THESEUS
to the young prince, a Greek from Corinth who was not even pre–
sented to me.
They asked me to describe in my own tongue (which everybody
at the court understood very well and spoke fluently, though with
a slight accent) what they were pleased to call my exploits. I was
delighted to see that the young Phaedra and Glaucus were seized
with uncontrollable laughter at the story of the treatment which
Procrustes imposed upon passers-by, and which I made him endure
in his tum-chopping off all those parts of him which exceeded his
statutory measure. But they tactfully avoided .any allusion to the
cause of my visit to Crete, and affected to see me as merely a traveler.
Throughout the meal, Ariadne pressed her knee against mine,
under the table; but it was the warmth of the young Phaedra which
really stirred me. Meanwhile P.asiphae, the queen, who sat opposite
me, was fairly eating me with her enormous eyes, and Minos, by her
side, wore an unvarying smile. Only Rhadamanthus, with his long
fair beard, seemed rather out of humor. Both he and the king left
the room after the fourth course-"to sit on their thrones," they said.
I still felt some traces of my sea-sickness. I ate a great deal,
and drank still more. I was so liberally plied with wines and liqueurs
of every sort that before long I didn't know where I was. I was
used to drinking only water, or diluted wine. With everything reeling
before me, but still just able to stand, I begged permission to leave
the room, and it was then that the queen began to tackle me.
"My young friend .... if I may call you so," she began. "We
must make the most of these few moments alone together. I am not
what you suppose, and have no designs upon your person, attractive
as that may be." And, protesting the while that she was addressing
herself only to my spirit, or to some undefined but interior zone of
my being, she continually stroke my forehead; later she slipped her
hands under my leather jerkin and fondled my pectorals, as
if
to
convince herself that I was really there.
"I know what brings you here, and I want to warn you of a
mistake. Your intentions are murderous. You are here to fight my
son. I don't know what you may have heard about him, and I don't
want to know. Ah! listen to the pleas of my heart! He whom they
call the Minotaur may or may not be the monster of whom you have
no doubt heard, but he is my son."
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