SLSL "TSR" Pasiphae

Sun Dec 1 20:07:31 CST 2002

"a never  totally violated Pasiphae" (50)

never totally = always (or occasionally) partially?
violated
adj 1: treated dishonorably [syn: seduced] 2: treated
irreverently or sacrilegiously [syn: profaned]
<http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=violated>

jbor noted Pasiphae in an earlier post.  Pynchon's
evocation of  Greek myth in TSR's ending makes
Aristophanes a bit less arbitrary as a reference for
the frog chorus soundtrack in this scene, imo. 

Pynchon returns to this myth in Gravity's Rainbow:

"They own everything:  Ariadne, the Minotaur, even,
Pointsman fears, himself." (GR 88) 

"Oh yes once you know, he did believe in a Minotaur
waiting for him, used to dream himself rushing into
the last room, burnished sword at the ready, screaming
like a Commando [...] (but this time there would be
struggle, Minotaur blood the fucking beast, cries from
far inside himself whose manilness and violence
surprise him)....This was the dream.  [...] But now
with Slothrop in it -- sudden angel, thermodynamic
surprise, whateverhe is . . . will it change now?
Might Pointsman get to have a go at the Minotaur after
all?" (GR, 142-143

<http://www.princeton.edu/~rhwebb/pasiphae.html>
Pasiphae was the daughter of Helios (the Sun) and wife
of Minos. Her children by Minos included Ariadne,
Phaidra and Androgeos. Pasiphae was also made to fall
in love with a bull which Poseidon had sent to Minos.
She persuaded the craftsman Daidalos to make some sort
of contraption to help her consummate this desire and
from the union the Minotaur was born. Daidalos then
had to construct the labyrinth to keep the Minotaur
in.

<http://www.theoi.com/Ouranos/Pasiphae.html>
PASIPHAE was a witch like her sister Kirke. She was
married to Minos king of Krete and was afflicted with
an unatural desire for the famed Kretan Bull. With the
help of Daidalos she hid herself in the constructed
shape of a cow and was mated with the creature.
Pasiphae's awful child from this union was the
bull-headed Minotauros.
Parents
(1) HELIOS & PERSEIS (Apollodorus 1.80)
(2) HELIOS (Argonautica 3.997, Hyginus Fabulae 40,
Metamorphoses 9.737)
(3) HELIOS & KRETE (Diodorus Siculus 4.60.4)
Offspring
(1) THE MINOTAUROS (by the Kretan Bull) (Apollodorus
3.8, Diodorus Siculus 4.77.1, Hyginus Fabulae 40,
Metamorphoses 8.132, Dionysiaca 47.395)
(2) IDOMENEUS (by Minos) (Pausanias 5.25.9)
(3) ARIADNE (by Minos) (Argonautica 3.997)
(4) ASTERIOS (by Minos) (Dionysiaca 40.290)
(5) ARIADNE, DEUKALION, KATREUS, ANDROGEUS (by Minos)
(Diodorus Siculus 4.60.4)
(6) DEUKALION (by Minos) (Hyginus Fabulae 14)

Image T33.1 Daidalos presents Queen Pasiphae with the
wooden cow - the construct with which she achieved a
mating with the Kretan Bull. This well-preserved
fresco is from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

"Pasiphae .. the Kyprian [Aphrodite] implanted desire
in her.. : to Eupalamos' son Daidalos, most skilled of
carpenters, she told her unspeakable sickness [the
lust for a bull]; she made him swear a binding oath
and ordered him to build a wooden cow, so that she
might join her body to that of the mighty bull, hiding
from Minos ... the union she shared." -Greek Lyric IV
Bacchylides Frag 26

"The Kholkians who were ruled by Aeetes, the son of
Helios and Perseis, and brother of Kirke and Minos’
wife Pasiphae." -Apollodorus 1.80

"He [Minos] married Pasiphae, daughter of Helios and
Perseis." -Apollodorus 3.7

"Minos aspired to the throne [of Krete], but was
rebuffed. He claimed, however, that he had received
the sovereignty from the gods, and to prove it he said
that whatever he prayed for would come about. So while
sacrificing to Poseidon, he prayed for a bull to
appear from the depths of the sea, and promised to
sacrifice it upon its appearance. And Poseidon did
send up to him a splendid bull. Thus Minos received
the rule, but he sent the bull to his herds and
sacrificed another … Poseidon was angry that the bull
was not sacrificed, and turned it wild. He also
devised that Pasiphae should develop a lust for it. In
her passion for the bull she took on as her accomplice
an architect named Daidalos … He built a woden cow on
wheels, … skinned a real cow, and sewed the
contraption into the skin, and then, after placing
Pasiphae inside, set it in a meadow where the bull
normally grazed. The bull came up and had intercourse
with it, as if with a real cow. Pasiphae gave birth to
Asterios, who was called Minotauros. He had the face
of a bull, but was otherwise human. Minos, following
certain oracular instructions, kept him confined and
under guard in the labyrinth. This labyrinth, which
Daidalos built, was a cage with convoluted flextions
that disorders debouchment.” -Apollodorus 3.8-11

"[Prokris] fled to Minos, who wanted her and tried to
persuade her to have sex with him. But if a woman had
sex with Minos, she could not be saved; for after he
had slept with many women, Pasiphae put him under a
spell whereby, whenever he went to bed with another
woman, he would ejaculate wild creatures into her
vagina, thus killing her. Even so, in return for the
fleet hound and the straight-hitting javelin that
Minos owned, and after giving him a potion made from
the Kirkaian root to keep him from hurting her, she
went to bed with him." -Apollodorus 3.197-198

“[Theseus] having escaped the cruel bellowing and the
wild on of Pasiphae and the coiled habitation of the
crooked labyrinth.” –Callimachus, Hymn IV to Delos 311

“On [the road from Oitylos to Thalamai, Lakedaimon] is
a sanctuary of Ino and an oracle. They consult the
oracle in sleep, and the goddess reveals whatever they
wish to learn, in dreams. Bronze statues of Pasiphae
and of Helios stand in the unroofed part of the
sanctuary [of Ino at Thalamai, Lakedaimon]. It was not
possible to see the one within the temple clearly,
owing to the garlands, but they say this too is of
bronze. Water, sweet to drink, flows from a sacred
spring. Pasiphae is a title of Selene, and is not a
local goddess of the people of Thalamai.” –Pausanias
3.26.1

“Idomeneus the descendant of Minos. The story goes
that Idomeneus was descended from Helios (the Sun),
the father of Pasiphae.” –Pausanias 5.25.9

<http://www.1001prints-posters.com/henri_matisse_pasiphae.htm>
Pasiphae By Henri Matisse

On the astronomical plane:

Pasiphae is Jupiter's 24th moon. Very little is known
about this satellite. It is one of thousands of small
bodies that make up Jupiter's 'mini solar system.'
Discovered by P. Melotte
Date of Discovery 1908
Mean Distance from Jupiter 23,500,000 km
Radius 18 km
Mass 2 ¥ 1020 g
Orbital Eccentricity 0.378
Orbital Inclination 145 degrees
Orbital Period 735 days (retrograde)]
<http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/features/planets/jupiter/pasiphae.html>

-Doug

=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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