removed it with ease, and took the sword and shoes. Since, at that time, the roads were infested with robbers, his grandfather Pittheus 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, determined on the more perilous and adventurous journey by land.

His first day's journey brought him to Epidaurus, where dwelt 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; but beneath the blows of the young hero he speedily fell.

Several similar contests with the petty tyrants and marauders of the country followed, in all of which Theseus was victorious. Most important was his slaughter of Procrustes, or the Stretcher. This giant 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 them till they fitted it; if they were longer than the bed, he lopped off their limbs.

In the course of time, Theseus reached Athens; but here new dangers awaited him. For Medea, the sorceress, who had fled from Corinth after her separation from Jason,' had become the wife of Ægeus. Knowing by her arts who the stranger was, and fearing the loss of her influence with her husband, if Theseus should be acknowledged as his son, she tried to poison the youth; but the sword which he wore discovered him to his father, and prevented the fatal draught. Medea fled to Asia, where the country afterwards called Media is said to have received its name from her. Theseus was acknowledged by his sire, and declared successor to the throne.

$153. Theseus and Ariadne.2- Now the Athenians were at that time in deep affliction, on account of the tribute of youths and maidens which they were forced to send to the Minotaur, dwelling in the labyrinth of Crete, a penalty said to have been imposed

1 § 147.

2 Od. 11:321; Plutarch's Theseus; Catullus, LXIV.

by Minos upon the Athenians because Ægeus had sent Androgeüs,

the son of Minos, against

the Marathonian bull, and so had brought about the young man's death.

From this calamity Theseus resolved to deliver his countrymen, or to die in the attempt. He, therefore, in spite of the entreaties of his father, presented himself as champion of Athens and of her fair sons and daughters, to do battle against the Minotaur; and departed with the

victims in a vessel bear

ing black sails, which he promised his father to change for white

in the event of his returning victorious. So,

Rather than cargo on cargo of corpses undead should be wafted 1

Over the ravening sea to the pitiless monster of Creta,
Leaving the curvèd strand Piræan, and wooing the breezes,
Theseus furrowed the deep to the dome superb of the tyrant.
Then as the maid Ariadne beheld him with glances of longing, --
Princess royal of Creta Minoan, tender, sequestered, -
Locked in a mother's embrace, in seclusion virginal, fragrant,
Like some myrtle set by streaming ways of Eurotas,
Like to the varied tints that Spring invites with her breezes, -
Then, as with eager gaze she looked her first upon Theseus,
Never a whit she lowered her eyes nor ceased to consume him,
Ere to the core profound her breast with love was enkindled.
- God-born boy, thou pitiless heart, provoker of madness,
Mischievous, mingling care with the fleeting pleasure of mortals, —
Goddess of Golgi, thou, frequenter of coverts Idalian,

1 Catullus, LXIV. From the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis. A Translation in Hexameters, by Charles Mills Gayley.

In what wildering seas ye tossed the impassionate maiden

Ever a-sighing, — aye for the fair-haired stranger a-sighing!

Ah, what ponderous fears oppressed her languishing bosom,
How, more pallid than gold her countenance flashed into whiteness,
What time Theseus marched unto death or to glory undying,
Manful, minded to quell the imbruted might of the monster!

Not unaided, however, did he undertake the task; for Ariadne, apprehensive lest he might lose his way in the dædalian labyrinth, furnished him with a thread, the gift of Vulcan, which, unrolled by Theseus as he entered the maze, should enable him on his return to retrace his former path. Meanwhile,

Offering artless bribes, Ariadne invoked the Immortals,
Kindled voiceless lip with unvoiced tribute of incense,
Suppliant, not in vain: for, like to an oak upon Taurus,
Gnarled, swinging his arms, like some cone-burthenèd pine-tree
Oozing the life from his bark, that, riven to heart by the whirlwind,
Wholly uprooted from earth, falls prone with extravagant ruin,
Perishes, dealing doom with precipitate rush of its branches, —
So was the Cretan brute by Theseus done to destruction,
E'en so, tossing in vain his horns to the vacuous breezes,

Then with abundant laud he turned, unscathed from the combat,
Theseus, guiding his feet unsure by the filament slender,
Lest as he threaded paths circuitous, ways labyrinthine,
Some perverse, perplexing, erratic alley might foil him.

-

Why should I tarry to tell how, quitting her sire, Ariadne
Quitting the sister's arms, the infatuate gaze of the mother, —
She whose sole delight, whose life, was her desperate daughter,
How Ariadne made less of the love of them all than of Theseus?
Why should I sing how sailing they came to the beaches of Dia, -
White with the foam, - how thence, false-hearted, the lover departing
Left her benighted with sleep, the Minoïd, princess of Creta?
Gazing amain from the marge of the flood-reverberant Dia,
Chafing with ire, indignant, exasperate, — lo, Ariadne,
Lorn Ariadne, beholds swift craft, swift lover retreating.
Nor can be sure she sees what things she sees of a surety,
When upspringing from sleep, she shakes off treacherous slumber,
Lone beholds herself on a shore forlorn of the ocean.

Carelessly hastens the youth, meantime, who, driving his oar-blades

Hard in the waves, consigns void vows to the blustering breezes.
But as, afar from the sedge, with sad eyes still the Minoïd
Mute as a Mænad in stone unmoving stonily gazes-
Heart o'erwhelmed with woe-ah, thus, while

Slips, and the twisted scarf encircling her womanly bosom;
Stealthily gliding, slip they downward into the billow,

Fall, and are tossed by the buoyant flood to the feet of the fair one.
Nothing she recks of the coif, of the floating garment as little,
Cares not a moment then, whose care hangs only on Theseus,
Wretched of heart, soul-wrecked, dependent only on Theseus, -
Desperate, woe-unselfed with a cureless sorrow incessant,
Frantic, bosoming torture of thorns Erycina had planted.

Then, they say, that at last, infuriate out of all measure, Once and again she poured shrill-voiced shrieks from her bosom; Helpless, clambered steeps, sheer beetling over the surges, Whence to enrange with her eyes vast futile regions of ocean; Lifting the folds, soft folds of her garments, baring her ankles, Dashed into edges of upward waves that trembled before her; Uttered, anguished then, one wail, her maddest and saddest, Catching with tear-wet lips poor sobs that shivering choked her :"Thus is it far from my home, O traitor, and far from its altars Thus on a desert strand, - dost leave me, treacherous Theseus? Thus is it thou dost flout our vow, dost flout the Immortals,

Carelessly homeward bearest, with baleful ballast of curses?
Never, could never a plea forefend thy cruelly minded
Counsel? Never a pity entreat thy bosom for shelter? ...
Hence, let never a maid confide in the oath of a lover,
Never presume man's vows hold aught trustworthy within them!
Verily, while in anguish of heart his spirit is longing,

Nothing he spares to assever, nor aught makes scruple to promise:
But, an his dearest desire, his nearest of heart be accorded-
Nothing he recks of affiance, and reckons perjury,—nothing.

"Oh! what lioness whelped thee? Oh! what desolate cavern? What was the sea that spawned, that spat from its churning abysses, Thee, what wolfish Scylla, or Syrtis, or vasty Charybdis,

Thee, thus thankful for life, dear gift of living, I gave thee?

Had it not liked thee still to acknowledge vows that we plighted,
Mightest thou homeward, yet, have borne me a damsel beholden,
Fain to obey thy will, and to lave thy feet like a servant,
Fain to bedeck thy couch with purple coverlet for thee.

"But to the hollow winds why stand repeating my quarrel, —
I, for sorrow unselfed, — they, but breezes insensate, –
Potent neither voices to hear nor words to re-echo?
Yea, but where shall I turn? Forlorn, what succor rely on?
'Haste to the Gnossian hills?' Ah, see how distantly surging
Deeps forbid, distending their gulfs abhorrent before me!
'Comfort my heart, mayhap, with the loyal love of my husband?'
Lo, the reluctant oar, e'en now, he plies to forsake me!
Nought but the homeless strand of an isle remote of the ocean!
No, no way of escape, where the circling sea without shore is,
No, no counsel of flight, no hope, no sound of a mortal;
All things desolate, dumb, yea, all things summoning deathward!
Yet mine eyes shall not fade in death that sealeth the eyelids,
Nor from the frame outworn shall fare my lingering senses,
Ere, undone, from powers divine I claim retribution —

Ere I call-in the hour supreme, on the faith of Immortals!

"Come, then, Righters of Wrong, O vengeful dealers of justice,
Braided with coil of the serpents, O Eumenides, ye of
Brows that blazon ire exhaling aye from the bosom,
Haste, oh, haste ye, hither and hear me, vehement plaining,
Destitute, fired with rage, stark-blind, demented for fury!-
As with careless heart yon Theseus sailed and forgot me,
So with folly of heart, may he slay himself and his household!”