With Vergil
he assumed the royal chamber was unguarded, and with Parthenius he
assumed that Nisus continued to sleep undisturbed.
he assumed the royal chamber was unguarded, and with Parthenius he
assumed that Nisus continued to sleep undisturbed.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
Roman authors often accepted his idea that
Scylla became a bird, but Hyginus declared that she became a fish.
According to the original account, Nisus died as soon as he lost the
fatal hair. During Alexandrian times another idea entered into the
story. In folk tales of many countries, certain men were said to have
possessed remarkable strength and prestige while their hair remained
long but to have lost it as soon as the hair was cut. This idea occurred
in the Old Testament narrative of Samson, in many tales of magicians,
and in a modern Greek story of a king with three magic golden hairs. It
even affected the tenure of early French kings, for Pepin shaved the head
of Childeric Third in order to depose him. Parthenius appears to have
thought that Nisus survived the theft of his hair but lost his ability to
defend Megara and perished when the city was taken. Later authors
mentioned the idea explicitly.
Vergil, in his early poem called The Ciris, retold the story at some
length. Although influenced by Parthenius, he added many new circum-
stances, and, wherever he could, he made the tale favorable to Scylla.
Vergil assigned a different cause for the war. Minos, he said, was trying
to recapture the seer Polyidus, who had taken refuge in Megara. Vergil
gave a more detailed account of Nisus. The purple hair grew on the
crown of his head, and all his other hairs were white. For the infatua-
tion of Scylla, Vergil imagined a supernatural cause. After unwittingly
profaning a temple of Juno, the girl denied that she had done so. The
offended goddess persuaded Cupid to shoot her with a golden arrow.
Without indicating how Scylla first became aware of Minos, Vergil gave
a long account of her desperate behavior. He implied that, as a neces-
sary condition of the marriage, Minos demanded the fatal hair.
Although Nisus had guards stationed outside the palace, he feared
no danger from within, and he left his bed chamber unprotected. As
Scylla paused before his door, trying to gather sufficient boldness for
the attempt, the nurse overtook her and persuaded her first to see
whether they could induce her father to arrange for the marriage. Find-
ing that Nisus refused to do this, they resorted to theft. With the fall
of the city Minos presumably recaptured the seer Polyidus.
Since Minos had no further business in Attica, Vergil imagined that
he immediately prepared to sail for Crete. Minos gave orders that Scylla
should be tied to the rear of his ship. Apparently she was not fastened
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
to the rudder but to the topmost part of the stern. Sometimes she was
raised high in air, as a wave lifted the vessel; and at other times she sank
to the level of the water, as the stern went down into the succeeding
trough of the sea.
While the fleet bore Scylla away from her native land, Vergil showed
her uttering a long complaint. She reproached Minos for disregard of
his promise to marry her, for ingratitude, and for failure to appreciate
her sacrifices in his behalf. Indifferent to her reproaches, Minos con-
tinued down the Saronic Gulf and out into the Aegaean Sea. Vergil gave
an impressive account of the voyage. After passing the island of Seri-
phus, the girl fainted.
The goddess Amphitrite took pity on her and transformed her into
a beautiful bird, the Ciris. Vergil described the change in detail. This
bird, he said, inhabits lonely rocks and cliffs along the shore. Jupiter,
he continued, was not willing to have the traitress fare better than her
pious father, and he transformed Nisus into a variety of his favorite
bird, the eagle. Vergil ended with a description of the manner in which
the sea eagle pursues the ciris through the air. In the Georgics he re-
peated the description, noting the spectacle as a sign of fair weather.
Some Alexandrian author had identified Scylla, daughter of Nisus,
with Scylla, the monster of the Calabrian shore. Vergil in his Sixth
Eclogue accepted the innovation. Propertius followed his example, and
Ovid alluded to the idea repeatedly in his amatory poems. But in the Ciris
Vergil rejected the idea, and in the Metamorphoses Ovid too rejected it,
because he desired to tell a different tale of Scylla, the monster (Bks.
13-14).
Propertius took great interest in the tale of Scylla. In one place he
associated it with the tradition that after death Minos became a judge
of the souls entering Hades. By punishing the traitress, he said, Minos
showed justice to his enemies and acted in a manner worthy of his future
position as a judge in the Lower World. In another poem the tale of
Scylla suggested to Propertius a new myth of Tarpeia.
He imagined Tarpeia in love with the Sabine leader Tatius. Pro-
pertius gave throughout the tale a very unfavorable impression of his
heroine. The chief events were as follows. Tarpeia was in the habit of
leaving Rome to draw water from a secluded spring. During one of these
excursions she saw Tatius engaged in warlike exercises on the plain. Ap-
parently he was on horseback and in full armor but had his face uncov-
ered. Impressed with his fine features and beautiful armor, she fell vio-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
lently in love with him. Later Propertius represented her as considering
her fate in a long soliloquy. She thought of leaving Rome, in order to
live always as a captive within view of Tatius. Then she thought of be-
traying the city. She reflected that Tatius was worthy to rule and that
his cause was just. She hoped to become his queen and to bring her
country peace. Choosing an appropriate hour, she visited the enemy,
obtained his promise to marry her, and showed him the unguarded path.
In the MetaTtwrphoses Ovid profited much by the work of his Alex-
andrian and Roman predecessors. For the background of the tale he
drew on the Manual. Although this was convenient both for Ovid and
for his readers, it brought several disadvantages. Following the Manual,
Ovid described Minos as a son of Jupiter and Europa (Bk. 2). Even in
the Manual this idea had made the chronology difficult. According to
the plan of the Metamorphoses, it would have put Minos at least four
generations earlier than the time of Scylla.
The Manual had supposed further that after the fall of Megara,
Pasiphae became the wife of Minos and was guilty of unnatural lust for
a bull and that many years later Theseus arrived in Athens. Ovid used
all these incidents, but felt obliged to reverse their order and to shorten
the interval of time. Already he had put first the arrival of Theseus in
Athens. He imagined the scandalous conduct of Pasiphae as occurring
immediately afterward, so that it was a little earlier than the siege of
Megara and even was known to Scylla. This idea added something to
the effect of Scylla's reproaches. But it was wholly inconsistent with her
plan to become the wife of Minos. Ovid lessened the evil by not mention-
ing Pasiphae until very late in the story. With the Manual he agreed
that for a long time the Cretans besieged Megara in vain, and he made
the period five lunar months.
Most of the incidents Ovid chose skilfully from the accounts of
Vergil and Propertius. He followed Propertius entirely in his hostile atti-
tude towards Scylla. Vergil suggested the preliminary circumstances.
He had noted that Apollo gave the stone in the city walls a magic prop-
erty ; so that, if any one struck it, the sound was musical, like notes of a
lyre. Although Vergil seems to have meant that the quality belonged
only to the one stone on which Apollo had reposed his lyre, the wording
suggested that it belonged to many stones, if not to the entire wall.
Vergil had noted later that Megara was provided with towers command-
ing a wide view of the country outside. Deftly combining these two ideas,
Ovid made them an essential part of the story. Before the time of the
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
war, he said, Scylla had been accustomed to ascend a tower on the walls
and to amuse herself by dropping pebbles on the tuneful stones below.
During the siege she continued to frequent this tower and so had occa-
sion to notice events of the war. In the Heroic Age, warriors appear to
have fought almost entirely with spears and swords. It was possible to
watch their combats in relative safety and at close range. According to
the Iliad, Helen, standing on the walls of Troy, easily identified the
leaders of the besieging Greeks. Although Ovid spoke of the Cretans as
having their famous bows, he too imagined that it was possible for Scylla
in her tower to observe the military operations at close range and to rec-
ognize the Cretan leaders, including Minos.
According to Propertius, Tarpeia, seeing Tatius engaged in war-
like exercises, fell in love with him. Ovid imagined a similar cause for the
passion of Scylla. But he supposed that Minos was engaged in actual
combat and that Scylla observed him on a number of occasions and be-
came enamored more gradually. Propertius had spoken of Tarpeia as
admiring the skill with which Tatius handled his weapons while riding
and as being enamored of his fine features. Ovid elaborated the idea ef-
fectively. Scylla admired the crested helmet of Minos and his golden
shield. She marvelled at his handling of the spear. If he bent the bow,
she likened him to Apollo. And when he rode without his helmet, clad in
purple and borne on a milk-white horse with gorgeous trappings, she was
almost mad with delight. In Anacreontic lyrics the lover often envied the
good fortune of some ornament or object of dress, which continually was
in contact with his lady. Scylla envied the javelins and the reins, which
where touched by the hands of Minos.
The idea that Tatius and Minos rode on horseback was more pic-
turesque than probable. During the Heroic Age the Greeks inhabited
rough, mountainous country, and they seem to have lacked a good breed
of horses. The Iliad noted how Adrastus was saved by the fleetness of
his horse, Arion, and spoke of a performer who drove four horses and
leaped deftly from one to another; and the Odyssey told how the ship-
wrecked Ulysses rode a plank as a horseman rides a steed. But the
Greeks of Heroic times used horses chiefly for drawing chariots. Until
much later, riding on horses was exceptional. Racing on horseback be-
gan with the Olympic Games of the year 680 B. C. Two centuries later
the Persian Wars first revealed to the Greeks their need of cavalry. The
Greeks began to acquire a breed of Arabian horses and to study equita-
tion as it was practised by the nomadic peoples of Asia. More than a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
century later Philip of Macedon first learned how to use cavalry with
good effect. The Romans were even slower in learning the value of
horses. At the siege of Veii (396 B. C. ) they began using warriors on
horseback. But they appreciated the importance of cavalry only when
warned nearly two centuries later by the amazing victories of Hannibal.
Disregarding these historical facts, Roman poets attributed to the
Heroic Age many practices of their own time. Plautus declared that
Amphitryon overwhelmed the Taphians by effective use of cavalry.
Vergil spoke of Aeneas and Dido as going out on horseback to hunt, and
he gave an impressive account of a cavalry battle between the allies of
Aeneas and the Latins. Propertius and Ovid found it natural to describe
Tatius and Minos as riding on horses. And later Ovid spoke of hunters
riding, in his tales of the Calydonian Boar and of Picus (Bk. 14).
At first the Greeks and Romans rode bareback. Shortly before
Vergil's time they introduced a cloth held in place by girths. Ovid de-
scribed Minos as sitting on a cloth of this kind. Some ancient peoples
controlled their horses only by the use of aids, such as spurs or a bridle
fastened round the head. Vergil spoke in the Georgics as if the Romans
bf his time were in the habit of using bits, and Ovid noted this as the
practice of Minos. His ancient Cretan king was equipped with the latest
improvements of the Augustan Age.
Vergil had portrayed in detail Scylla's insane condition. Ovid
merely indicated it. Vergil had suggested the girl's becoming so dis-
traught that she acted without knowing what she did. Ovid, following
Propertius, was careful to give the opposite impression, to show her con-
sidering the matter at some length.
Propertius had spoken of Tarpeia as looking towards the enemy's
royal tent and soliloquizing about her situation. Ovid followed his ex-
ample, and repeated several of his details. But, remembering the solil-
oquy of Medea (Bk. 7), he showed Scylla debating a moral issue. First
she pondered whether to regret the war or to rejoice that it had caused
her to see Minos. She thought of ending the conflict by offering herself
as a hostage. She longed to visit Minos, confess her love, and ask what
dower he might wish. Recoiling from the idea that he might ask for the
citadel, she thought it better to give up all hope of marriage than to be
guilty of treason. Yet she found arguments on the other side. Minos
had a just cause, she reflected, and he was sure to win. It would be well
to avoid further delay and loss of life. This idea suggested a more urgent
reason. Vergil had spoken of Minos as invulnerable. But Propertius had
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
shown Tarpeia fearful lest Tatius might be wounded with a spear. Fol-
lowing Propertius, Ovid imagined Scylla as alarmed by a similar fear
about Minos, although she thought that no one would be capable of en-
dangering him intentionally. She was willing to end the war by giving
up herself and her country.
But, like Medea, Scylla realized that willingness was not enough.
Her father prevented the execution of her purpose. After wishing that
the gods had made her fatherless, she declared that everyone is his own
god. Ovid was willing to have her words suggest the idea of murder.
Propertius had shown Tarpeia encouraging herself by the traditional
examples of Scylla and Ariadne. Unable to cite examples of this kind,
Ovid showed his Scylla arguing that any resolute girl would have brushed
aside the obstacle to her happiness. She herself would have been ready
to encounter fire and sword. All that she needed to do was to steal her
father's purple hair. The coming of night made her bolder and afforded
her the necessary opportunity.
Parthenius and Vergil had shown a nurse cooperating with Scylla.
Ovid rejected this idea, probably because he was reserving it for the
story of Myrrha (Bk. 10). Parthenius and Vergil had supposed that
Minos demanded possession of the fatal hair. Ovid, following Propertius,
showed the girl undertaking a crime of her own accord.
With Vergil
he assumed the royal chamber was unguarded, and with Parthenius he
assumed that Nisus continued to sleep undisturbed.
Since Tarpeia often had left Rome to visit the spring, Propertius
assumed that she could depart unnoticed on her mission to Tatius. He
implied, less plausibly, that she had no difficulty in arranging for an
interview. Ovid had given the impression that Scylla always had re-
mained within the walls, and he had observed that her father held the
keys to the gates. But, following Propertius, he imagined that she too
departed unnoticed, and he suggested even more strongly that she had
no difficulty in reaching Minos. So sure is she of welcome, he said, that
she goes through the midst of the enemy straight to the king.
Parthenius had pictured Minos as horrified at Scylla's crime, and
Propertius had spoken of him as acting in a manner worthy of the future
judge in Hades. Ovid went further. Minos, he said, had no previous
knowledge of Scylla's purpose and was startled at her arrival. Shame-
lessly the girl introduced herself and stated the reason for her coming.
She offered him the purple hair, which, she said, was equivalent to the
life of her father and his dynasty. Minos not only drew back but laid a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
curse on the traitress. He prayed the gods to banish her from land
and sea, implying probably that she ought to die. He at least would
not allow Crete, the cradle of Jove, to be invaded by such a monster.
Although Ovid did not mention the events which occurred immediately
after this, he seems to have imagined them as follows. Scylla withdrew
from the king's tent but remained in the camp, still hoping for recogni-
tion. The next day the Cretans took the city and killed King Nisus.
Although Scylla knew that Megara had fallen, she was not aware of her
father's death.
Apparently misunderstanding a phrase of Propertius, Ovid spoke
of Minos as very just in the terms which he offered the vanquished. He
indicated later that Minos destroyed the city and made it no longer
habitable. This done, he prepared to sail at once. Scylla, finding that
Minos still ignored her, came dishevelled and furious to the shore.
Vergil had shown her addressing Minos and complaining of her
treatment. Ovid followed his example. But instead of making her com-
plaint gentle and pathetic, he made it passionate and violent. In this he
was influenced by a more famous passage of Vergil. When Dido learned
that Aeneas was about to sail away, she reproached him vehemently.
In a similar manner Scylla reproached Minos. Like Dido, Scylla pointed
out that she had offered him her country and her love and even had made
herself entirely dependent on him. Her family had become hostile, her
countrymen alienated, the neighboring peoples ill disposed, and her good
name was lost. He alone could protect her. When Aeneas persisted in
his purpose, Dido had declared his illustrious parentage a fable. Venus
could not have been his mother, the rugged Caucasus bore him, and
Hyrcanian tigers fed him with their milk. Scylla made a similar dec-
laration, but in more extravagant terms, which echoed the words ascribed
to Ariadne by Catullus. Europa could not have been the mother of
Minos. His mother was the inhospitable Syrtis (of the African coast),
the Armenian tigress, and the storm-tossed Charybdis (of Sicily). Dido
had refused to believe that the father of Aeneas was descended from the
royal family of Troy. Scylla refused to believe that the father of Minos
was Jupiter in the form of a bull. She went further and declared that he
must have been a real bull, wild and untouched by gentle feeling.
In Vergil's Ciris, Scylla had complained that she deserved punish-
ment from those whom she had injured but not from those whom she had
benefited. Ovid showed her repeating the idea, in more emphatic terms.
Then he showed her continuing her attack on the family of Minos, but
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
in a still more unscrupulous manner. Pasiphae was a fit consort for
Minos, yet even she had reason to prefer a bull. After this innovation
Ovid returned to ideas of the Cirit and the Aeneid. Vergil had imagined
Scylla declaring that Minos heard her reproaches. Ovid showed her more
doubtful. Dido had announced that, however unwelcome, she still would
accompany Aeneas. Ovid showed Scylla ending with a similar threat.
Vergil had made the speeches of Dido dignified and tragic. Ovid let
Scylla descend to ineffectual and scurrilous scolding. Probably he real-
ized that he was making a less favorable impression and thought it in
harmony with Scylla's abandoned character.
While Scylla railed, the ships were launched and were rowed away
to some distance. Scylla referred to them as hardly in sight of her native
land. Resolved not to be left behind, she plunged into the water, swam
with the strength of despair, and overtook the ship of Minos. It was a
striking idea, in keeping with her reckless character, but Ovid suggested
too great a distance. Following Vergil, he spoke of her as reaching a
position high on the stern. Presumably she caught hold of the rudder
and climbed to a relatively secure place well above the sea.
Ovid altered Vergil's conclusion. Nisus, he said, was metamor-
phosed first. On tawny wings he flew after the ship, threatening Scylla
with his crooked beak. In terror she let go and fell towards the water.
The air sustained her, for she had become the ciris. Ovid did not describe
the process and appropriately gave no hint that her transformation was
an honor.
The Manual had noted that, after taking Megara, Minos proceeded
against Athens. This would have been natural, for his quarrel was chiefly
with the Athenians. But Ovid, who was not interested in the war, fol-
lowed Vergil and showed him returning at once to Crete.
Ovid's account of Scylla was the best which survived until later
times. It attracted several poets of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Petrarch in the Triumph of Love spoke of seeing the cruel daughter of
Nisus flee on wings. Chaucer in The Parliament of Fowls saw her story
pictured on the walls of the temple of Venus. In The Legend of Good
Women, Chaucer retold the tale briefly and in a manner as favorable as
possible to Scylla. He did not speak of her transformation. But in the
Troilus he implied that she became a lark, an idea rather common dur-
ing modern times. Camoens referred to Teresa as even more culpable
than Scylla. Giles Fletcher in Christ's Victory, likened Nisus to Samson,
because his strength lay in his hair.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
The Minotaur and Ariadne
While recording the arrival of Minos in Crete, Ovid spoke of the
island as home of the Curetes. This was the usual tradition but contrary
to his previous statement that Curetes were natives of Phrygia (see
Salmacis, Bk. 4). After noting that Minos adorned his palace with the
spoils of Megara, Ovid resumed the subject of Pasiphae and her passion
for a bull.
The story, like those of Io and Europa, appears to have originated
with Semitic worship of deities in the form of cattle. The Sun God had
a daughter named Pasiphae (All Light), whom Pausanias identified with
the Moon. She loved a god in the form of a bull, and their offspring was
a deity like Moloch or Baal, who was represented by the figure of a man
with a bull's head.
The Greeks ordinarily altered this idea radically. They thought of
Pasiphae as a mortal woman, wife of Minos of Crete, and of her lover as
only an extraordinarily beautiful animal. In this form the myth re-
sembled a Babylonian tale of Queen Semiramis and a stallion. The
Greeks explained the queen's abnormal passion as punishment by an of-
fended deity. The usual account was as follows. When Minos tried to
succeed his stepfather as ruler of Crete, his claim was disputed. Minos
declared that he was entitled to rule because he enjoyed the favor of the
gods. To demonstrate this, he prayed that Neptune might send him a
bull and promised to offer it as a sacrifice. But, when the animal ap-
peared, Minos delighted so much in its beauty that he kept it and sac-
rificed a different bull. Neptune punished him by causing Pasiphae to
lust for the animal.
This tale seems to have been known before the time of the Odyssey,
but we find it recorded first in a passage that survives from the Cretans
of Euripides. The Manual gave the story in full, noting how the mon-
strous offspring usually was called the Minotaur (Bull of Minos). *
Although the Greeks ordinarily were impressed by the horror of
Pasiphae's conduct, there was room for sympathy. Euripides in his
Cretans showed her pointing out that she was the innocent victim of a
curse, and in his Hippolytus, he spoke of her as ill-starred in love. Vergil
*To the Alexandrian poet, Theodorus, the fate of Pasiphae may have suggested
that of Polyphonte, who offended Venus and was punished with lust for a bear.
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? THE MINOTAUR AND ARIADNE
carried the idea further. Greek authors had implied that the bull did not
respond easily to courtship by a human being. Vergil in the Sixth
Eclogue described Pasiphae as wandering over mountains in search of
the animal, praying the nymphs to bring him near, while he lay at ease
in a meadow or courted some heifer. In the Aeneid, Vergil mentioned
Pasiphae as among the unhappy lovers of Hades. Ovid in his amatory
poems followed Vergil's example, but was inclined to stress humorous
aspects of the affair. In the Art of Love he treated the story at some
length. Pasiphae, he said, courted the animal, despite his indifference to
the allurement of dress, riches, and personal ornament. She envied the
happier fate of Io and Europa and jealously sent her cow rivals to the
plow or the altar. Vergil spoke of the bull as white, an idea repeated by
Propertius and Ovid.
According to Greek tradition, Pasiphae was able to attract the
animal only by a ruse. She obtained the help of Daedalus, an Athenian
who had taken refuge in Crete. He had invented the art of sculpture,
and he excelled in mechanical contrivances. To aid Pasiphae, Daedalus
constructed the wooden image of a cow, put it on wheels, covered it with
the skin of a real cow, and arranged for the queen to be hidden inside.
He then conveyed the image to a meadow where the bull was in the habit
of coming to feed. The animal mistook the image for a cow. This idea
was recorded in the Manual and became the accepted version. A Pom-
peiian Mural showed Pasiphae obtaining the aid of Daedalus. Vergil in
the Aeneid spoke of the myth as carved by Daedalus himself on the
temple at Cumae. Propertius noted the wooden image floating on the
Infernal River as a horrible example of lust.
A few Greek authors rejected the myth as incredible. They sup-
posed either that Pasiphae had played false with a man whose name was
Bull (Taurus) or that the Minotaur was a man of that name. In the
Tristia, Ovid himself referred to the Minotaur as something clearly past
belief.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid already had shown Scylla alluding to
the device of the wooden cow. He now mentioned the birth of the Mino-
taur and the scandal which it occasioned in Crete.
With the story of Pasiphae and the Minotaur, Greek tradition as-
sociated that of Ariadne. She was worshipped in the Aegean isles as a
goddess, who personified the fertility of nature and who often was iden-
tified with Venus. Festivals in her honor included a peculiar form of
dance. In many countries of Europe, men have enjoyed performances
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
depending on an intricate figure. They first marked out a large area on
the ground, which had the form of a circle, a square, or an octagon. In
the middle of this area they left an open space. Then between the outer
edge and the middle they indicated by turf, stones, or other means an
elaborate figure, and this figure included a route, which, if it was fol-
lowed accurately, would lead the performer by a devious way from the
outside of the area to the middle and back again. Often the figure con-
sisted merely of a single path, which described a very long, circuitous
route. There was no doubt where this route lay. With time and patience
any one could follow the entire course and reach the proper destination.
But sometimes the figure included many paths, criss-crossing in a net-
work. Unless the performer understood the pattern, he continually was
liable to take a wrong path and wander indefinitely. In records of an
elaborate figure, men usually failed to distinguish between a pattern
which was merely elaborate and a pattern which was confusing. Draw-
ings were apt to represent a particular figure as a single, devious line;
written accounts were apt to speak of the same figure as a network which
was bewildering.
The route from the outside of the area to the middle might be traced
by a single performer but usually was traced by a group of persons fol-
lowing a leader. In modern Finland and Lapland the performance be-
came merely a children's game. In earlier times it had a solemn, and
often a religious character. Such were the Trojan Games described by
Vergil in the Aeneid, when boys on horseback followed an elaborate
course to commemorate the dead Anchises. Such were those pilgrimages
called the Road to Jerusalem or the Journey to Calvary, when medieval
penitents on their knees followed the devious route marked by colored
tiles on the floor of some French cathedral. And such was the ancient
Greek performance known as Ariadne's dance.
The Iliad spoke of this dance as similar to one which Vulcan carved
on the shield of Achilles. Coins of Cnossus in Crete represented it by an
elaborate figure. Various accounts were given of its origin. The Iliad
spoke of Daedalus as inventing the dance for Ariadne; Propertius im-
plied that she herself invented it to celebrate her marriage; Plutarch
said that Theseus invented it in commemoration of her.
Use of an elaborate figure took other forms. During modern times
it often appeared in the plan of some formal garden. The central area
was marked by a pavilion, and the paths were set off from one another
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? THE MINOTAUR AND ARIADNE
by tall hedges. Of such gardens the most celebrated were those of Louis
Fourteenth at Versailles and William the Third at Hampton Court.
The elaborate design appeared much earlier in architecture. About
the year 2300 B. C. an Egyptian king, Amenenhat Third, constructed a
building of this kind near his capitol, Arsinoe, in the oasis of Fayum.
Scylla became a bird, but Hyginus declared that she became a fish.
According to the original account, Nisus died as soon as he lost the
fatal hair. During Alexandrian times another idea entered into the
story. In folk tales of many countries, certain men were said to have
possessed remarkable strength and prestige while their hair remained
long but to have lost it as soon as the hair was cut. This idea occurred
in the Old Testament narrative of Samson, in many tales of magicians,
and in a modern Greek story of a king with three magic golden hairs. It
even affected the tenure of early French kings, for Pepin shaved the head
of Childeric Third in order to depose him. Parthenius appears to have
thought that Nisus survived the theft of his hair but lost his ability to
defend Megara and perished when the city was taken. Later authors
mentioned the idea explicitly.
Vergil, in his early poem called The Ciris, retold the story at some
length. Although influenced by Parthenius, he added many new circum-
stances, and, wherever he could, he made the tale favorable to Scylla.
Vergil assigned a different cause for the war. Minos, he said, was trying
to recapture the seer Polyidus, who had taken refuge in Megara. Vergil
gave a more detailed account of Nisus. The purple hair grew on the
crown of his head, and all his other hairs were white. For the infatua-
tion of Scylla, Vergil imagined a supernatural cause. After unwittingly
profaning a temple of Juno, the girl denied that she had done so. The
offended goddess persuaded Cupid to shoot her with a golden arrow.
Without indicating how Scylla first became aware of Minos, Vergil gave
a long account of her desperate behavior. He implied that, as a neces-
sary condition of the marriage, Minos demanded the fatal hair.
Although Nisus had guards stationed outside the palace, he feared
no danger from within, and he left his bed chamber unprotected. As
Scylla paused before his door, trying to gather sufficient boldness for
the attempt, the nurse overtook her and persuaded her first to see
whether they could induce her father to arrange for the marriage. Find-
ing that Nisus refused to do this, they resorted to theft. With the fall
of the city Minos presumably recaptured the seer Polyidus.
Since Minos had no further business in Attica, Vergil imagined that
he immediately prepared to sail for Crete. Minos gave orders that Scylla
should be tied to the rear of his ship. Apparently she was not fastened
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
to the rudder but to the topmost part of the stern. Sometimes she was
raised high in air, as a wave lifted the vessel; and at other times she sank
to the level of the water, as the stern went down into the succeeding
trough of the sea.
While the fleet bore Scylla away from her native land, Vergil showed
her uttering a long complaint. She reproached Minos for disregard of
his promise to marry her, for ingratitude, and for failure to appreciate
her sacrifices in his behalf. Indifferent to her reproaches, Minos con-
tinued down the Saronic Gulf and out into the Aegaean Sea. Vergil gave
an impressive account of the voyage. After passing the island of Seri-
phus, the girl fainted.
The goddess Amphitrite took pity on her and transformed her into
a beautiful bird, the Ciris. Vergil described the change in detail. This
bird, he said, inhabits lonely rocks and cliffs along the shore. Jupiter,
he continued, was not willing to have the traitress fare better than her
pious father, and he transformed Nisus into a variety of his favorite
bird, the eagle. Vergil ended with a description of the manner in which
the sea eagle pursues the ciris through the air. In the Georgics he re-
peated the description, noting the spectacle as a sign of fair weather.
Some Alexandrian author had identified Scylla, daughter of Nisus,
with Scylla, the monster of the Calabrian shore. Vergil in his Sixth
Eclogue accepted the innovation. Propertius followed his example, and
Ovid alluded to the idea repeatedly in his amatory poems. But in the Ciris
Vergil rejected the idea, and in the Metamorphoses Ovid too rejected it,
because he desired to tell a different tale of Scylla, the monster (Bks.
13-14).
Propertius took great interest in the tale of Scylla. In one place he
associated it with the tradition that after death Minos became a judge
of the souls entering Hades. By punishing the traitress, he said, Minos
showed justice to his enemies and acted in a manner worthy of his future
position as a judge in the Lower World. In another poem the tale of
Scylla suggested to Propertius a new myth of Tarpeia.
He imagined Tarpeia in love with the Sabine leader Tatius. Pro-
pertius gave throughout the tale a very unfavorable impression of his
heroine. The chief events were as follows. Tarpeia was in the habit of
leaving Rome to draw water from a secluded spring. During one of these
excursions she saw Tatius engaged in warlike exercises on the plain. Ap-
parently he was on horseback and in full armor but had his face uncov-
ered. Impressed with his fine features and beautiful armor, she fell vio-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
lently in love with him. Later Propertius represented her as considering
her fate in a long soliloquy. She thought of leaving Rome, in order to
live always as a captive within view of Tatius. Then she thought of be-
traying the city. She reflected that Tatius was worthy to rule and that
his cause was just. She hoped to become his queen and to bring her
country peace. Choosing an appropriate hour, she visited the enemy,
obtained his promise to marry her, and showed him the unguarded path.
In the MetaTtwrphoses Ovid profited much by the work of his Alex-
andrian and Roman predecessors. For the background of the tale he
drew on the Manual. Although this was convenient both for Ovid and
for his readers, it brought several disadvantages. Following the Manual,
Ovid described Minos as a son of Jupiter and Europa (Bk. 2). Even in
the Manual this idea had made the chronology difficult. According to
the plan of the Metamorphoses, it would have put Minos at least four
generations earlier than the time of Scylla.
The Manual had supposed further that after the fall of Megara,
Pasiphae became the wife of Minos and was guilty of unnatural lust for
a bull and that many years later Theseus arrived in Athens. Ovid used
all these incidents, but felt obliged to reverse their order and to shorten
the interval of time. Already he had put first the arrival of Theseus in
Athens. He imagined the scandalous conduct of Pasiphae as occurring
immediately afterward, so that it was a little earlier than the siege of
Megara and even was known to Scylla. This idea added something to
the effect of Scylla's reproaches. But it was wholly inconsistent with her
plan to become the wife of Minos. Ovid lessened the evil by not mention-
ing Pasiphae until very late in the story. With the Manual he agreed
that for a long time the Cretans besieged Megara in vain, and he made
the period five lunar months.
Most of the incidents Ovid chose skilfully from the accounts of
Vergil and Propertius. He followed Propertius entirely in his hostile atti-
tude towards Scylla. Vergil suggested the preliminary circumstances.
He had noted that Apollo gave the stone in the city walls a magic prop-
erty ; so that, if any one struck it, the sound was musical, like notes of a
lyre. Although Vergil seems to have meant that the quality belonged
only to the one stone on which Apollo had reposed his lyre, the wording
suggested that it belonged to many stones, if not to the entire wall.
Vergil had noted later that Megara was provided with towers command-
ing a wide view of the country outside. Deftly combining these two ideas,
Ovid made them an essential part of the story. Before the time of the
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
war, he said, Scylla had been accustomed to ascend a tower on the walls
and to amuse herself by dropping pebbles on the tuneful stones below.
During the siege she continued to frequent this tower and so had occa-
sion to notice events of the war. In the Heroic Age, warriors appear to
have fought almost entirely with spears and swords. It was possible to
watch their combats in relative safety and at close range. According to
the Iliad, Helen, standing on the walls of Troy, easily identified the
leaders of the besieging Greeks. Although Ovid spoke of the Cretans as
having their famous bows, he too imagined that it was possible for Scylla
in her tower to observe the military operations at close range and to rec-
ognize the Cretan leaders, including Minos.
According to Propertius, Tarpeia, seeing Tatius engaged in war-
like exercises, fell in love with him. Ovid imagined a similar cause for the
passion of Scylla. But he supposed that Minos was engaged in actual
combat and that Scylla observed him on a number of occasions and be-
came enamored more gradually. Propertius had spoken of Tarpeia as
admiring the skill with which Tatius handled his weapons while riding
and as being enamored of his fine features. Ovid elaborated the idea ef-
fectively. Scylla admired the crested helmet of Minos and his golden
shield. She marvelled at his handling of the spear. If he bent the bow,
she likened him to Apollo. And when he rode without his helmet, clad in
purple and borne on a milk-white horse with gorgeous trappings, she was
almost mad with delight. In Anacreontic lyrics the lover often envied the
good fortune of some ornament or object of dress, which continually was
in contact with his lady. Scylla envied the javelins and the reins, which
where touched by the hands of Minos.
The idea that Tatius and Minos rode on horseback was more pic-
turesque than probable. During the Heroic Age the Greeks inhabited
rough, mountainous country, and they seem to have lacked a good breed
of horses. The Iliad noted how Adrastus was saved by the fleetness of
his horse, Arion, and spoke of a performer who drove four horses and
leaped deftly from one to another; and the Odyssey told how the ship-
wrecked Ulysses rode a plank as a horseman rides a steed. But the
Greeks of Heroic times used horses chiefly for drawing chariots. Until
much later, riding on horses was exceptional. Racing on horseback be-
gan with the Olympic Games of the year 680 B. C. Two centuries later
the Persian Wars first revealed to the Greeks their need of cavalry. The
Greeks began to acquire a breed of Arabian horses and to study equita-
tion as it was practised by the nomadic peoples of Asia. More than a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
century later Philip of Macedon first learned how to use cavalry with
good effect. The Romans were even slower in learning the value of
horses. At the siege of Veii (396 B. C. ) they began using warriors on
horseback. But they appreciated the importance of cavalry only when
warned nearly two centuries later by the amazing victories of Hannibal.
Disregarding these historical facts, Roman poets attributed to the
Heroic Age many practices of their own time. Plautus declared that
Amphitryon overwhelmed the Taphians by effective use of cavalry.
Vergil spoke of Aeneas and Dido as going out on horseback to hunt, and
he gave an impressive account of a cavalry battle between the allies of
Aeneas and the Latins. Propertius and Ovid found it natural to describe
Tatius and Minos as riding on horses. And later Ovid spoke of hunters
riding, in his tales of the Calydonian Boar and of Picus (Bk. 14).
At first the Greeks and Romans rode bareback. Shortly before
Vergil's time they introduced a cloth held in place by girths. Ovid de-
scribed Minos as sitting on a cloth of this kind. Some ancient peoples
controlled their horses only by the use of aids, such as spurs or a bridle
fastened round the head. Vergil spoke in the Georgics as if the Romans
bf his time were in the habit of using bits, and Ovid noted this as the
practice of Minos. His ancient Cretan king was equipped with the latest
improvements of the Augustan Age.
Vergil had portrayed in detail Scylla's insane condition. Ovid
merely indicated it. Vergil had suggested the girl's becoming so dis-
traught that she acted without knowing what she did. Ovid, following
Propertius, was careful to give the opposite impression, to show her con-
sidering the matter at some length.
Propertius had spoken of Tarpeia as looking towards the enemy's
royal tent and soliloquizing about her situation. Ovid followed his ex-
ample, and repeated several of his details. But, remembering the solil-
oquy of Medea (Bk. 7), he showed Scylla debating a moral issue. First
she pondered whether to regret the war or to rejoice that it had caused
her to see Minos. She thought of ending the conflict by offering herself
as a hostage. She longed to visit Minos, confess her love, and ask what
dower he might wish. Recoiling from the idea that he might ask for the
citadel, she thought it better to give up all hope of marriage than to be
guilty of treason. Yet she found arguments on the other side. Minos
had a just cause, she reflected, and he was sure to win. It would be well
to avoid further delay and loss of life. This idea suggested a more urgent
reason. Vergil had spoken of Minos as invulnerable. But Propertius had
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
shown Tarpeia fearful lest Tatius might be wounded with a spear. Fol-
lowing Propertius, Ovid imagined Scylla as alarmed by a similar fear
about Minos, although she thought that no one would be capable of en-
dangering him intentionally. She was willing to end the war by giving
up herself and her country.
But, like Medea, Scylla realized that willingness was not enough.
Her father prevented the execution of her purpose. After wishing that
the gods had made her fatherless, she declared that everyone is his own
god. Ovid was willing to have her words suggest the idea of murder.
Propertius had shown Tarpeia encouraging herself by the traditional
examples of Scylla and Ariadne. Unable to cite examples of this kind,
Ovid showed his Scylla arguing that any resolute girl would have brushed
aside the obstacle to her happiness. She herself would have been ready
to encounter fire and sword. All that she needed to do was to steal her
father's purple hair. The coming of night made her bolder and afforded
her the necessary opportunity.
Parthenius and Vergil had shown a nurse cooperating with Scylla.
Ovid rejected this idea, probably because he was reserving it for the
story of Myrrha (Bk. 10). Parthenius and Vergil had supposed that
Minos demanded possession of the fatal hair. Ovid, following Propertius,
showed the girl undertaking a crime of her own accord.
With Vergil
he assumed the royal chamber was unguarded, and with Parthenius he
assumed that Nisus continued to sleep undisturbed.
Since Tarpeia often had left Rome to visit the spring, Propertius
assumed that she could depart unnoticed on her mission to Tatius. He
implied, less plausibly, that she had no difficulty in arranging for an
interview. Ovid had given the impression that Scylla always had re-
mained within the walls, and he had observed that her father held the
keys to the gates. But, following Propertius, he imagined that she too
departed unnoticed, and he suggested even more strongly that she had
no difficulty in reaching Minos. So sure is she of welcome, he said, that
she goes through the midst of the enemy straight to the king.
Parthenius had pictured Minos as horrified at Scylla's crime, and
Propertius had spoken of him as acting in a manner worthy of the future
judge in Hades. Ovid went further. Minos, he said, had no previous
knowledge of Scylla's purpose and was startled at her arrival. Shame-
lessly the girl introduced herself and stated the reason for her coming.
She offered him the purple hair, which, she said, was equivalent to the
life of her father and his dynasty. Minos not only drew back but laid a
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
curse on the traitress. He prayed the gods to banish her from land
and sea, implying probably that she ought to die. He at least would
not allow Crete, the cradle of Jove, to be invaded by such a monster.
Although Ovid did not mention the events which occurred immediately
after this, he seems to have imagined them as follows. Scylla withdrew
from the king's tent but remained in the camp, still hoping for recogni-
tion. The next day the Cretans took the city and killed King Nisus.
Although Scylla knew that Megara had fallen, she was not aware of her
father's death.
Apparently misunderstanding a phrase of Propertius, Ovid spoke
of Minos as very just in the terms which he offered the vanquished. He
indicated later that Minos destroyed the city and made it no longer
habitable. This done, he prepared to sail at once. Scylla, finding that
Minos still ignored her, came dishevelled and furious to the shore.
Vergil had shown her addressing Minos and complaining of her
treatment. Ovid followed his example. But instead of making her com-
plaint gentle and pathetic, he made it passionate and violent. In this he
was influenced by a more famous passage of Vergil. When Dido learned
that Aeneas was about to sail away, she reproached him vehemently.
In a similar manner Scylla reproached Minos. Like Dido, Scylla pointed
out that she had offered him her country and her love and even had made
herself entirely dependent on him. Her family had become hostile, her
countrymen alienated, the neighboring peoples ill disposed, and her good
name was lost. He alone could protect her. When Aeneas persisted in
his purpose, Dido had declared his illustrious parentage a fable. Venus
could not have been his mother, the rugged Caucasus bore him, and
Hyrcanian tigers fed him with their milk. Scylla made a similar dec-
laration, but in more extravagant terms, which echoed the words ascribed
to Ariadne by Catullus. Europa could not have been the mother of
Minos. His mother was the inhospitable Syrtis (of the African coast),
the Armenian tigress, and the storm-tossed Charybdis (of Sicily). Dido
had refused to believe that the father of Aeneas was descended from the
royal family of Troy. Scylla refused to believe that the father of Minos
was Jupiter in the form of a bull. She went further and declared that he
must have been a real bull, wild and untouched by gentle feeling.
In Vergil's Ciris, Scylla had complained that she deserved punish-
ment from those whom she had injured but not from those whom she had
benefited. Ovid showed her repeating the idea, in more emphatic terms.
Then he showed her continuing her attack on the family of Minos, but
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? KING MINOS AND SCYLLA
in a still more unscrupulous manner. Pasiphae was a fit consort for
Minos, yet even she had reason to prefer a bull. After this innovation
Ovid returned to ideas of the Cirit and the Aeneid. Vergil had imagined
Scylla declaring that Minos heard her reproaches. Ovid showed her more
doubtful. Dido had announced that, however unwelcome, she still would
accompany Aeneas. Ovid showed Scylla ending with a similar threat.
Vergil had made the speeches of Dido dignified and tragic. Ovid let
Scylla descend to ineffectual and scurrilous scolding. Probably he real-
ized that he was making a less favorable impression and thought it in
harmony with Scylla's abandoned character.
While Scylla railed, the ships were launched and were rowed away
to some distance. Scylla referred to them as hardly in sight of her native
land. Resolved not to be left behind, she plunged into the water, swam
with the strength of despair, and overtook the ship of Minos. It was a
striking idea, in keeping with her reckless character, but Ovid suggested
too great a distance. Following Vergil, he spoke of her as reaching a
position high on the stern. Presumably she caught hold of the rudder
and climbed to a relatively secure place well above the sea.
Ovid altered Vergil's conclusion. Nisus, he said, was metamor-
phosed first. On tawny wings he flew after the ship, threatening Scylla
with his crooked beak. In terror she let go and fell towards the water.
The air sustained her, for she had become the ciris. Ovid did not describe
the process and appropriately gave no hint that her transformation was
an honor.
The Manual had noted that, after taking Megara, Minos proceeded
against Athens. This would have been natural, for his quarrel was chiefly
with the Athenians. But Ovid, who was not interested in the war, fol-
lowed Vergil and showed him returning at once to Crete.
Ovid's account of Scylla was the best which survived until later
times. It attracted several poets of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Petrarch in the Triumph of Love spoke of seeing the cruel daughter of
Nisus flee on wings. Chaucer in The Parliament of Fowls saw her story
pictured on the walls of the temple of Venus. In The Legend of Good
Women, Chaucer retold the tale briefly and in a manner as favorable as
possible to Scylla. He did not speak of her transformation. But in the
Troilus he implied that she became a lark, an idea rather common dur-
ing modern times. Camoens referred to Teresa as even more culpable
than Scylla. Giles Fletcher in Christ's Victory, likened Nisus to Samson,
because his strength lay in his hair.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
The Minotaur and Ariadne
While recording the arrival of Minos in Crete, Ovid spoke of the
island as home of the Curetes. This was the usual tradition but contrary
to his previous statement that Curetes were natives of Phrygia (see
Salmacis, Bk. 4). After noting that Minos adorned his palace with the
spoils of Megara, Ovid resumed the subject of Pasiphae and her passion
for a bull.
The story, like those of Io and Europa, appears to have originated
with Semitic worship of deities in the form of cattle. The Sun God had
a daughter named Pasiphae (All Light), whom Pausanias identified with
the Moon. She loved a god in the form of a bull, and their offspring was
a deity like Moloch or Baal, who was represented by the figure of a man
with a bull's head.
The Greeks ordinarily altered this idea radically. They thought of
Pasiphae as a mortal woman, wife of Minos of Crete, and of her lover as
only an extraordinarily beautiful animal. In this form the myth re-
sembled a Babylonian tale of Queen Semiramis and a stallion. The
Greeks explained the queen's abnormal passion as punishment by an of-
fended deity. The usual account was as follows. When Minos tried to
succeed his stepfather as ruler of Crete, his claim was disputed. Minos
declared that he was entitled to rule because he enjoyed the favor of the
gods. To demonstrate this, he prayed that Neptune might send him a
bull and promised to offer it as a sacrifice. But, when the animal ap-
peared, Minos delighted so much in its beauty that he kept it and sac-
rificed a different bull. Neptune punished him by causing Pasiphae to
lust for the animal.
This tale seems to have been known before the time of the Odyssey,
but we find it recorded first in a passage that survives from the Cretans
of Euripides. The Manual gave the story in full, noting how the mon-
strous offspring usually was called the Minotaur (Bull of Minos). *
Although the Greeks ordinarily were impressed by the horror of
Pasiphae's conduct, there was room for sympathy. Euripides in his
Cretans showed her pointing out that she was the innocent victim of a
curse, and in his Hippolytus, he spoke of her as ill-starred in love. Vergil
*To the Alexandrian poet, Theodorus, the fate of Pasiphae may have suggested
that of Polyphonte, who offended Venus and was punished with lust for a bear.
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? THE MINOTAUR AND ARIADNE
carried the idea further. Greek authors had implied that the bull did not
respond easily to courtship by a human being. Vergil in the Sixth
Eclogue described Pasiphae as wandering over mountains in search of
the animal, praying the nymphs to bring him near, while he lay at ease
in a meadow or courted some heifer. In the Aeneid, Vergil mentioned
Pasiphae as among the unhappy lovers of Hades. Ovid in his amatory
poems followed Vergil's example, but was inclined to stress humorous
aspects of the affair. In the Art of Love he treated the story at some
length. Pasiphae, he said, courted the animal, despite his indifference to
the allurement of dress, riches, and personal ornament. She envied the
happier fate of Io and Europa and jealously sent her cow rivals to the
plow or the altar. Vergil spoke of the bull as white, an idea repeated by
Propertius and Ovid.
According to Greek tradition, Pasiphae was able to attract the
animal only by a ruse. She obtained the help of Daedalus, an Athenian
who had taken refuge in Crete. He had invented the art of sculpture,
and he excelled in mechanical contrivances. To aid Pasiphae, Daedalus
constructed the wooden image of a cow, put it on wheels, covered it with
the skin of a real cow, and arranged for the queen to be hidden inside.
He then conveyed the image to a meadow where the bull was in the habit
of coming to feed. The animal mistook the image for a cow. This idea
was recorded in the Manual and became the accepted version. A Pom-
peiian Mural showed Pasiphae obtaining the aid of Daedalus. Vergil in
the Aeneid spoke of the myth as carved by Daedalus himself on the
temple at Cumae. Propertius noted the wooden image floating on the
Infernal River as a horrible example of lust.
A few Greek authors rejected the myth as incredible. They sup-
posed either that Pasiphae had played false with a man whose name was
Bull (Taurus) or that the Minotaur was a man of that name. In the
Tristia, Ovid himself referred to the Minotaur as something clearly past
belief.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid already had shown Scylla alluding to
the device of the wooden cow. He now mentioned the birth of the Mino-
taur and the scandal which it occasioned in Crete.
With the story of Pasiphae and the Minotaur, Greek tradition as-
sociated that of Ariadne. She was worshipped in the Aegean isles as a
goddess, who personified the fertility of nature and who often was iden-
tified with Venus. Festivals in her honor included a peculiar form of
dance. In many countries of Europe, men have enjoyed performances
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK EIGHT
depending on an intricate figure. They first marked out a large area on
the ground, which had the form of a circle, a square, or an octagon. In
the middle of this area they left an open space. Then between the outer
edge and the middle they indicated by turf, stones, or other means an
elaborate figure, and this figure included a route, which, if it was fol-
lowed accurately, would lead the performer by a devious way from the
outside of the area to the middle and back again. Often the figure con-
sisted merely of a single path, which described a very long, circuitous
route. There was no doubt where this route lay. With time and patience
any one could follow the entire course and reach the proper destination.
But sometimes the figure included many paths, criss-crossing in a net-
work. Unless the performer understood the pattern, he continually was
liable to take a wrong path and wander indefinitely. In records of an
elaborate figure, men usually failed to distinguish between a pattern
which was merely elaborate and a pattern which was confusing. Draw-
ings were apt to represent a particular figure as a single, devious line;
written accounts were apt to speak of the same figure as a network which
was bewildering.
The route from the outside of the area to the middle might be traced
by a single performer but usually was traced by a group of persons fol-
lowing a leader. In modern Finland and Lapland the performance be-
came merely a children's game. In earlier times it had a solemn, and
often a religious character. Such were the Trojan Games described by
Vergil in the Aeneid, when boys on horseback followed an elaborate
course to commemorate the dead Anchises. Such were those pilgrimages
called the Road to Jerusalem or the Journey to Calvary, when medieval
penitents on their knees followed the devious route marked by colored
tiles on the floor of some French cathedral. And such was the ancient
Greek performance known as Ariadne's dance.
The Iliad spoke of this dance as similar to one which Vulcan carved
on the shield of Achilles. Coins of Cnossus in Crete represented it by an
elaborate figure. Various accounts were given of its origin. The Iliad
spoke of Daedalus as inventing the dance for Ariadne; Propertius im-
plied that she herself invented it to celebrate her marriage; Plutarch
said that Theseus invented it in commemoration of her.
Use of an elaborate figure took other forms. During modern times
it often appeared in the plan of some formal garden. The central area
was marked by a pavilion, and the paths were set off from one another
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? THE MINOTAUR AND ARIADNE
by tall hedges. Of such gardens the most celebrated were those of Louis
Fourteenth at Versailles and William the Third at Hampton Court.
The elaborate design appeared much earlier in architecture. About
the year 2300 B. C. an Egyptian king, Amenenhat Third, constructed a
building of this kind near his capitol, Arsinoe, in the oasis of Fayum.
