A post here about the garbs of beauty said that beauty “should be a reliable guide, like the thread of Ariadne, through life’s puzzling ways.  So long as we look for beauty, we should be able to find our way forward through the labyrinth.”  But a synonym is not helpful if one does not recognise the object of comparison; some readers, it seems, did not study the classics, and have no idea who Ariadne was.  Because she appears in a very symbolic piece of mythology, the reference deserves clarification.

There are numerous variations of this tale, which was retold many times in oral culture around the Mediterranean before it was ever written down, but the essence is that on Crete long ago there was a labyrinth buried beneath the palace of King Minos. This dark and mysterious maze, under the care of the princess Ariadne, was inhabited by the monstrous Minotaur, half man and half bull.  In one version of the story, the Athenians were obliged to send a tribute of young men and women each year to be sacrificed to the Minotaur.  One year the prince Theseus volunteered to join this group, intent on slaying the monster and ending this painful obligation.  Ariadne fell in love with Theseus at first sight, and to help him fulfil his quest gave him a sword and a ball of thread to unroll through the labyrinth, thus tracing the way out.

Needless to say, the hero was victorious, and when he emerged from the labyrinth, Ariadne eloped with him.  They did not grow old together, though, for later Ariadne somehow ended up as the bride of the god Dionysus. Sufi poets would not be surprised that one of their children was Oenopion, the personification of wine.

One possible explanation for the image of a labyrinth is that it is related to the ancient art of weaving, and to associated, intricate, perhaps serpentine  dance forms.  Ariadne would then be a priestess of this sacred art, and her offer of a ball of thread seems appropriate.  But the labyrinth can also represent the perplexities of the mind as it seeks for truth.  Hazrat Inayat Khan, speaking of mazes, said:
Man likes complexity. […] The man who is seeking the truth gets into a maze, and that maze interests him. He wants to go through it a thousand times more. It is just like children. Their whole interest is in running about; they do not want to see the door and go in until they are very tired. So it is with grown-up people. They all say that they are seeking truth, but they like the maze. That is why the mystics made the greatest truths a mystery, to be given only to the few who were ready for them, letting the others play because it was the time for them to play.

In other words, the labyrinth is an image of the world of thought and sensation, and the experience of manifestation, which in Persian Sufi poetry has been called the aina khana, or the house of mirrors. Here, ever-repeating reflections make it very difficult to find the way out. The task of Theseus then is the need to free the soul from the limitations of the physical and mental world. This was only possible with the help of the gifts of Ariadne for they are the gifts of love: the sword represents the power of love, and the quality of indomitable courage which love inspires, and the ball of thread could be a symbol of wisdom, for there can be no wisdom if love is not awakened.