Heroic Colloquy

"Welcome to my house. I am Asterion.
Whose doom has led him here? No slave who falls
Before my feet, or tears his flesh and calls
On futile gods. You are some hero's son."

"An ill-starred name to loom such gloomy halls!
And cousins too, if Aethra was undone
By else than Aegeus. Luck and guild have spun
This thread. I am none of your puling thralls."

"Cousins? a subtle fate...
Shall we dispense
With banal courtesies, since you have said
So well? Come. Cease this riddling insolence."

"My name is Theseus. Freely come or led,
We meet to do our fathers reverence...
The rite of blood to which we both were bred.

---Bert Laub

 

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