Pasiphaë

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In canto XXVI of the Purgatorio, among the lustful, two groups of penitents exchange examples of bestial lust; the second group names Pasiphaë, stating «Into the cow goes Pasiphaë» (v. 41). The critical note on the same canto specifies that Pasiphaë was the wife of Minos, who became enamored of a bull, and had Daedalus build a wooden cow into which she entered to satisfy her passion; from their union the Minotaur was born, as already recalled in Inferno XII 12 ff. The example is chosen to underscore the bestiality of the sin of lust, which subverts reason to appetite, as reiterated at v. 84 of the same canto. Compared to the Inferno, where the sodomites stand among the violent against nature, in the Purgatorio they are placed among the lustful, according to the subdivision by capital sins proper to the second realm.