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 METAMORPHOSES BOOK VIII all my hopes built on you alone? Deserted, whither shal I go? Back to my fatherland? It lies over- thrown. But suppose it still remained: it is closed to me by my treachery. To my father's presence? him whom I betrayed to you? My countrymen ate me, and with just cause; the neighbouring peoples fear my example. I am banished from all the world, that Crete alone might be open to me. And if you forbid me Crete as well, and, O un- grateful, leave me here, Europa is not your mother, but the inhospitable Syrtis, the Armenian tigress and storm-tossed Charybdis. You are no son of Jove, nor was your mother tricked by the false semblance of a bull. That story of your birth is a lie: it was a real bull that begot you, a fierce, wild ting that loved no heifer. Inlict my punishment, O. Nisus, ny father! Rejoice in my woes, O ye walls thatI have but now betrayed! For I confess I have merited your hate and I deserve to die. But let some one of those whom I have foully injured slay me. Why should you, who have triumphed through my sin, punish my sin? Let this act which was a crime against my country and my father be but a service in your eyes. She is a true mate 1 for you who with unnatural passion deceived the savage bull by that shape of wood and bore a hybrid offspring in her womb. Does my voice reach your ears? Or do the same winds blow away my words to emptiness that fill your sails, you ingrate? Now, now 1 do not wonder that Pasiphaë preferred the bull to you, for you were a more savage beast than he. Alas for me! He orders his men to haste away! and the s dash into them, and I and my land are both fading from his sight. But it ı Pasiphaë, the wife of Minos and mother of the Minotaur. 415 waves resound as the oar