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I throw myself down; and watering the couch with profuse tears, Here, (I cry,) we pressed thee together: bring us together again. Hither we both came; why not both also depart? Perfidious bed, what is become of my dearer half? What shall I do? Whither, thus desolate and forsaken, shall I fly? The island lies uncultivated, and affords no prints either of men or cattle. The sea encompasses me. No mariner appears, no ship to bear me through the ambiguous tract. And suppose a ship, companions, and winds were in my power, what could I do? my native country denies access. Even if in a prosperous ship I should traverse the quiet seas, olus restraining the murmuring winds, still I should
remain an exile. I shall never more behold you, O Crete, planned out into a hundred cities, ------ the isle where infant Jupiter was nursed. I have basely betrayed my father, and his kingdom ruled by just laws, ---- names that must be ever dear to me. For you have I betrayed them, when, anxious lest the victor should be bewildered in the labyrinth, I gave you a clue to guide your uncertain steps: when you deceived me by false protestations, and swore by the dangers from which you had escaped, that, while life remained, we should be inseparably one. We live; and yet, Theseus, I am no longer thine; if indeed an unhappy woman, oppressed by the treachery of a perjured man, can be said to live. If you, barbarous man, had murdered me with the club with which you slew my brother, my death would have absolved you from your vow. Now I not only figure to myself those ills which I shall suffer, but every mishap that can befall one in my forlorn condition. A thousand shapes of death wander before my eyes. Death itself appears less terrible, than the lin-
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 Phbus; 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!
