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9 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Europa
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She was carried off to Crete by Zeus in the form of a handsome bull. Changing form to an eagle he ravished Europa who bore the three sons Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. The god gave her the dog, Laelaps, a spear which never missed its mark and Talus, the bronze guardian of Crete. She later married Asterius, king of Crete, who adopted her three sons. After her death, she was deified.
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Minos
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Minos claimed the throne on the death of Asterius and proved his right by inducing Poseidon to send a white bull that swam ashore from the sea. His son Androgeus, on a visit to Aegeus, the king of Athens, was sent on an expedition to kill a dangerous bull and was himself killed. Minos blamed Aegeus for his son's death and invaded Athens. In settlement he demanded that seven youths and seven maidens be sent to Crete every year (or every nine years) to be handed over as victims to the Minotaur, the offpsring of his wife Pasiphae and the bull which he kept hidden in the labyrinth built by Daedalus. When Theseus came to Crete as one of the sacrificial victims, Minos threw his ring into the sea and challenged Theseus to prove that he was the son of Poseidon by retrieving the ring. With the help of the Nereids, Theseus recovered the ring quite easily. He was said to be the father of a calf that changed colour three times each day from white, to red, to black. Pasiphae, enraged by his affairs
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Pasiphae
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She fell irrationally in love with the white bull that Poseidon sent at the behest of Minos to prove that he was the rightful heir to the throne of Crete. Daedalus fashioned a hollow wooden cow in which she concealed herself to mate with the bull. The outcome of the union was the monstrous bull-headed Minotaur. Pasiphae, together with Minos and the Minotaur retreated to the Labyrinth, a tortuous maze constructed by Daedalus to contain the monster. When Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth, it was Pasiphae who released them to make their famous escape on wings made by Daedalus. In some accounts, Europa was the mother of the Minotaur.
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Daedalus
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An architect and master craftsman, he was banished from Athens for the murder of Talos, his gifted apprentice and the son of his sister Polycaste. In Crete he constructed the model cow in which Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, was concealed when she mated with the white bull to produce the Minotaur. He then built the Labyrinth, the maze in which this monstrous creation was housed, and made magic thread, which he gave to Ariadne and which later made it possible for Theseus to find his way out of the maze after he had killed the Minotaur. Daedalus was locked up in this labyrinth by Minos for helping Pasiphae, but she helped him to escape with his son Icarus. They flew off on wings made by Daedalus from feathers and wax but Icarus, with the foolhardiness of youth, flew too near the sun, melting the wax in his wings. When he fell into the sea and drowned it was Daedalus who retrieved the body. (In another version, Pasiphae released them and they left Crete in a boat using the sail that Daedalu
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Minotaur
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A monster. A bull-headed man or a man-headed bull born to Pasiphae after she mated with Poseidon's white bull. It was shut up in the labyrinth built on Crete by Daedalus and was fed on the seven youths and seven maidens given every year (or every nine years) by the Athenians as compensation to Minos for the death of his son at their hands. Theseus offered himself as one of these youths and killed the monster.
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Labyrinth
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The maze built by Daedalus for Minos, king of Crete, to contain the Minotaur
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Scylla
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Her father, a king of Megara had been warned that he must never cut his purple hair or his kingdom would fall. When Minos attacked Megara, the siege lasted six months until Scylla fell in love with him and killed her father by cutting off a lock of his hair to give to Minos who seduced and then deserted her. She drowned when she tried to swim after his departing ship and her father's spirit, in the form of a sea-eagle, attacked her. She was changed into a lark, Ciris
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Icarus
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He was locked with his father in the labyrinth housing the Minotaur on Crete by Minos but they were both freed by Pasiphae, the king's wife. They escaped from Crete by flying on wings of feathers and wax made by Daedalus. Ignoring instructions, he flew too close to the sun, whereupon the wax melted and he crashed into the sea and drowned. An alternative version says that Icarus was not killed but swam to the nearby island of Icaria and lived there for many years
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Cocalus
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King of Sicily. He sheltered Daedalus when he escaped from the Cretan labyrinth of King Minos. When Minos came to his court in search of Daedalus he was killed; in some versions in the fighting that ensued when Cocalus refused to hand over Daedalus, in others when Daedalus (or a priestess of Cocalus) poured scalding water over Minos as he lay in his bath.
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