gering life that threatens me. Sometimes I fancy that ravenous wolves may rush upon me unseen, and tear my bowels with their bloody teeth. Who knows but the island may nourish savage lions? perhaps too it is infested with fierce tigers: the shores are said to be fertile in sea-calves. How am I screened from the stroke of a piercing sword? But most I dread to be led a captive in cruel chains, and to prosecute the toilsome task with servile hands; — I, who boast of Minos for my father, who was born of the daughter of Phœbus; and, (what is still more to me) who was solemnly engaged to you. If I turn my eyes toward the sea, the earth, or the winding shore, both earth and waves threaten me with a thousand dangers. Heaven only remains, and yet even here I fear the forms of the Gods. I am left a prey, and food for savage beasts. If men inhabit or cultivate these fields, I am apt to mistrust even them. already a sufferer, I have learned to be slow in giving credit to strangers. Oh that Androgeos had still lived, nor the land of Cecrops been condemned to expiate that wicked deed by its funerals! Oh that thy strong arm, Theseus, had never killed my monstrous brother, half ox, half man, with a knotted club, and that I had never given you the thread to guide your returning steps, the thread often grasped by your alternate bands!
