turned and wound about, till Ariadne came to the door of her own
chamber. Here she held up her hand, and Theseus stopped, till she came
forth again, thrusting something into the bosom of her gown. Again she
led the way, down a broad staircase between great pillars, into a hall,
whence she turned, and passed down a narrower stair, and then through
many passages, till she came into the open air, and they crossed rough
ground to a cave in a hill. In the back of the cave was a door plated
with bronze which she opened with a key. Here she stopped and took out
of the bosom of her gown a coil of fine strong thread.
'Take this,' she said, 'and enter by that door, and first of all make
fast the end of the coil to a stone, and so walk through the labyrinth,
and, when you would come back, the coil shall be your guide. Take this
key also, to open the door, and lock it from within. If you return place
the key in a cleft in the wall within the outer door of the palace.'
She stopped and looked at Theseus with melancholy eyes, and he threw his
arms about her, and they kissed and embraced as lovers do who are
parting and know not if they may ever meet again.
At last she sighed and said, 'The dawn is near--farewell; the gods be
with you. I give you the watchword of the night, that you may pass the
sentinels if you come forth alive,' and she told him the word. Then she
opened the door and gave him the key, and the old nurse gave him the
lamp which she carried, and some food to take with him.
VII
THE SLAYING OF THE MINOTAUR
Theseus first fastened one end of his coil of string to a pointed rock,
and then began to look about him. The labyrinth was dark, and he slowly
walked, holding the string, down the broadest path, from which others
turned off to right or left. He counted his steps, and he had taken near
three thousand steps when he saw the pale sky showing in a small circle
cut in the rocky roof, above his head, and he saw the fading stars.
Sheer walls of rock went up on either hand of him, a roof of rock was
above him, but in the roof was this one open place, across which were
heavy bars. Soon the daylight would come.
Theseus set the lamp down on a rock behind a corner, and he waited,
thinking, at a place where a narrow dark path turned at right angles to
the left. Looking carefully round he saw a heap of bones, not human
bones, but skulls of oxen and sheep, hoofs of oxen, and shank bones.
'This,' he thought, 'must be the place where the food of the Minotaur is
let down to him from above. They have not Athenian youths and maidens to
give him every day! Beside his feeding place I will wait.' Saying this
to himself, he rose and went round the corner of the dark narrow path
cut in the rock to the left. He made his own breakfast, from the food
that Ariadne had given him, and it occurred to his mind that probably
the Minotaur might also be thinking of breakfast time.
He sat still, and from afar away within he heard a faint sound, like the
end of the echo of a roar, and he stood up, drew his long sword, and
listened keenly. The sound came nearer and louder, a strange sound, not
deep like the roar of a bull, but more shrill and thin. Theseus laughed
silently. A monster with the head and tongue of a bull, but with the
chest of a man, could roar no better than that! The sounds came nearer
and louder, but still with the thin sharp tone in them. Theseus now took
from his bosom the phial of gold that Medea had given him in Athens when
she told him about the Minotaur. He removed the stopper, and held his
thumb over the mouth of the phial, and grasped his long sword with his
left hand, after fastening the clue of thread to his belt.
The roars of the hungry Minotaur came nearer and nearer; now his feet
could be heard padding along the echoing floor of the labyrinth. Theseus
moved to the shadowy corner of the narrow path, where it opened into the
broad light passage, and he crouched there; his heart was beating
quickly. On came the Minotaur, up leaped Theseus, and dashed the
contents of the open phial in the eyes of the monster; a white dust flew
out, and Theseus leaped back into his hiding place. The Minotaur uttered
strange shrieks of pain; he rubbed his eyes with his monstrous hands; he
raised his head up towards the sky, bellowing and confused; he stood
tossing his head up and down; he turned round and round about, feeling
with his hands for the wall. He was quite blind. Theseus drew his short
sword, crept up, on naked feet, behind the monster, and cut through
the back sinews of his legs at the knees. Down fell the Minotaur, with a
crash and a roar, biting at the rocky floor with his lion's teeth, and
waving his hands, and clutching at the empty air. Theseus waited for his
chance, when the clutching hands rested, and then, thrice he drove the
long sharp blade of bronze through the heart of the Minotaur. The body
leaped, and lay still.
[Illustration: HOW THESEUS SLEW THE MINOTAUR.]
Theseus kneeled down, and thanked all the gods, and promised rich
sacrifices, and a new temple to Pallas Athene, the Guardian of Athens.
When he had finished his prayer, he drew the short sword, and hacked off
the head of the Minotaur. He sheathed both his swords, took the head in
his hand, and followed the string back out of the daylit place, to the
rock where he had left his lamp. With the lamp and the guidance of the
string he easily found his way to the door, which he unlocked. He
noticed that the thick bronze plates of the door were dinted and scarred
by the points of the horns of the Minotaur, trying to force his way out.
He went out into the fresh early morning; all the birds were singing
merrily, and merry was the heart of Theseus. He locked the door, and
crossed to the palace, which he entered, putting the key in the place
which Ariadne had shown him. She was there, with fear and joy in her
eyes. 'Touch me not,' said Theseus, 'for I am foul with the blood of the
Minotaur.' She brought him to the baths on the ground floor, and swiftly
fled up a secret stair. In the bathroom Theseus made himself clean, and
clad himself in fresh raiment which was lying ready for him. When he was
clean and clad he tied a rope of byblus round the horns of the head of
the Minotaur, and went round the back of the palace, trailing the head
behind him, till he came to a sentinel. 'I would see King Minos,' he
said, 'I have the password, _Androgeos_!'
The sentinel, pale and wondering, let him pass, and so he went through
the guards, and reached the great door of the palace, and there the
servants wrapped the bleeding head in cloth, that it might not stain the
floors. Theseus bade them lead him to King Minos, who was seated on his
throne, judging the four guardsmen, that had been found asleep.
When Theseus entered, followed by the serving men with their burden, the
king never stirred on his throne, but turned his grey eyes on Theseus.
'My lord,' said Theseus, 'that which was to be done is done.' The
servants laid their burden at the feet of King Minos, and removed the
top fold of the covering.
The king turned to the captain of his guard. 'A week in the cells for
each of these four men,' said he, and the four guards, who had expected
to die by a cruel death, were led away. 'Let that head and the body also
be burned to ashes and thrown into the sea, far from the shore,' said
Minos, and his servants silently covered the head of the Minotaur, and
bore it from the throne room.
Then, at last, Minos rose from his throne, and took the hand of Theseus,
and said, 'Sir, I thank you, and I give you back your company safe and
free; and I am no more in hatred with your people. Let there be peace
between me and them. But will you not abide with us awhile, and be our
guests?'
Theseus was glad enough, and he and his company tarried in the palace,
and were kindly treated. Minos showed Theseus all the splendour and
greatness of his kingdom and his ships, and great armouries, full of all
manner of weapons: the names and numbers of them are yet known, for
they are written on tablets of clay, that were found in the storehouse
of the king. Later, in the twilight, Theseus and Ariadne would walk
together in the fragrant gardens where the nightingales sang, and Minos
knew it, and was glad. He thought that nowhere in the world could he
find such a husband for his daughter, and he deemed it wise to have the
alliance of so great a king as Theseus promised to be. But, loving his
daughter, he kept Theseus with him long, till the prince was ashamed of
his delay, knowing that his father, King Aegeus, and all the people of
his country, were looking for him anxiously.
Therefore he told what was in his heart to Minos, who sighed, and said,
'I knew what is in your heart, and I cannot say you nay. I give to you
my daughter as gladly as a father may.' Then they spoke of things of
state, and made firm alliance between Cnossos and Athens while they both
lived; and the wedding was done with great splendour, and, at last,
Theseus and Ariadne and all their company went aboard, and sailed from
Crete. One misfortune they had: the captain of their ship died of a
sickness while they were in Crete, but Minos gave them the best of his
captains. Yet by reason of storms and tempests they had a long and
terrible voyage, driven out of their course into strange seas. When at
length they found their bearings, a grievous sickness fell on beautiful
Ariadne. Day by day she was weaker, till Theseus, with a breaking heart,
stayed the ship at an isle but two days' sail from Athens. There Ariadne
was carried ashore, and laid in a bed in the house of the king of that
island, and the physicians and the wise women did for her what they
could. But she died with her hands in the hands of Theseus, and his lips
on her lips. In that isle she was buried, and Theseus went on board his
ship, and drew his cloak over his head, and so lay for two days, never
moving nor speaking, and tasting neither meat nor drink. No man dared to
speak to him, but when the vessel stopped in the harbour of Athens, he
arose, and stared about him.
The shore was dark with people all dressed in mourning raiment, and the
herald of the city came with the news that Aegeus the King was dead. For
the Cretan captain did not know that he was to hoist the scarlet sail if
Theseus came home in triumph, and Aegeus, as he watched the waters, had
descried the dark sail from afar off, and, in his grief, had thrown
himself down from the cliff, and was drowned. This was the end of the
voyaging of Theseus.
* * * * *
Theseus wished to die, and be with Ariadne, in the land of Queen
Persephone. But he was a strong man, and he lived to be the greatest of
the Kings of Athens, for all the other towns came in, and were his
subjects, and he ruled them well. His first care was to build a great
fleet in secret harbours far from towns and the ways of men, for, though
he and Minos were friends while they both lived, when Minos died the new
Cretan king might oppress Athens.
Minos died, at last, and his son picked a quarrel with Theseus, who
refused to give up a man that had fled to Athens because the new king
desired to slay him, and news came to Theseus that a great navy was
being made ready in Crete to attack him. Then he sent heralds to the
king of a fierce people, called the Dorians, who were moving through the
countries to the north-west of Greece, seizing lands, settling on them,
and marching forward again in a few years. They were wild, strong, and
brave, and they are said to have had swords of iron, which were better
than the bronze weapons of the Greeks. The heralds of Theseus said to
them, 'Come to our king, and he will take you across the sea, and show
you plunder enough. But you shall swear not to harm his kingdom.'
This pleased the Dorians well, and the ships of Theseus brought them
round to Athens, where Theseus joined them with many of his own men, and
they did the oath. They sailed swiftly to Crete, where, as they arrived
in the dark, the Cretan captains thought that they were part of their
own navy, coming in to join them in the attack on Athens; for that
Theseus had a navy the Cretans knew not; he had built it so secretly. In
the night he marched his men to Cnossos, and took the garrison by
surprise, and burned the palace, and plundered it. Even now we can see
that the palace has been partly burned, and hurriedly robbed by some
sudden enemy.
The Dorians stayed in Crete, and were there in the time of Ulysses,
holding part of the island, while the true Cretans held the greater part
of it. But Theseus returned to Athens, and married Hippolyte, Queen of
the Amazons. The story of their wedding festival is told in
Shakespeare's play, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' And Theseus had many
new adventures, and many troubles, but he left Athens rich and strong,
and in no more danger from the kings of Crete. Though the Dorians, after
the time of Ulysses, swept all over the rest of Greece, and seized
Mycenae and Lacedaemon, the towns of Agamemnon and Menelaus, they were
true to their oath to Theseus, and left Athens to the Athenians.
PERSEUS
I
THE PRISON OF DANAE
Many years before the Siege of Troy there lived in Greece two princes
who were brothers and deadly enemies. Each of them wished to be king
both of Argos (where Diomede ruled in the time of the Trojan war), and
of Tiryns. After long wars one of the brothers, Proetus, took Tiryns,
and built the great walls of huge stones, and the palace; while the
other brother, Acrisius, took Argos, and he married Eurydice, a princess
of the Royal House of Lacedaemon, where Menelaus and Helen were King and
Queen in later times.
Acrisius had one daughter, Danae, who became the most beautiful woman in
Greece, but he had no son. This made him very unhappy, for he thought
that, when he grew old, the sons of his brother Proetus would attack
him, and take his lands and city, if he had no son to lead his army. His
best plan would have been to find some brave young prince, like Theseus,
and give Danae to him for his wife, and their sons would be leaders of
the men of Argos. But Acrisius preferred to go to the prophetic maiden
of the temple of Apollo at Delphi (or Pytho, as it was then called), and
ask what chance he had of being the father of a son.
The maiden seldom had good news to give any man; but at least this time
it was easy to understand what she said. She went down into the deep
cavern below the temple floor, where it was said that a strange mist or
steam flowed up out of the earth, and made her fall into a strange
sleep, in which she could walk and speak, but knew not what she was
singing, for she sang her prophecies. At last she came back, very pale,
with her laurel wreath twisted awry, and her eyes open, but seeing
nothing. She sang that Acrisius would never have a son; but that his
daughter would bear a son, who would kill him.
Acrisius mounted his chariot, sad and sorry, and was driven homewards.
On the way he never spoke a word, but was thinking how he might escape
from the prophecy, and baffle the will of Zeus, the chief of the gods.
He did not know that Zeus himself had looked down upon Danae and fallen
in love with her, nor did Danae know.
The only sure way to avoid the prophecy was to kill Danae, and Acrisius
thought of doing this; but he loved her too much; and he was afraid that
his people would rise against him, if he slew his daughter, the pride of
their hearts. Still another fear was upon Acrisius, which will be
explained later in the story. He could think of nothing better than to
build a house all of bronze, in the court of his palace, a house sunk
deep in the earth, but with part of the roof open to the sky, as was the
way in all houses then; the light came in from above, and the smoke of
the fire went out in the same way. This chamber Acrisius built, and in
it he shut up poor Danae with the woman that had been her nurse. They
saw nothing, hills or plains or sea, men or trees, they only saw the sun
at midday, and the sky, and the free birds flitting across it. There
Danae lay, and was weary and sad, and she could not guess why her
father thus imprisoned her. He used to visit her often and seemed kind
and sorry for her, but he would never listen when she implored him to
sell her for a slave into a far country, so that, at least, she might
see the world in which she lived.
Now on a day a mysterious thing happened; the old poet Pindar, who lived
long after, in the time of the war between the Greeks and the King of
Persia, says that a living stream of gold flowed down from the sky and
filled the chamber of Danae. Some time after this Danae bore a baby, a
son, the strongest and most beautiful of children. She and her nurse
kept it secret, and the child was brought up in an inner chamber of the
house of bronze. It was difficult to prevent so lively a child from
making a noise in his play, and one day, when Acrisius was with Danae,
the boy, now three or four years old, escaped from his nurse, and ran
from her room, laughing and shouting. Acrisius rushed out, and saw the
nurse catch the child, and throw her mantle over him. Acrisius seized
the boy, who stood firm on his little legs, with his head high, frowning
at his grandfather, and gazing in anger out of his large blue eyes.
Acrisius saw that this child would be dangerous when he became a man,
and in great anger he bade his guards take the nurse out, and strangle
her with a rope, while Danae knelt weeping at his feet.
When they were alone he said to Danae: 'Who is the father of this
child?' but she, with her boy on her arm, slipped past Acrisius, and out
of the open door, and up the staircase, into the open air. She ran to
the altar of Zeus, which was built in the court, and threw her arms
round it, thinking that there no man dared to touch her. 'I cry to Zeus
that is throned in the highest, the Lord of Thunder,' she said: 'for he
and no other is the father of my boy, even Perseus.' The sky was bright
and blue without a cloud, and Danae cried in vain. There came no flash
of lightning nor roll of thunder.
'Is it even so?' said Acrisius, 'then let Zeus guard his own.' He bade
his men drag Danae from the altar; and lock her again in the house of
bronze; while he had a great strong chest made. In that chest he had the
cruelty to place Danae and her boy, and he sent them out to sea in a
ship, the sailors having orders to let the chest down into the waters
when they were far from shore. They dared not disobey, but they put food
and a skin of wine, and two skins of water in the chest, and lowered it
into the sea, which was perfectly calm and still. It was their hope that
some ship would come sailing by, perhaps a ship of Phoenician
merchant-men, who would certainly save Danae and the child, if only that
they might sell them for slaves.
King Acrisius himself was not ignorant that this might happen, and that
his grandson might live to be the cause of his death. But the Greeks
believed that if any man killed one of his own kinsfolk, he would be
pursued and driven mad by the Furies called the Erinyes, terrible winged
women with cruel claws. These winged women drove Orestes, the son of
Agamemnon, fleeing like a madman through the world, because he slew his
own mother, Clytaemnestra, to avenge his father, whom she and Aegisthus
had slain. Nothing was so much dreaded as these Furies, and therefore
Acrisius did not dare to slay his daughter and his grandson, Perseus,
but only put them in the way of being drowned. He heard no more of them,
and hoped that both of their bodies were rolling in the waves, or that
their bones lay bleaching on some unknown shore. But he could not be
certain--indeed, he soon knew better--and as long as he lived, he lived
in fear that Perseus had escaped, and would come and slay him, as the
prophetess had said in her song.
The chest floated on the still waters, and the sea birds swooped down to
look at it, and passed by, with one waft of their wings. The sun set,
and Danae watched the stars, the Bear and Orion with his belt, and
wrapped her boy up warm, and he slept sound, for he never knew fear, in
his mother's arms. The Dawn came in her golden throne, and Danae saw
around her the blue sharp crests of the mountains of the islands that
lay scattered like water lilies on the seas of Greece. If only the
current would drift her to an island, she thought, and prayed in her
heart to the Gods of Good Help, Pallas Athene, and Hermes of the Golden
Wand. Soon she began to hope that the chest was drawing near an island.
She turned her head in the opposite direction for a long while, and then
looked forward again. She was much nearer the island, and could see the
smoke going up from cottages among the trees. But she drifted on and
drifted past the end of the isle, and on with the current, and so all
day.
A weary day she had, for the boy was full of play, and was like to
capsize the chest. She gave him some wine and water, and presently he
fell asleep, and Danae watched the sea and the distant isles till night
came again. It was dark, with no moon, and the darker because the chest
floated into the shadow of a mountain, and the current drew it near the
shore. But Danae dared not hope again; men would not be abroad, she
thought, in the night. As she lay thus helpless, she saw a light moving
on the sea, and she cried as loud as she could cry. Then the light
stopped, and a man's shout came to her over the water, and the light
moved swiftly towards her. It came from a brazier set on a pole in a
boat, and now Danae could see the bright sparks that shone in the drops
from the oars, for the boat was being rowed towards her, as fast as two
strong men could pull.
Being weak from the heat of the sun that had beaten on her for two days,
and tired out with hopes and fears, Danae fainted, and knew nothing till
she felt cold water on her face. Then she opened her eyes, and saw kind
eyes looking at her own, and the brown face of a bearded man, in the
light of the blaze that fishermen carry in their boats at night, for the
fish come to wonder at it, and the fishermen spear them. There were many
dead fish in the boat, into which Danae and the child had been lifted,
and a man with a fish spear in his hand was stooping over her.
Then Danae knew that she and her boy were saved, and she lay, unable to
speak, till the oarsmen had pulled their boat to a little pier of stone.
There the man with the fish spear lifted her up lightly and softly set
her on her feet on land, and a boatman handed to him the boy, who was
awake, and was crying for food.
'You are safe, lady!' said the man with the spear, 'and I have taken
fairer fish than ever swam the sea. I am called Dictys; my brother,
Polydectes, is king of this island, and my wife is waiting for me at
home, where she will make you welcome, and the boy thrice welcome, for
the gods have taken our only son.'
He asked no questions of Danae; it was reckoned ill manners to put
questions to strangers and guests, but he lighted two torches at the
fire in the boat, and bade his two men walk in front, to show the way,
while he supported Danae, and carried the child on his shoulder. They
had not far to go, for Dictys, who loved fishing of all things, had his
house near the shore. Soon they saw the light shining up from the
opening in the roof of the hall; and the wife of Dictys came running
out, crying: 'Good sport?' when she heard their voices and footsteps.
'Rare sport,' shouted Dictys cheerily, and he led in Danae, and gave the
child into the arms of his wife. Then they were taken to the warm baths,
and dressed in fresh raiment. Food was set before them, and presently
Danae and Perseus slept on soft beds, with coverlets of scarlet wool.
Dictys and his wife never asked Danae any questions about how and why
she came floating on the sea through the night. News was carried quickly
enough from the mainland to the islands by fishers in their boats and
merchant men, and pedlars. Dictys heard how the king of Argos had
launched his daughter and her son on the sea, hoping that both would be
drowned. All the people knew in the island, which was called Seriphos,
and they hated the cruelty of Acrisius, and many believed that Perseus
was the son of Zeus.
If the news from Argos reached Seriphos, we may guess that the news from
Seriphos reached Argos, and that Acrisius heard how a woman as beautiful
as a goddess, with a boy of the race of the gods, had drifted to the
shore of the little isle. Acrisius knew, and fear grew about his heart,
fear that was sharper as the years went on, while Perseus was coming to
his manhood. Acrisius often thought of ways by which he might have his
grandson slain; but none of them seemed safe. By the time when Perseus
was fifteen, Acrisius dared not go out of doors, except among the
spears of his armed guards, and he was so eaten up by fear that it would
have been happier for him if he had never been born.
II
THE VOW OF PERSEUS