Pasiphaë Character Analysis in Circe

Pasiphaë is Helios and Perse’s daughter, and the sister of Circe, Aeëtes, and Perses. When in Helios’s halls, Pasiphaë follows her mother’s lead and is malicious toward Circe. Because Pasiphaë spends most of her time with Perses, Circe thinks that the two are close, but years later, Circe discovers that this is not the whole truth. As a woman in ancient Greece, Pasiphaë has less power than Perses, and she hints that he abused her, although she does not explain further. Helios contracts Pasiphaë into marriage with Minos, which strengthens Helios’s alliance with Zeus. Pasiphaë further experiences the misogyny of ancient Greece when married to Minos, who wants her to be “a simpering jelly he keeps in a jar and breeds to death.” But Pasiphaë is a witch and uses her powers to maintain a considerable amount of control over him. She also gives birth to the Minotaur, a man-eating, bull-headed monster, the result of her sexual encounter with a sacred bull. The Minotaur is her way of gaining fame and, most importantly, it is “her whip to use against Minos” in order to keep him in fear of her. Pasiphaë is unlike Circe, in that, while Circe grows and finds fulfillment through love, Pasiphaë remains static. She is too caught up in the battle of power and her scramble to stay ahead of the abuse that men may bring her way. She becomes what she always hated, just another person for whom “the only thing that makes [her] listen is power.”

Pasiphaë Quotes in Circe

The Circe quotes below are all either spoken by Pasiphaë or refer to Pasiphaë. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Power, Fear, and Self-Preservation Theme Icon

I had heard by then the stories whispered among my cousins, of what [mortals] might do to nymphs they caught alone. The rapes and ravishments, the abuses. I found it hard to believe. They looked weak as mushroom gills. They kept their faces carefully down, away from all those divinities. Mortals had their own stories, after all, of what happened to those who mixed with gods. An ill-timed glance, a foot set in an impropitious spot, such things could bring down death and woe upon their families for a dozen generations.

It was like a great chain of fear, I thought. Zeus at the top and my father just behind. Then Zeus’ siblings and children, then my uncles, and on down through all the ranks of river-gods and brine-lords and Furies and Winds and Graces, until it came to the bottom where we sat, nymphs and mortals both, eying each other.

Related Characters: Circe (speaker), Zeus, Helios, Pasiphaë, Minos

Related Literary Devices:

Page Number and Citation: 31-32

Explanation and Analysis:

Witchcraft is nothing but such drudgery […] Day upon patient day, you must throw out your errors and begin again. So why did I not mind? Why did none of us mind?

I cannot speak for my brothers and sister, but my answer is easy. For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay.

Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt.

Related Characters: Circe (speaker), Aeëtes, Perses, Pasiphaë

Page Number and Citation: 84

Explanation and Analysis:

“You fools,” I said. “I am the one who made that creature. I did it for pride and vain delusion. And you thank me? Twelve of your men are dead for it, and how many thousands more to come? That drug I gave her is the strongest I have. Do you understand, mortals?” […]

The light from my eyes beat down upon them.

“I will never be free of her. She cannot be changed back, not now, not ever. What she is, she will remain. She will feast on your kind for all eternity. So get up. Get up and get to your oars, and let me not hear you speak again of your imbecile gratitude or I will make you sorry for it.”

The cringed and shook like the weak vessels they were, stuttering to their feet and creeping away […] I yanked off the cloak. I wanted the sun to burn me.

Related Characters: Circe (speaker), Scylla, Pasiphaë, Daedalus, Hermes, Helios

Page Number and Citation: 117

Explanation and Analysis:

[Pasiphaë’s] words were falling on my head like a great cataract. I could scarcely take them in. She hated our family? She had always seemed to me their distillation, a glittering monument to our blood’s vain cruelty. Yet it was true what she said: nymphs were allowed to work only through the power of others. They could expect none for themselves.

Related Characters: Circe (speaker), Pasiphaë, The Minotaur, Minos

Page Number and Citation: 147

Explanation and Analysis:

My island lay around me. My herbs, my house, my animals. And so it would go, I thought, on and on, forever the same. It did not matter if Penelope and Telemachus were kind. It did not matter even if they stayed for their whole lives, if she were the friend I had yearned for and he were something else, it would only be a blink. They would wither, and I would burn their bodies and watch my memories of them fade as everything faded in the endless wash of the centuries […] For me there was nothing. I would go on through the countless millennia, while everyone I met ran through my fingers and I was left with only those who were like me. The Olympians and Titans. My sister and brothers. My father.

I felt something in me then […] I seemed to hear that pale creature in his black depths.

Then, child, make another.

Related Characters: Circe (speaker), Telemachus, Penelope, Pasiphaë, Perses, Aeëtes, Helios, Trygon

Page Number and Citation: 357-358

Explanation and Analysis:

Pasiphaë Character Timeline in Circe

The timeline below shows where the character Pasiphaë appears in Circe. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...birth to two more children: one girl and one boy. The daughter, whom she names Pasiphaë, earns a prophecy from Helios, who declares that she will marry “an eternal son of... (full context)

Perses and Pasiphaë quickly notice that Perse loathes Circe, and they begin to incessantly mock her, calling her... (full context)

Change, Initiative, and the Self Theme Icon

Back at the palace, Perses and Pasiphaë ask Circe about the cows and mock her for not knowing something about them. When... (full context)

Mortality, Fragility, and Fulfillment Theme Icon

...finds a deserted beach for the two of them to meet and talk away from Pasiphaë and Perses. To Circe, this barren strip of land is a bounteous haven. (full context)

Meanwhile, Helios has finally picked a husband for Pasiphaë: Minos, Zeus’s mortal son and king of Crete. Both Perse and Perses sour at the... (full context)

...Minos who, although an impressive figure among other mortal men, pales in comparison to stunning Pasiphaë. Circe perceives Minos’s sullenness over being outshone by his wife. Meanwhile, Circe is sure that... (full context)

...magic based in pharmaka, herbs that come from both divine blood and from common plants. Pasiphaë and Perses, Aeëtes elaborates, also practice pharmakeia. Helios is dumbstruck. (full context)

...magic doesn’t pose a threat at the moment: Perses is far away from the gods, Pasiphaë will be checked by her husband (who is a son of Zeus), and Aeëtes will... (full context)

...that could change at any moment. Hermes tells Circe gossip from around the world, from Pasiphaë’s family to Perse’s gloating pride about her children. She enjoys his stories but knows that... (full context)

...as a sign that he is used to gods and witches. Daedalus tells her that Pasiphaë wants Circe to help her during labor. Circe asks why, and he says that she... (full context)

Daedalus adds that Pasiphaë requires that they travel through Scylla’s strait, which Circe recognizes as her sister’s cruel desire... (full context)

...it and that the ship—so impressive yet sent to dangerous seas—is proof of Minos and Pasiphaë’s power. The men of the ship begin to row. Circe examines their faces and is... (full context)

Daedalus approaches, and in reference to his being searched when they boarded, Circe asks why Pasiphaë is watching him. He tells her that she and Minos fear that he doesn’t “appreciate... (full context)

...She tells him that Scylla is her fault, but he merely nods and says that Pasiphaë already told him. Circe is unsurprised at this. He asks if she can do anything... (full context)

...she had once been, often flirting with Perses. Circe’s thoughts turn to Daedalus, and what Pasiphaë has of his. At first, Circe thinks it may be a lover, perhaps one that... (full context)

...as they land, Polydamas orders Daedalus and Circe to the palace. He leads them to Pasiphaë’s rooms and knocks on the door. Just as Daedalus begins to apologize for what lies... (full context)

As she enters, Circe announces that 12 men died because of Pasiphaë’s desire to torment Circe. Pasiphaë laughs at Circe’s pain and taunts her, guessing how many... (full context)

Pasiphaë abruptly goes into labor. Circe orders all the attendants out, pleased at how quickly they... (full context)

Once her belly is opened, Pasiphaë orders Circe to get the baby out. Circe looks warily at her sister’s womb, but... (full context)

Daedalus offers to kill the creature, but Pasiphaë demands that it live. He and Circe capture it in a blanket, and he stuffs... (full context)

As Circe sews up her sister, she says that Pasiphaë will be punished. But Pasiphaë laughs at this statement, saying that “gods love their monsters.”... (full context)

Circe can’t stop wondering why Pasiphaë had asked her, of all people, to attend the birth. But her horror at the... (full context)

Accompanied by Ariadne, Circe stands before Pasiphaë and Minos, the latter of whom is old and ghastly. He demands to know what... (full context)

...the whole situation is the fault of Circe and her family. They cursed him with Pasiphaë, who torments him. Pasiphaë interrupts him, urging him to tell Circe of the deaths of... (full context)

As Pasiphaë jeers at Minos, asking whether he thought the girls died from pleasure, Circe takes Ariadne... (full context)

...relaxes, already quieted. Watching it plod into its new cage, Circe knows that this monster, Pasiphaë’s “ambition made flesh,” will only know a life of hate and gore. (full context)

...introduces his son Icarus to her. Seeing Daedalus’s tenderness with the child, Circe knows that Pasiphaë must have immediately seen Daedalus’s love for him. (full context)

...between their arts and lifestyle, and he expresses sympathy for the cruelty she suffers at Pasiphaë’s hands. He then tells her that he plans to design a maze in the cellars... (full context)

...her room, mulling over her conversation with Daedalus. She is enraged on his behalf that Pasiphaë and Minos keep him imprisoned for their own glory. She recalls the love in Daedalus’s... (full context)

...her time in Crete and realizes just how much the Minotaur is a victory for Pasiphaë: Minos’s humiliation, the subjugating terror of the Cretans, Daedalus’s guilt and his obligation to help,... (full context)

Pasiphaë dodges Circe’s question, enraging her even more. Circe exclaims that she deserves to know, after... (full context)

Pasiphaë goes on to say that, while everyone else was shocked that Circe ended up with... (full context)

Reeling from the revelation, Circe asks why Pasiphaë hadn’t been friends with her and Aeëtes. Pasiphaë scoffs, telling Circe that Aeëtes only entertained... (full context)

Pasiphaë chose Circe, she says, because Circe is like Pasiphaë and can endure pain. Circe is... (full context)

For the next few days, Circe enjoys her nights with Daedalus and avoids Pasiphaë during the day. Finally, Minos allows her to leave. When she boards the ship, Daedalus... (full context)

Alone on her island, Circe’s thoughts return to her argument with Pasiphaë. In an imagined conversation, Circe declares that her first spell was inspired by love, but... (full context)

Circe recalls Pasiphaë’s surprise at Circe’s refusal to say that they are similar. She then wonders what life... (full context)

Hermes continues to visit—Circe can’t deny the company. One day, she asks for stories of Pasiphaë. After giving her some milder details, Hermes tells Circe his most grotesque story about Pasiphaë.... (full context)

...serious way he tells stories. Suddenly she interrupts to ask whether Telemachus knows anything of Pasiphaë, to which he responds that the Minotaur’s mother is always in Theseus’s story. Circe then... (full context)

Pasiphaë Character Analysis

Pasiphaë Quotes in Circe

Chapter 3 Quotes

Chapter 7 Quotes

Chapter 9 Quotes

Chapter 11 Quotes

Chapter 24 Quotes

Pasiphaë Character Timeline in Circe