SCYLLA AND NISUS After Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book VIII Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC–AD 17) Megara is under siege. Minos of Crete has brought his fleet against the city. The walls should have fallen. They have not, because of one thing. King Nisus has, among his white hair, a single lock the color of Tyrian purple. An oracle has said that his life and the city’s safety last only as long as that lock stays on his head. While it remains, Megara cannot be taken. His daughter Scylla watches the war from the high walls. She sees Minos in the field — the enemy of her house — and she wants him. She tells herself that another woman in love would move whatever stood in the way. There is no need of fire or sword. There is only the purple lock. More precious than gold, it will give her what she wishes. Night comes. The palace sleeps. She goes into her father’s chamber and cuts the lock from his unguarded head. She carries it through the enemy camp and holds it out to Minos. “I am Scylla, daughter of King Nisus. I deliver to you my country and my house. I ask no reward except you. Take this purple lock as the pledge of my love. Know that I am not giving you a lock of hair. I am giving you my father’s life.” Minos will not touch it. He steps back. He calls the act a disgrace of the age and says land and sea should be denied her. Crete, where Jupiter was cradled, will not receive a child who bought a victory that way. He imposes terms on the conquered city and orders the ships loosed. Scylla is not believed by the man she paid. She cries from the shore that she put him before fatherland and father; that the victory is her sin and also, she says, her merit. He sails anyway. She throws herself after the ships and clings to the stern. The gods change her into a bird called the ciris — named from the cutting. The purple of the stolen lock remains at her throat. Nisus is changed into a sea-eagle. Whenever that eagle sees the ciris, he stoops to tear her. The pursuit does not end. Scylla did not steal gold. She cut the one purple lock that was her father’s life and walked it to the man outside the wall. She called it love. Even he would not touch it.