which he would choose. At last, he said, Great king,
no one can match your ability to fling
wealth at unworthy servants. I prefer
the women, lord. With gold I could procure
some concubines, but that would cost me hours
better spent nurturing the prince’s powers
of divination. Minos said, I’ll choose
which women, bard. He told the slaves to use
the porphyry octopuses, and they did,
while the weighed man thought himself a heap of squid.
Then Minos told them, Weigh Pasiphaë
together with her girls. Adultery
has made me question their paternity.
Though Phaedra gasped and Ariadne pouted,
(just like the king), their mother never doubted
they would emerge unharmed from this crude prank.
They climbed upon the empty pan, which sank
to the mosaic tiles, then, lurch by lurch,
rose to the height of the octopuses’ perch:
they weighed a little less than thrice the bard.
Minos was silent (he always found it hard
to think two steps ahead), but the engineer
thought he could solve this problem and endear
himself to Minos once more: If you slice
the Argive’s arm off, then they’ll equal thrice
his new weight. Minos grinned and told the bard: