So there's this Euripides play called The Cretans that we only have partial fragments of. It's basically about the fallout from Pasiphae giving birth to Asterion, the Minotaur, and the fight she has with her husband, King Minos, over it.
Poseidon drove Pasiphae mad and forced her to have sex with a bull, but it was 100% Minos's fault -- he's the one that was supposed to sacrifice that bull to Poseidon, and he's the one that decided not to do it. Pasiphae was cursed in order to hurt Minos, and in this play she is spitting mad that he intends to have her put to death for her actions when the whole damn thing was his doing.
I particularly love these sections here:
and
(translation by P.T. Rourke)
Like of all of the lost Euripides plays we know of, this is the one that I'd love to have a full version of the most! We don't know whether Pasiphae managed to get away or not! We don't know if she lived or died! We don't know if she got to yell at Minos some more about being a giant dipshit!
Anyway, I really had these fragments in mind when I was writing AITNISTS. I only got to actually depict Pasiphae in one flashback from Asterion's POV, but I tried to remember her as the daughter of a god and a powerful sorceress in her own right.
Never forget the Pasiphae that once made her husband ejaculate snakes. :')
