assisting him in the enterprise, he was successful and killed the Minotaur.
On his return from his victory there, he was driven by contrary winds on the Isle of Naxos, where he had the meanness to desert Ariadne, whose conduct had been the means of his glorious triumph, and to whom he was even indebted for his life.
When he came in sight of Athens, he forgot, in the height of his success, to hoist the white sail he had promised his father, who, seeing a black sail upon his son's ship, despairingly threw himself into the sea.
"On a high rock that beetles o'er the flood,
With daily care the pensive father stood;
And when he saw impatient from afar?
The fatal signal floating in the air,
Thinking his Theseus was untimely slain,
He rashly plunged himself beneath the main!"
His ascension to his father's throne was received with much pleasure, the country was governed with mildness, new reputation acquired and new laws enacted.