The queen of Crete who was cursed by the gods to love a bull.

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Pasiphaë, daughter of the sun god Helios, is best known as the mother of the Minotaur. Her tragic story begins with a broken promise to Poseidon, leading to a divine curse that forced her into an unnatural obsession with a snow-white bull, forever altering the fate of the Cretan royal line.

In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was the queen of Crete and wife to King Minos. The central conflict of her story stems from Minos's failure to sacrifice a magnificent white bull sent by the sea god Poseidon. To punish this defiance, Poseidon cursed Pasiphaë with an uncontrollable, shameful lust for the animal. Desperate to satisfy this divine compulsion, she sought the help of the master inventor Daedalus, who constructed a hollow wooden cow covered in real hide. By hiding inside this contraption, Pasiphaë was able to mate with the bull, eventually giving birth to the Minotaur—a creature with a man's body and a bull's head, later imprisoned in the Labyrinth.

While the Poseidon narrative is the most prominent, ancient sources offer conflicting accounts regarding the origin of her curse. Some traditions suggest Aphrodite was the true architect of her suffering, seeking revenge against Pasiphaë's father, Helios, for exposing her affair with Ares. Other variations claim the curse was a direct result of Pasiphaë neglecting the worship of Aphrodite. Scholars have even noted that the bull itself may represent an older, pre-Olympian iteration of Poseidon, adding a layer of archaic ritualistic significance to the myth.

Beyond the Minotaur, Pasiphaë was depicted as a powerful figure associated with magical arts. She was said to have cast a fidelity charm on Minos that caused him to produce venomous creatures like serpents and scorpions whenever he was unfaithful, a curse only broken by the use of protective herbs. Her portrayal varies wildly across literature; while some texts treat her as an immortal goddess, others, such as Euripides in his lost play 'Cretans', depict her as a mortal woman facing judgment. In Virgil's 'Aeneid', she is found in the underworld's Mournful Fields, forever categorized among those who suffered from forbidden passions.

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