Resolv'st thou still to learn from whom I sprang?
Learn then; but know that thou shalt much augment
My present grief, natural to a man 210
Who hath, like me, long exiled from his home
Through various cities of the sons of men
Wander'd remote, and num'rous woes endured.
Yet, though it pain me, I will tell thee all.
There is a land amid the sable flood 215
Call'd Crete; fair, fruitful, circled by the sea.
Num'rous are her inhabitants, a race
Not to be summ'd, and ninety towns she boasts.
Diverse their language is; Achaians some,
And some indigenous are; Cydonians there, 220
Crest-shaking Dorians, and Pelasgians dwell.
One city in extent the rest exceeds,
Cnossus; the city in which Minos reign'd,
Who, ever at a nine years' close, conferr'd
With Jove himself; from him my father sprang 225
The brave Deucalion; for Deucalion's sons
Were two, myself and King Idomeneus.
To Ilium he, on board his gallant barks,
Follow'd the Atridæ. I, the youngest-born,
By my illustrious name, Æthon, am known, 230
But he ranks foremost both in worth and years.
There I beheld Ulysses, and within
My walls receiv'd him; for a violent wind
Had driv'n him from Malea (while he sought
The shores of Troy) to Crete. The storm his barks 235
Bore
