Seduction on a grand scale

Titian: 'Bacchus and Ariadne', 1520-3, National Gallery, London

For most of us, the mating game is a private affair. It happens in closed rooms, secluded corners, in sealed bubbles of intimacy. It doesn't, at least in its early stages, normally take the form of a carnival procession, a public triumph. But in the courtships of gods and goddesses, they order things differently. Personal desires are played out on the stage of the wide world.