Chapter Ten: Theseus

(from Mythology for Today ­­­Hamilton’s Mythology)

1. Theseus must first prove his strength by lifting the great stone under which his father left him a sword and shoes. 2. Theseus refuses the sea voyage to Athens because it is too easy, and he is eager to do dangerous heroic deeds. 3. Theseus rids the dangerous road of various hazardous bandits and thieves, including Procrustes, Sciron, and Sinis. 4. Theseus’ idea of justice is “poetic justice,” in which the criminal is punished by the same crime he has done to others. 5. King Minos’ only son was killed when the Athenian king sent him on a dangerous mission. The devastated and angry Minos invaded Athens, and only spared it utter destruction because he was promised that every nine years he would be sent seven maidens and seven youths as a sacrificial tribute. The fourteen unfortunates would be devoured by the monstrous Minotaur. 6. Theseus has told his father that if he survives his battle with the Minotaur, he will change the ship’s sail from black to white, so that it would be known that he was alive and victorious. Theseus forgets this promise, and when his father sees the black sail and believes his son to be dead, he commits suicide. 7. Ariadne is Minos’ daughter. She falls in love with Theseus on first sight and gives him a clue to escape the Labyrinth: He must tie a ball of thread to the entrance, so that he can follow it back out the way he came in. 8. Theseus, made King of Athens, resigns royal power and installs a people’s government, a commonwealth with the principals of liberty and self‐ government. He takes the title of Commander in Chief, but it is the votes of the citizens that decide the governmental policies. 9. Theseus displays his generosity when he gives the despised and miserable Oedipus a welcome in his home; he is magnanimous in fighting for the burial of the Theban rebels while not letting them loot and pillage the conquered city; he stands by Hercules and convinces him not to take his own life after he has killed his family in a fit of madness; he helps his capricious friend Pirithous out of many misadventures. 10. Phaedra, Theseus’ new wife, falls in love with his son, Hippolytus, who is not interested in women and finds her guilty love for him repellent. Phaedra, realizing that he is disgusted by her, kills herself, but leaves a note for Theseus that attributes her suicide to the fact that Hippolytus has wronged her. Theseus, believing Phaedra’s note, banished his son, who is mortally wounded as he leaves for exile. Theseus finds out the truth before his son dies, and lives on in misery for some years before he, too, dies.