BOOK II. in woman's garb; but Theseus is mightier than they, and mthout saying a word, he unspans the oxen of the builders' wagon, and hurls the vehicle as high above the temple pillars as these rose above the ground.^ In the house of his fathers he was still surrounded by enemies. Aigeus was now wedded to the wise woman Medeia, who in her instinctive jealousy of the beautiful youth makes Aigeus an accomplice in her scheme for poisoning him. The deadly draught is placed on the banquet-table, but Aigeus recognises the sword which Theseus bears, and, embracing him as his, bids Medeia depart with her children to her own land. He encounters foes more formidable in the fifty gigantic sons of Pallas, who have thrust themselves into the place of Aigeus, as the suitors in Ithaka usurp the authority of Odysseus ; but by the aid of the herald Leos, who betrays them, Theseus is again the conqueror.^ He is, however, scarcely more than at the beginning of his toils. The fields of Marathon are being ravaged by a bull,* in whom we see a being akin to the terrible Cretan Minotauros, the malignant power of darkness hidden away in its labyrinth of stars. In his struggle with this monster he is aided by the prayers and offerings of the benign and aged Hekale, whose eyes are not permitted to look again on the youth whom she has so tenderly loved — a myth which brings before us the gentle Telephassa sinking down in utter weariness, before her heart can be gladdened once more by the sight of her child Europe.*
Theseus and the Minotauros. He has now before him a still harder task. The bull which now fills Athenian hearts with grief and fear has his abode not at Marathon, but at Knossos. In the war waged by Minos in revenge for the death of his son Androgeos, Avho had been slain on Attic soil, the Cretan king was the conqueror.^ With the war had come famine and pestilence ; and thus the men of Athens were driven to accept terms which bound them for nine years to send yearly a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, as victims to feed the
» Paus. i. 19, I ; Preller, Gr. Myth. ii. 291.
- These fifty sons of Pallas must
be compared with the fifty sons and daughters of ^gyptos, Danaos, Aster- odia, and Selene. But these are clearly images of the starry heavens ; and thus the myth of the Pallantides is simjily a story of the night vicing with, or usurp- ing the prerogatives of, the day. ' In the story of Krishna this bull is animated by the demon Arishta. — Vishnu Fiirana, H. Ii. Wilson, 536.
- The name Hekale is the same as
Hekate and Hekatos, and thus, like Telephassa, has simply the meaning of rays shot from a distant orb.
- The myth of Androgeos has many
versions. The most important exhibits him as a youth of great beauty and promise, unable to achieve the tasks which may be done only by the greatest heroes. On this account, he is torn by the Marathonian bull whom Aigeus has charged him to slay : in other words, he is Patroklos striving to slay an enemy who can be conquered only by Achillcus ; and the war which Minos wages answers to the bloody vengeance of Achilleus for the death of his comrade.
