No wonder that victory declared for you, and the prostrate monster tinged with its blood the Cretan ground. A heart so steeled could not be pierced by the sharpest horn. Had you encountered him with your breast uncovered, you were yet safe from harm. There you were armed with flint and adamant; there you bore Theseus, yet harder than adamant. Cruel sleep, why did you bind me over to a fatal sloth? It had been better for me to have sunk in eternal night. You also, barbarous winds, too readily conspired against me. Ye officious gales have been to me the cause of many tears.
O inhuman right-hand, the bane of both me and my brother; and faith, an empty name, plighted at my request! Sleep, the winds, and strongest vows, combined against me, and concurred in deceiving a harmless unsuspecting maid. Alas! must I then here breathe my last, nor see the tears of a pitying mother? shall none attend to close my dying eyes? Must I breathe out my mournful soul in foreign air, and no friendly hand anoint my motionless limbs? Shall my unburied frame be left a prey to devouring vultures? Are these the proper returns for all my affectionate services? When you enter the port of Cecrops, and, welcomed by your country, mount the lofty citadel that overlooks the town; when there you relate your victory over the doubtful monster, and your escape from the intricate prison, branched out into a thousand windings; tell also how I was abandoned in a desert land: I ought not to be forgotten in the train of your exploits. Surely Ægeus was not your father; Æthra never gave birth to you: you sprang from pointed locks, or the raging sea. Oh if
you could have viewed me from the stern of your ship, the mournful figure had surely moved compassion. As you cannot now observe me with your eyes, only imagine me to yourself, hanging over a frightful rock, undermined by the waves that dash against it below. Consider me with my hair disheveled, and carelessly spread over my disconsolate face; behold my clothes heavy with tears, as from a shower. My body trembles like corn shaken by the north winds; and the letters proceed unequal from my faltering hand. I do not urge you now by my merit, since my favors were so ill bestowed, nor expect any retribution, as due to my kind offices: but then, what pretence have you for ill usage? Had I not contributed in the smallest degree to your safety, even this is no reason why you should be the cause of my death. To thee wretched Ariadne stretches over the wide sea her hands, faint with often beating her sorrowful breast. Disconsolate as I am, I remind you of the few mangled tresses that yet remain. I conjure you, by the tears shed for your cruel departure, turn your ship, dear Theseus, and bear back your inverted sails. If I die ere you arrive, you may yet collect my scattered bones.
