Let me tell you the story of a righteous man.

The righteous man of the story is King Minos of Crete, who set out to wage a great war on Athens. His war was one of retribution upon them for the death of his son, Androgeos. This mighty athlete had reigned victorious in the city’s Panathenaic Games, only to be torn to pieces by a rampaging bull on a lonely Athenian hillside. Minos held Athens responsible for the loss of his triumphing son and thirsted for blood-soaked punishment for their failure to protect the boy from the savage beast.

On his way to inflict his wrath upon the Athenians, Minos stopped to destroy the kingdom of Megara in a show of strength. The king of Megara, Nisus, was widely famed for his invincibility, but his legend was no match for the mighty Minos, who cut away the crimson lock of hair upon which Nisus’ power depended. Divested of that bloodred curl, the hapless man was slain by the conquering Minos.

How had he known to shear away Nisus’ hair? Minos would cheerfully recount to me how the king’s daughter, the beautiful princess Scylla, had fallen wildly and helplessly in love with him. As she murmured her sweet promises into his receptive ear, telling of how she would gladly give up her home and family in exchange for his love, she let slip the key to her father’s ruin.

Of course, Minos was rightly disgusted by her lack of proper daughterly devotion, and, once the kingdom had fallen with the bloody descent of his ax, he tied the lovestruck girl to the back of his boat and piously dragged her to her watery grave as she screamed and bewailed her tender trust in love.

She had betrayed her father and her kingdom, he told me, still glowing with the flush of victory on his return from the defeat of Athens. And what possible use could my father, King Minos of Crete, ever have for a treacherous daughter?