at is her confidence in her deserts) to the king,
whom, in astonishment, she thus addresses: "'Twas love that urged the
deed. I {am} Scylla, the royal issue of Nisus; to thee do I deliver the
fortunes of my country and my own, {as well}; I ask for no reward, but
thyself. Take this purple lock, as a pledge of my love; and do not
consider that I am delivering to thee a lock of hair, but the life of my
father." And {then}, in her right hand, she holds forth the infamous
present. Minos refuses it, {thus} held out; and shocked at the thought
of so unheard of a crime, he says, "May the Gods, O thou reproach of our
age, banish thee from their universe; and may both earth and sea be
denied to thee. At least, I will not allow so great a monster to come
into Crete, the birth-place of Jupiter, which is my realm." He {thus}
spoke;[7] and when, {like} a most just lawgiver, he had imposed
conditions on the vanquished, he ordered the halsers of the fleet to be
loosened, and the brazen {beaked} ships to be impelled with the oars.
Scylla, when she beheld the launched ships sailing on the main, and
{saw} that the prince did not give her the {expected} reward of her
wickedness, having spent {all} her entreaties, fell into a violent rage,
and holding up her hands, with her hair dishevelled, in her frenzy she
exclaimed,

"Whither dost thou fly, the origin of thy achievements {thus} left
behind, O thou preferred before my country, preferred before my father?
Whither dost thou fly, barbarous {man}? whose victory is both my crime
and my merit. Has neither the gift presented to thee, nor yet my
passion, moved thee? nor yet {the fact} that all my hopes were centred
in thee alone? For whither shall I return, forsaken {by thee}? To my
country? Subdued, it is ruined. But suppose it were {still} safe; by my
treachery, it is shut against me. To the face of my father, that I have
placed in thy power. My fellow-citizens hate me deservedly; the
neighbours dread my example. I have closed the whole world against me,
that Crete alone might be open {to me}. And dost thou thus forbid me
that as well? Is it thus, ungrateful one, that thou dost desert me?
Europa was not thy mother, but the inhospitable Syrtis,[8] or
Armenian[9] tigresses, or Charybdis disturbed by the South wind. Nor
wast thou the son of Jupiter; nor was thy mother beguiled by the
{assumed} form of a bull. That story of thy birth is false. He was both
a fierce bull, and one charmed with the lo