The Minotaur (opera) Theseus tells Ariadne about his departure from Athens with the Innocents. Ariadne believes that Theseus offers her a means of escape from Crete. She plays a game of chance with him using a stone: if he chooses the hand in which she holds the stone he will enter the labyrinth to confront the Minotaur, but if he chooses her empty hand he must remain a bystander to the bloodshed. Ariadne cheats so that Theseus chooses the empty hand. "Scene 3: The Labyrinth" The Innocents enter the labyrinth, praying to the gods to bring them out safely. "Scene 4: Ariadne" Ariadne
Bacchus and Ariadne (poem) Ariadne" was toned down and contained a "sociability" that was mentioned in the preface of Hunt's "Foliage". When placed into a sequence following "Hero and Leander", the "Bacchus and Ariadne" is a consolation to the themes of the first. Bacchus is able to save Ariadne, whereas no one was able to save Hero. Hunt relied on the story from Ovid's "Heroides" to base his poem, but Hunt describes an end result to the story that Ovid leaves untold. A major connection between Hunt's and Ovid's version is that they begin at sunrise. Ovid uses the sunrise to show that Ariadne