Ariadne, Lady of the Labyrinth

Ariadne, the consort of Dionysos, is as facinating an archetype as her wild lover.

While in classical Greek myth she is the daughter of King Minos (and so in a Minoan context both a princess and a High Priestess of the Mysteries) her legend without doubt also preserves the myths of a very ancient goddess. As such she represents another important perspective on the dynamics of nature and our own psyches.

In Classical Myth Ariadne fell in love with Theseus who had covertly travelled to Crete in order to slay the ‘Bull of Minos’, and liberate Greece from Minoan rule. The Minotaur was the offspring of the ‘Sea Bull’ (a son of Poseidon) by Minos’ Queen, this Sea Bull in fact was sometimes associated with Minos himself, who is also often regarded as the mortal incarnation of the underworld deity Zagreus. His wife was thus regarded as the avatar of the Great Mother Goddess, and so their daughter obviously corresponds to the myth of the Daughter archetype, typified by Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, and to some extent Aphrodite (who exchanged tenancy with Persephone in Hades on a seasonal basis, symbolising summer and winter in Nature). All three are thus without doubt demoted deities given mortality in Greek Folklore of historical significance. It has been convincingly argued that the Minotaur was thus original consort of Ariadne, in bestial form. Theseus (a human offspring of Poseidon, himself associated with the legendary ‘White Bull’) can be seen as the human aspect of Ariadne’s partner. Thus his slaying of the Minotaur and elopment with Ariadne is an evolutionary tale in which the Bull God is humanized and freedom achieved from his bestial aspect. This was no doubt derived from an initiation myth about human development (in which we become free of the tyranny of our primal drives) as much as the evolution of an archetype. It can also be seen as a boastful myth of the supremacy of the ‘civilized’ gods of Greece over the ‘chthonian’ gods of ancient Crete (regardless of the historical reality).

Ariadne gives Theseus a cord that will help him find his way out of the Labyrinth and a sword that will help him kill the Minotaur. Ariadne is thus the Mistress of Initiation and Evolution. The cord has many interpretations, most simply as the connection to the mother, here it seems to represent the path out of the Underworld (which the Labyrinth doubtlessly represents) given by the goddess (or the ‘feminine aspect’ we all share), and thus can be seen as intuition or even love (the principles which make whole). Theseus masters the Minotaur and becomes the new Lord of the Labyrinth, then escapes and elopes with Ariadne (demonstrating his new freedom).

But Theseus abandons Ariadne, perhaps demonstrating that humanization adds deceit and artificiality as well as the more positive aspects of consciousness. Ariadne is then rescued by Dionysos (part man, part god, part beast) who becomes Ariadne’s faithful partner for several years (and impregnates her with lots of little Bacchoi). Thus showing that complete humanization (the Apolline) is not a good thing, and that an element of the beast is required for us to be natural ethical beings connected to Life and to the Other.

Ariadne as goddess in her own right is also facinating. Robert Graves claims that Ariadne was a Cretan goddess and the wife of the god Dionysus. The constellation Corona Borealis was sacred to her. He says Ariadne means 'most holy'. She was also the daughter of the moon-goddess Pasiphae. She seems to have been an orgiastic goddess for whom male human sacrifice was appropriate. This sacrifice was performed by drugged women who tore their victims limb from limb. In other words she was a female Dionysos. Trances and ecstatic dance celebrated the annual rebirth of Ariadne’s son-lover Dionysos’. The sudden end of Crete’s peaceful matrilineal Golden age through flood and earthquake gave rise in part to the Atlantis legend.

Ariadne was primarily a serpent goddess, as she seems idenfiable with the bare breasted serpent wielding figurines found in Crete. Her name pronounce R E Odd Nee has also been speculatively identified with that of Rhea. But serpents are not her only animal association. The thread motiff is very much like the thread of a spider which enables her to find her way back to her web. This links her with Arachne, the weaver goddess who was transformed into a spider (and by cross cultural correspondance with the Hopi Spider Woman who carries people across the gap between worlds). Ariadne’s original name was also similar, being Ariagne, derived from Hagne, an epithet of Persephone, who sometimes helped people escape the Underworld (or the Matrix!).

Another insect even more closely associated with Ariadne was the bee. She was in fact the survival of an extremely ancient Bee Goddess known all over the region. Sometimes called Melissa (Melitodes was also a title of Persephone) and representing the bee swarm that manifested the lifeforce of Nature, while also retaining the power of death in its stings. Bees were also thought to have been born from the carcass of a dead bull, and so represented the eternal lifeforce of the Bull God who went through cycles of life and death. Ariadne was thus the Shakti of Dionysos (who himself was identical with Shiva). The cymbal and drums of Rhea were also said to attract and dispel swarms of bees. More Dionysian, bees were the produces of honey the sacred nectar of the Goddess, which was fermented into the mead on which Ariadne’s devotees became intoxicated during their famous orgies. Long before wine was invented. The prototype of Dionysos was a Libyan mead god too. Honey was also used for embalming in Libya demonstrating the interelation of life and death. A honey rite was closely linked to the rising of Sirius, when initiates descended in underground caverns to find bees nests and take honey from them, which were then brought to the surface and fermented for forty days (and nights) to make mead (which they then became intoxicated on). Linguistically the Greek word To Ker related to the honeycomb, and also meant heart and breast, while E Ker meant death and fate and was associated with the Underworld Goddess.

The stylised bee also had the same form as the labrys, the double headed axe of the Goddess, which in turn was merged in art to the stylised form of the butterfly (another life – death motiff), the latter descending from an ancient Neolithic Butterfly Goddess (often accompanied by two winged dogs) representin regeneration. Artemis also descended from this archetype and was closely associated with Ariadne.

Both Ariadne and Artemis (and Helen) were called the ‘hanging goddess’ and were represented by hanging dolls. This may represent a shamanic practise and perhaps some form of autoerotic asyphixiation. Initiates of these deities also used rope swings in their orgies. One tradition has the Goddess dying by hanging herself from a tree. This is consistent with the myth of the fertility goddess who descends to the underworld from her sacred tree annually. This is corroborated by archaeological evidence at the Minoan palace at Knossos on Crete where, frescoes exist, which depict priestesses with knotted ropes about their necks. This may also be a source for the story of Ariadne's thread.

The thread of Ariadne also relates to the Knot of the Goddess.This was a coil of rope worn by Minoan Priestesses and unwoven in sacred rites for use as a magical cord (and the knotted rope mentioned above). The shape of the Knot not only matched the now familiar Labrys-Butterfly-Bee form, but also the knotted band of Hathor and Isis and the curved reed bundle of Innana. Incidently this same form also paralleled the stylised lily of Britomartis, another consort of Minos (and Minoan goddess), as well as the similar lily that became the emblem of Merovingian France (whose patron saint was St Dionysius!).

Ariadne was closely associated with Helen. An ancient goddess known in Rhodes as the ‘hanging goddess’, but associated with ‘orgiastic rites’ in Sparta. She also gave rise to the seductive Helen of Troy archetype and was the source of the name Simon Magus gave to his sacred whore ( a tradition associated with Ashtaroth and Innana). She is also speculatively linked with Elon, a Celtic goddess associated with London (London was also called New Troy, and associated with a maze called Troy Town) .

The Labyrinth itself represented the Underworld (and later came to represent our World to ascetic Gnostics, who sought to escape this ‘lower realm’ governed by lust and the devil!). Physically however it was originally not a maze but a dance floor inscribed with the meander, or spiral ‘maze’ form (according to Homer). It was the floor on which the Minoan priestesses performed ritual erotic dances that led to their orgistic rites. The meander represented the serpentine path of underground water in Neolithic cultures. This energy exuded by the spiraling, coiling snake, exemplifying fertility, regeneration and the mysterious underworld, was revered in Crete as early as 6000 BCE. A delicate Serpent Goddess was discovered in the underground repository of the Second Palace of Knossos (1600 BCE). She depicts the benevolence and sacred power of the Life Force. Her ecstatic staring gaze and enigmatic inward smile, as she holds high the two serpents of immortality are particularly noticable. The tiny panther on her headdress may connect the goddess to the fertility rites of Dionysos.

Other goddesses speculatively linked with Ariadne are the Celtic Moon goddess Arianhod and the Etruscan goddess of Witchcraft Aradia.