Aegeus asks his father why he rejected him when he was a girl. He says that his sex rendered him incapable of what he would have been if he were a man. He tells his father that he has always loved him, but that he is not responsible for Aethra's death. Theseus, he says, should listen to him, because he had been harboring a "vain hope" within himself. He swears that it was not him, it was anthea, and the wife of his mother who had his mother exiled. He accuses his father of taking "umbrage" at his visits to the island. Now that he knows the truth about the man whom they call "the minotaur," he says that none of this would have taken place. He vows to get his father off the island, and he tells him that he helped him to end the suffering of his brother, Agamemnon, and not to get him to go after his father. He adds that he will lavish his father with gold and silver, if he will let him go. He also tells his brother that he listened to his story, just like him, and that he likes stories. He reminds his father too much of his father