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It may be noticed that Theseus and Hippolyta and their marriage festivities are personages and events which make up a decorative external sort of frame for the whole play, but that the centre of the action takes its start, primarily, from the conflict of Hermia's love for Lysander with her father's choice of Demetrius, and, secondarily, from the clash of Helena's love for Demetrius with his suit for Hermia.
And Aithra smiled and said, "Take, then, the sword and the sandals and go to thy father Ægeus, King of Athens, and say to him, 'The stone is lifted! Then show him the sword and the sandals, and take what the gods shall send." But Theseus wept, "Shall I leave you, O my mother?" She answered, "Weep not for me."
And Theseus followed him at full speed, holding the clue of thread in his left hand. Then on, through cavern after cavern, under dark ribs of sounding stone, and up rough glens and torrent-beds, among the sunless roots of Ida, and to the edge of the eternal snow, went they, the hunter and the hunted, while the hills bellowed to the monster's bellow.
This is the land of Shadows, of Sleep, and slumberous Night; no living body may the Stygian hull convey. Nor truly had I joy of taking Alcides on the lake for passenger, nor Theseus and Pirithoüs, born of gods though they were and unconquered in might.
"Madame, who respects and is interested in you, is desirous, I feel certain, for me to persuade you to stay here until her departure; she enjoys royal favour, and it is my sister herself who shall present you at Court. You shall show her, you shall show us all, the golden crown of Theseus, the sceptre of Adronicus, and this brow which I gaze upon and revere, for it deserves a kingly diamond.
Theseus is every inch a king, as well as Edward III. But the laws which they have to enforce on their own and their companions' humanity are opposed to each other as much as their dispositions are. The function of a Greek king was to enforce labour. That of a Gothic king, to restrain rage.
So saying, the king looked cruel enough to devour Theseus and all the rest of the captives himself, had there been no Minotaur to save him the trouble. As he would hear not another word in their favor, the prisoners were now led away, and clapped into a dungeon, where the jailer advised them to go to sleep as soon as possible, because the Minotaur was in the habit of calling for breakfast early.
Come hither and let me feast upon you. It is of no use to run away, for these glens in the mountain make so cunning a web, that through it no man can find his way home." Still Theseus came steadily on, and he asked, "And what is your name, bold spider, and where are your spider's fangs?" The strange man laughed again.
Theseus had been driven away and banished from Athens; but the citizens sheltered the sons of the hero, and, when Eurystheus pursued them, a battle was fought on the isthmus of Corinth, in which the old enemy of Hercules was killed by Iolaus, with all his sons. If he gained, he was to be restored to the kingdom of Perseus; if not, there was to be a truce for a hundred years.
One of these, Pittheus, the grandfather of Theseus, founded Troezen, which is indeed but a little state, though he had a greater reputation than any man of his time for eloquence and wisdom.
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