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And this was what Theseus resolved to do. He could scarcely wait to see whether King Aegeus would recognize him, so eager was he to throw himself into his arms. Advancing to the foot of the throne, he attempted to make a little speech, which he had been thinking about, as he came up the stairs.
Theseus displaying not only great strength of body, but equal bravery, and a quickness alike and force of understanding, his mother Aethra, conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father, commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left, and to sail to Athens.
She, enraged at his ingratitude, called on the gods for vengeance, sent a poisoned robe as a gift to the bride, and then killing her own children, and setting fire to the palace, mounted her serpent-drawn chariot and fled to Athens, where she married King AEgeus, the father of Theseus; and we shall meet her again when we come to the adventures of that hero.
On the eighth day of Cronius, now called Hecatombaeon, he arrived at Athens, where he found the public affairs full of all confusion, and divided into parties and factions. Aegeus also, and his whole private family, laboring under the same distemper; for Medea, having fled from Corinth, was living with him.
She could not help being sorrowful at finding him already so impatient to begin his adventures in the world. "You see how it is, my dear Theseus," said she. "You must possess far more strength than now before I can trust you to go to Athens, and tell King Aegeus that you are his son. But when you can lift this rock, and show me what is hidden beneath it, I promise you my permission to depart."
"My son! my son!" cried King Aegeus, flinging away the fatal goblet, and tottering down from the throne to fall into the arms of Theseus. "Yes, these are Aethra's eyes. It is my son." I have quite forgotten what became of the king's nephews.
But King Aegeus shook his venerable head, and to convince Theseus that it was quite a hopeless case, he gave him an explanation of the whole affair.
But Medeia called her dragon chariot, and sprang into it and fled aloft, away over land and sea, and no man saw her more. And AEgeus cried, 'What hast thou done? But Theseus pointed to the stone, 'I have rid the land of an enchantment: now I will rid it of one more. And he came close to AEgeus, and drew from his bosom the sword and the sandals, and said the words which his mother bade him.
Lower does she sink in the scene with Aegeus, where, meditating a terrible revenge on Jason, she first secures a place of refuge, and seems almost on the point of bespeaking a new connection.
She saw, too, how his heart was opened toward Theseus; and how Theseus bore himself before all the sons of Pallas, like a lion among a pack of curs. And she said to herself, "This youth will be master here; perhaps he is nearer to AEgeus already than mere fancy. At least the Pallantids will have no chance by the side of such as he."
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