Pasiphae- Greek GodDeity"Queen of Crete"

Daughter of the Sun

Pasiphae was a daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse, sister to the sorceress Circe and the Colchian king Aeetes. Her name means "all-shining" — fitting for a child of the sun. Like her siblings, she inherited the art of pharmakeia: drugs, herbs, and enchantment. She married Minos, king of Crete and son of Zeus and Europa, and bore him several children, among them Ariadne and Phaedra.

The Curse and the Bull

Poseidon had sent a magnificent white bull from the sea as a sign that Minos was destined to rule. Minos was supposed to sacrifice the animal, but its beauty was so extraordinary that he kept it and substituted an ordinary bull. Poseidon afflicted Pasiphae with an uncontrollable desire for the bull. Desperate to satisfy this compulsion, Pasiphae turned to Daedalus, the master craftsman at the Cretan court. Daedalus constructed a hollow wooden cow, covered in real hide, into which Pasiphae climbed. The bull was deceived, and from this union Pasiphae conceived the Minotaur — Asterion, a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull.

The Sorceress Queen

Minos was horrified and commissioned Daedalus to build the Labyrinth beneath Knossos to conceal the creature. Angered by his relentless infidelities, Pasiphae used her inherited pharmakeia to curse him: any woman who lay with him would be destroyed, as serpents, scorpions, and millipedes issued from his body during the act. Only Procris, daughter of Erechtheus, found a way to cure him with a protective herb, allowing Minos to father children with other women once more.

Cult at Thalamae

Pasiphae received worship at Thalamae in Laconia, where she possessed an oracular shrine. Consultants slept in the sanctuary and received prophetic visions in their dreams. Pausanias records the temple, and Plutarch notes that Spartan kings consulted her oracle on matters of state.