THESEUS
she then glued her lips to my own, and held them there for what
seemed to me an interminable time. I was longing to get on.
My thirteen companions, both male and female, had gone on ahead
Pirithous among them; I found them in the first big room, already
quite fuddled by the vapors. I should have mentioned that, together
with the thread, Daedalus had given me a piece of rag drenched
with a powerful specific against the gases, and had pressed me most
particularly to employ it as a gag. (This also Ariadne had taken in
hand, as we stood before the entrance to the labyrinth.) Thanks to it,
and though hardly able to breathe, I was able in the midst of these
intoxicating vapors to keep my head clear and my wiii taut. I was
rather suffocated, ail the same, because, as I've said before, I never
feel reaily well when I'm not in the open air.
Unreeling the thread, I penetrated into a second room, darker than
the first; then into another, still darker; then into a fourth, where I could
only grope my way. My hand, brushing along the wall, fell upon the
handle of a door. I opened it, and stepped into brilliant sunshine. Facing
me, and stretched at length upon a flowery bed of buttercups, pansies,
jonquils, tulips and carnations, I saw the Minotaur. As luck would have
it, he was asleep. I ought to have hurried forward and taken advantage
of this; but something held me back, arrested my arm: the monster was
beautiful. As happens with centaurs also, there was in his person a
harmonious blending of human and animal elements. On top of this,
he was young, and his youthfulness gave an indefinable bloom to his
good looks; and I am more vulnerable to such things than to any show
of strength. When faced with them, I needed to call upon all my reserves
of energy. For one never fights better than with the doubled strength
of hatred; and I could not hate the Minotaur. I even stood still for some
time, and just looked at him. But he opened one eye. I saw then that he
was completely witless, and that it was time for me to set about my
task.....
What I did next, and what happened, I cannot exactly recaii.
Tightly as I had been gagged, my mind had doubtless been benumbed
by the gases in the first room; they affected my memory, and if, in spite
of this, I vanquished the Minotaur, my recollection of the victory is con–
fused, though on the whole, somewhat voluptuous. That must be my
last word, since I refuse to invent. I have also many dreamlike mem–
ories of the charms of that garden; it so went to my head that I thought
I could never bear to leave it; and it was only reluctantly that, after
settling with the Minotaur, I rewound my thread and went back to the
first room, there to rejoin my companions.
1235
