No wonder that victory declared for you, and the prostrate monster tinged with its blood the Cretan ground. A heart so steeled could not be pierced by the sharpest horn. Had you encountered him with your breast uncovered, you were yet safe from harm. There you were armed with flint and adamant; there you bore Theseus, yet harder than adamant. Cruel sleep, why did you bind me over to a fatal sloth? It had been better for me to have sunk in eternal night. You also, barbarous winds, too readily conspired against me. Ye officious gales have been to me the cause of many tears.
O inhuman right-hand, the bane of both me and my brother; and faith, an empty name, plighted at my request! Sleep, the winds, and strongest vows, combined against me, and concurred in deceiving a harmless unsuspecting maid. Alas! must I then here breathe my last, nor see the tears of a pitying mother? shall none attend to close my dying eyes? Must I breathe out my mournful soul in foreign air, and no friendly hand anoint my motionless limbs? Shall my unburied frame be left a prey to devouring vultures? Are these the proper returns for all my affectionate services? When you enter the port of Cecrops, and, welcomed by your country, mount the lofty citadel that overlooks the town; when there you relate your victory over the doubtful monster, and your escape from the intricate prison, branched out into a thousand windings; tell also how I was abandoned in a desert land: I ought not to be forgotten in the train of your exploits. Surely Ægeus was not your father; Æthra never gave birth to you: you sprang from pointed locks, or the raging sea. Oh if
