Exceptional clock in burnished bronze and finely chiseled and mercury-gilded bronze, dial signed RAVRIO bronzare á Paris - Mesnil horloger. France. Era: Empire. HxWxD: 56x66x29 cm. ARIADNE (Mythology) The myth of Ariadne and Theseus is told in various versions. In one, it is said that Ariadne fell in love with Theseus when he arrived in Crete to kill the Minotaur in the labyrinth. Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of yarn (the proverbial Ariadne's thread) to mark the path in the labyrinth and then get out easily. Theseus, after completing his mission, exited the labyrinth, and Ariadne fled with him and the other Athenians by ship towards Athens. But Theseus abandoned her asleep on the island of Naxos, where they had stopped over. According to Plutarch, Ariadne gave Theseus "only the famous thread" and not a ball of yarn.[3] Upon awakening, Ariadne saw Theseus's ship sailing away and despaired, but the pain of abandonment was short-lived, as the god Dionysus arrived at that moment on a chariot pulled by panthers, with his entire retinue of bacchantes and satyrs. Dionysus wanted to marry Ariadne, in a hierogamy in which the Olympian gods participated. For the wedding, Dionysus gave Ariadne a golden diadem created by Hephaestus, which, launched into the sky, formed the constellation of the Corona Borealis. From the love of Dionysus and Ariadne were born Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, Latramis, and Tauropolis. According to another version, it was Dionysus himself who fell in love with the sleeping Ariadne and ordered Theseus to leave her. In other versions, the goddess Athena orders Theseus to abandon Ariadne. There is a further version of the tradition according to which Dionysus ordered Artemis to kill Ariadne on the island of Naxos. Finally, there is a further tragic version where it is said that Ariadne, overwhelmed by the grief for the loss of Theseus's love, threw herself into the sea and committed suicide. The various versions are united by a mean behavior on the part of Theseus which appears inexplicable and this suggests that a part of the original myth has been lost.