Cretan Quartet—a blame game

I blame my mother, Zeus bless her.

She’d this need for a bull to caress her.

Left me stuck in a maze to the end of my days

Where it stinks.  I’d give gold for some fresh air.

I can see that I’m one of the wonders,

Can’t fault the regime that I’m under:

Meals: fourteen a year—all frozen (by fear)—

But the service gets slow when it blunders

Around in the passages—just losing weight

So it ends as a snack—not my feast on my plate.

Ah! this one looks chipper—it’s bigger and fitter

And should keep me going for—wait…!

I blame the King’s first commission

He just saw in me a magician

Who could cast a bronze bull to let his Queen pull,

And commit all her sins of emission.

The sequel was building the labyrinth

To conceal where that big baby hybrid is,

Whose sibling stood guard (to keep access barred)

In a stench that should make her a sick sis.

When a Hero formed part of the tribute

The girl fell for the muscular he-brute:

Provided a thread, left her brother stone dead,

And sailed with the oaf, resolute.

I blame my dad.  Such a loser

To marry Medea.  I accused her

Of suppressing the truth—so condemning our youth

To be fed to that Cretan abuser.

I’m a man at his best where there’s fighting

(Hand to hand with a bull/man’s exciting),

But I turned on the charm: made her help me to arm—

And reel in my return once I’d knifed him.

The problem’s the girl once it’s over;

There’s no way I’d promised to love her.

I beached her on Naxos, written off as a tax loss,

Raised black sails, and now I’m in clover.

I blame that bronzed hulk and his vanity

Claimed his dad was a sea god—insanity—

But he did have firm pecs, and it looked like good sex—

But I did seek a bit more humanity.

My mistake was suggesting the cotton—

Though to let him get lost seemed too rotten.

Now I wish that I had, the arrogant cad,

But time passed—and I hadn’t a lot on.

Concluding this long anamnesis

And to gather up all of the pieces:

He turned out a bore—I was dumped on the shore

And now I have wed Dionysus