id not find him by her side. She
arose, and ran through the house, calling his name, but there came no
answer, and from that time Aegeus was never seen again in Troezene, and
people marvelled, thinking that he, who came whence no man knew, and was
so brave and beautiful, must be one of the immortal gods. 'Who but a
god,' they said, 'would leave for no cause a bride, the flower of Greece
for beauty, young, and loving; and a kingdom to which he was not born?
Truly he must be Apollo of the silver bow, or Hermes of the golden
wand.'

So they spoke among each other, and honoured Aethra greatly, but she
pined and drooped with sorrow, like a tall lily flower, that the frost
has touched in a rich man's garden.

II

THE BOYHOOD OF THESEUS

Time went by, and Aethra had a baby, a son. This was her only comfort,
and she thought that she saw in him a likeness to his father, whose true
name she did not know. Certainly he was a very beautiful baby, well
formed and strong, and, as soon as he could walk he was apt to quarrel
with other children of his own age, and fight with them in a harmless
way. He never was an amiable child, though he was always gentle to his
mother. From the first he was afraid of nothing, and when he was about
four or five he used to frighten his mother by wandering from home, with
his little bow and arrows, and staying by himself in the woods. However,
he always found his own way back again, sometimes with a bird or a snake
that he had shot, and once dragging the body of a fawn that was nearly
as heavy as himself. Thus his mother, from his early boyhood, had many
fears for him, that he might be killed by some fierce wild boar in the
woods, for he would certainly shoot at whatever beast he met; or that he
might kill some other boy in a quarrel, when he would be obliged to
leave the country. The other boys, however, soon learned not to quarrel
with Theseus (so Aethra had named her son), for he was quick of temper,
and heavy of hand, and, as for the wild beasts, he was cool as well as
eager, and seemed to have an untaught knowledge of how to deal with
them.

Aethra was therefore very proud of her son, and began to hope that when
he was older he would be able to roll away the great stone in the glen.
She told him nothing about it when he was little, but, in her walks with
him in the woods or on the sea shore, she would ask him to try his
force in lifting large stones. When he succeeded she kissed and pr