Pāsiphăē

Pāsiphăē, in Greek myth, wife of Minos king of Crete, daughter of Helios (Sun), mother of Ariadnē and Phaedra. When Minos refused to sacrifice to Poseidon, as he had promised, a fine bull, Poseidon punished him by inflicting on Pasiphae a passion for the bull. Enabled by the help of Daedalus to gratify her passion she became the mother of the Minotaur, part bull and part man.