Page:Metamorphoses.djvu/433

 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VIII holds the heart weary with the cares of day: the daughter steals silently into her father's chamber, and-oh, the horrid crime -she despoils him of the tress where his life lay. With this cursed prize, through the midst of her foes, so sure is she of a welcome for her deed, she goes straight to the king; and thus she addresses him, startled at her resence: «Love has led me to this deed. I cylla, daughter of King Nisus, do here deliver to your hands my country and my house. I ask no reward save only you. Take as the pledge of my love this purple lock, and know that I am giving to you not a lock, but my father's life." And in her sin-stained hand she held out the prize to him Minos recoiled from the proffered gift, and, in horror at the sight of so unnatural an act, he replied: < May the gods banish you from their world, O foul disgrace of our age May both land and sea be denied to you! Be sure that I shall not permit so vile a monster to set foot on Crete, my world, the cradle of Jove's infancy. e spoke; and when this most upright lawgiver had imposed laws upon his conquered foes, he bade loose the hawsers of the fleet, and the rowers to man the bronze-bound ships. When Scylla saw that the ships were launched and atloat, and that the king refused her the reward of her sin, having prayed until she could pray no more, she became violently enraged,and stretching out her hands, with streaming hair and mad with passion, she exclaimed : " Whither do you flee,abandoning the giver of your success, Oyou whom I put before my fatherland, before my fatheri? Whither do you flee, you cruel man, whose victory is my sin, 'tis true, but is my merit also? Does not the gift I gave move you, do not my love and 41S