Then she
fixed her great eyes on the eyes of Theseus. 'We are friends?' she said,
in her silvery voice.

'Lady, I love you even as you love my father, King Aegeus,' said Theseus.

'Even so much?' said the lady Medea. 'Then we must both drink to him in
wine.' She glided to the great golden mixing-cup of wine that stood on a
table behind Aegeus, and with her back to Theseus she ladled wine into a
cup of strange coloured glass. 'Pledge me and the king,' she said,
bringing the cup to Theseus. He took it, and from his breast he drew the
flower of black root and white blossom that Hermes had given him, and
laid it in the wine. Then the wine bubbled and hissed, and the cup burst
and broke, and the wine fell on the floor, staining it as with blood.

Medea laughed lightly. 'Now we are friends indeed, for the gods befriend
you,' she said, 'and I swear by the Water of Styx that your friends are
my friends, and your foes are my foes, always, to the end. The gods are
with you; and by the great oath of the gods I swear, which cannot be
broken; for I come of the kin of the gods who live for ever.'

Now the father of the father of Medea was the Sun God.

Theseus took both her hands. 'I also swear,' he said, 'by the splendour
of Zeus, that your friends shall be my friends, and that your foes shall
be my foes, always, to the end.'

Then Medea sat by the feet of Aegeus, and drew down his head to her
shoulder, while Theseus took hold of his hand, and the king wept for
joy. For the son he loved, and the woman whom he loved and feared, were
friends, and they two were stronger than the sons of Pallas.

While they sat thus, one of the sons of Pallas--the Pallantidae they were
called--slouched into the hall to see if dinner was ready. He stared,
and slouched out again, and said to his brothers: 'The old man is
sitting in the embraces of the foreign woman, and of the big stranger
with the iron club!' Then they all came together, and growled out their
threats and fears, kicking at the stones in the courtyard, and
quarrelling as to what it was best for them to do.

Meanwhile, in the hall, the servants began to spread the tables with
meat and drink, and Theseus was taken to the bath, and clothed in new
raiment.

While Theseus was at the bath Medea told Aegeus what he ought to do. So
when Theseus came back into the hall, where the sons of Pallas were
eating and drinking noisily, Aegeus stood up, and called to Theseus to
sit down at his rig