 Venus and Cupid are then discovered, in conversation, on a desolate seashore.Venus informs Cupid that Duke Theseus of Athens, together with Ariadne, will soon be arriving on the island of Naxos on their way to Athens.They are fleeing from Crete, where the pair have been complicit in the slaying of Ariadne's monster half-brother, the Minotaur, in the labyrinth below the palace of her father, King Minos.