"Oh! what lioness whelped thee? Oh! what desolate cavern? What was the sea that spawned, that spat from its churning abysses, Thee,--what wolfish Scylla, or Syrtis, or vasty Charybdis, Thee,--thus thankful for life, dear gift of living, I gave thee?... Had it not liked thee still to acknowledge vows that we plighted, Mightest thou homeward, yet, have borne me a damsel beholden, Fain to obey thy will, and to lave thy feet like a servant, Fain to bedeck thy couch with purple coverlet for thee. "But to the hollow winds why stand repeating my quarrel,-- I, for sorrow unselfed,--they, but breezes insensate,-- Potent neither voices to hear nor words to re-echo?... Yea, but where shall I turn? Forlorn, what succor rely on? 'Haste to the Gnossian hills?' Ah, see how distantly surging Deeps forbid, distending their gulfs abhorrent before me! 'Comfort my heart, mayhap, with the loyal love of my husband?' Lo, the reluctant oar, e'en now, he plies to forsake me!-- Nought but the homeless strand of an isle remote of the ocean! No, no way of escape, where the circling sea without shore is,-- No, no counsel of flight, no hope, no sound of a mortal; All things desolate, dumb, yea, all things summoning deathward! Yet mine eyes shall not fade in death that sealeth the eyelids, Nor from the frame outworn shall fare my lingering senses, Ere, undone, from powers divine I claim retribution-- Ere I call--in the hour supreme, on the faith of Immortals! "Come, then, Righters of Wrong, O vengeful dealers of justice, Braided with coil of the serpents, O Eumenides, ye of Brows that blazon ire exhaling aye from the bosom, Haste, oh, haste ye, hither and hear me, vehement plaining, Destitute, fired with rage, stark-blind, demented for fury!-- As with careless heart yon Theseus sailed and forgot me, So with folly of heart, may he slay himself and his household!" ... Then with a nod supreme Olympian Jupiter nodded: Quaked thereat old Earth,--quaked, shuddered the terrified waters, Ay, and the constellations in Heaven that glitter were jangled. Straightway like some cloud on the inward vision of Theseus Dropped oblivion down, enshrouding vows he had cherished, Hiding away all trace of the solemn behest of his father. [Illustration: FIG. 143. HEAD OF DIONYSUS] For, as was said before, Ægeus, on the departure of his son for Creta, had given him this command: "If Minerva, goddess of our city, grant thee victory over the Minotaur, hoist on thy return, when first the dear hills of Attica greet thy vision, white canvas to herald thy joy and mine, that mine eyes may see the propitious sign and know the glad day that restores thee safe to me."