Chapter 13

Chapter XIII
Theseus. Daedalus. Castor and Pollux Theseus was the son of AEgeus, king of Athens, and of Aethra,
daughter of the king of Troezene. He was brought up at Troezene,
and, when arrived at manhood, was to proceed to Athens and
present himself to his father. AEgeus, on parting from Aethra,
before the birth of his son, placed his sword and shoes under a
large stone, and directed her to send his son to him when he
became strong enough to roll away the stone and take them from
under it. When she thought the time had come, his mother led
Theseus to the stone, and he removed it with ease, and took the
sword and shoes. As the roads were infested with robbers, his
grandfather pressed him earnestly to take the shorter and safer
way to his father's country, by sea; but the youth, feeling in
himself the spirit and the soul of a hero, and eager to signalize
himself like Hercules, with whose fame all Greece then rang, by
destroying the evil-doers and monsters that oppressed the
country, determined on the more perilous and adventurous journey
by land. His first day's journey brought him to Epidaurus, where dwelt a
man named Periphetes, a son of Vulcan. This ferocious savage
always went armed with a club of iron, and all travellers stood
in terror of his violence. When he saw Theseus approach, he
assailed him, but speedily fell beneath the blows of the young
hero, who took possession of his club, and bore it ever
afterwards as a memorial of his first victory. Several similar contests with the petty tyrants and marauders of
the country followed, in all of which Theseus was victorious.
One of these evil-doers was called Procrustes, or the Stretcher.
He had an iron bedstead, on which he used to tie all travellers
who fell into his hands. If they were shorter than the bed, he
stretched their limbs to make them fit it; if they were longer
than the bed, he lopped off a portion. Theseus served him as he
had served others. Having overcome all the perils of the road, Theseus at length
reached Athens, where new dangers awaited him. Medea, the
sorceress, who had fled from Corinth after her separation from
Jason, had become the wife of AEgeus, the father of Theseus.
Knowing by her arts who he was, and fearing the loss of her
influence with her husband, if Theseus should be acknowledged as
his son, she filled the mind of AEgeus with suspicions of the
young stranger, and induced him to present him a cup of poison;
but at the moment when Theseus stepped forward to take it, the
sight of the sword which he wore discovered to his father who he
was, and prevented the fatal draught. Medea, detected in her
arts, fled once more from deserved punishment, and arrived in
Asia, where the country afterwards called Media