotaur lived in a labyrinth, and the Athenians, as a ransom for the murdered son of Minos, had to annually send young men and women to be devoured by the monster. The Athenian hero Theseus managed to kill him.
The word Minotaur is made up of the ancient Greek name "Minos" and the noun "bull". Thus it means "bull of Minos." The Minotaur's real name was Asterius, from the ancient Greek "Asterion", meaning the bull constellation Taurus.
King Minos and the bull from the sea
King Minos was one of three sons from the union of the god Zeus and Europa. Zeus took on different forms: snake, bull, eagle, swan. When he was in the form of a bull, he seduced Europe. Asterion, the king of Crete, took Europa as his wife along with the sons of Zeus and raised the boys as his own. When Asterion died, he did not have time to bequeath which of his sons should reign on the throne: Minos, Sarpedon or Rhadamanthus. The name Minos actually means king, and he was destined to become the king of Crete. But Minos' rise to power was difficult, as he had to get ahead of his brothers' rivals.
Minos claimed that he was chosen by the gods to rule and had their support. He boasted that he could prove it and prayed to the gods. One fine day, Minos prayed and promised that he would sacrifice a bull. Poseidon sent him a magnificent bull from the sea, which confirmed Minos' claim to kingship. No one dared to challenge the favor of the gods, and especially the mighty Poseidon, who rules all the seas. Minos expelled his brothers from Crete and took the throne. The three brothers united again in the afterlife, becoming judges in Hell. Their task became to judge the dead and determine their placement in hell based on their merits during life.
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King Minos did not fulfill his promise to sacrifice the bull sent by Poseidon to the gods, but sacrificed an ordinary bull. He kept the majestic bull with him. For his arrogance, Poseidon punished him by instilling in the wife of King Minos Pasiphae a passion for a bull that came out of the sea. According to another version, Poseidon, outraged by the arrogance and disrespect of Minos, went to Aphrodite, and she cursed Pasiphae, rewarding her with a passion for a bull.
Pasiphae and the birth of the Minotaur
Queen Pasiphae of Crete, suffering from a passion for a bull, turned to the master Daedalus and his son Icarus for help. Daedalus built her a wooden cow, which he covered with the skin of a real cow, and attached wheels to it. Queen Pasiphae climbed inside a wooden cow and was taken to a meadow where the bull was grazing. There she united with a bull, and from this union the Minotaur, a man with the head and tail of a bull, was born. The queen named him Asterius (from the constellation of the bull Taurus).
As the boy began to grow up, horns grew on his head and his face turned into a bull's muzzle. Seeing this, Minos realized that he was punished by the gods through the fate of his wife, but he left Pasiphae, and made Daedalus and Icarus slaves for their help to the queen. When Asterius grew up, Pasiphae was no longer able to feed him; he needed another source of food, since he was neither a man nor a beast. He started eating people. On the advice of the oracle, King Minos had to hide it from people. He ordered Daedalus and Icarus to build a huge labyrinth, placed his son in it and named him the Minotaur.
Death of Androgeus and tribute from the Athenians
While the labyrinth was being built, Minos learned that his and Pasiphae’s son, Androgeus, had been killed by the Athenians. Minos blamed the Athenians for the death of his only son and the destruction of his family line. He began to pursue them until they agreed to pay tribute for the death of their son. Minos demanded that the Athenians annually send seven girls and seven boys as tribute, who would be sent into the labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. Some sources say that the most beautiful men and only virgin girls were selected. The murder of Androgeus sent a cruel plague to Athens. After consulting the Delphic Oracle, the Athenian king Aegeus learned that only by sending tribute to Minos to Crete could Athens be saved. Then the Athenians agreed.
Death of the Minotaur
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The son of King Aegean, Theseus, voluntarily asked for the third batch of tribute. He assured his father and all of Athens that he would kill the Minotaur. The young man promised that on the way home he would raise white sails if he became the winner, and if the monster killed him, the crew would return under black sails. When Theseus arrived in Crete, he immediately attracted the attention of the Minotaur's half-sister Ariadne, daughter of King Minos and Phaedra. Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and rushed to Daedalus so that he could tell her how to get out of the labyrinth. Following Daedalus' instructions, she handed Theseus a ball of long thread before he entered the labyrinth. Theseus tied the end of Ariadne's thread to the front door and went into the labyrinth.