Friday, March 19, 2010

Myths and Legends: Theseus and the Minotaur

Theseus and the Minotaur. To find out more about the half-man half-bull Minotaur, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

Last week, you saw the image of the new-born Minotaur being held in the lap of his mother, Queen Pasiphae of Crete. The Minotaur was later locked up in the Labyrinth and offered human sacrifices... until, that is, the hero Theseus arrived and slew the Minotaur, which you can see in today's image, a painting by the 18th-century neoclassical artist Charles-Édouard Chaise. Here is a close-up of the slain Minotaur:

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of March 18-25 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.