To enable Theseus to retrace his steps out of the Labyrinth, Ariadne gives him a ball of thread, in return for which he promises to marry her. Once the couple escape to the island of Naxos, Theseus abandons her and sails back to Athens.
Fuseli
Fraudsters, the incestuous Myrrha, mother of Adonis, a counterfeiter, Potiphar’s wife, then the treacherous who betrayed their kin.
Is this Hecate, triple-headed goddess of the night, with owl and bats, or another of Blake’s mythology, representing spiritual beauty? A misidentified painting explained.
God seen as a master craftsman, forming the world, or a symbol of reason drawn from Blake’s own personal mythology? A painting explained.
From the foundation of Troy, the start of the war with the Judgement of Paris, the death of Achilles, the sack of Troy, and Aeneas journey to found the precursor to Rome, and on to the age of Augustus.
How ancient Egyptians painted women white and men more swarthy in colour. Separately, colour coding of devils brought similar distinctions.
More rich narratives, including Titania and Bottom, Falstaff, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Odysseus, Satan, Lady Macbeth, and Fairy Mab.
In 1781 he painted 3 masterpieces, of the suicide of Queen Dido of Carthage, ‘The Nightmare’ still famous today, and the Dream of Queen Katharine of Aragon.
Aeneas’ ill-fated and brief affair with Queen Dido of Carthage, past the Cercopes who had been turned into monkeys, and on to the Sibyl to take him to visit his father in the underworld.
Scylla accosted by the grotesque sea-god Glaucus. When she runs away from him, he seeks the help of Circe, only for her to turn Scylla into a pack of hounds, then into a hazard to navigation.
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