Ariadne(19)
He was raised on Troezen by his mother, Aethra, never knowing who his mighty father could be until the day he toppled the great rock under which the sword and sandals of Aegeus lay. The Athenian King had left them buried there with instructions to the pregnant Aethra that when the son she bore him could move the boulder, Aegeus would welcome him as a true Prince of Athens.
Whether it really was Aegeus who was responsible for her swelling belly is a question that raised many eyebrows. It was told that the great Olympian goddess Athena had come to Aethra in a dream after she lay with Aegeus and directed the sleep-dulled girl to the shore of the sea, where she poured a libation and waded into the surf in which Poseidon rolled, dolphin sleek and expectant. Why Athena arranged this liaison for her uncle, shaker of the earth and tyrant of the oceans, I do not know. She is the goddess of wisdom, after all, and the workings of her swift brain are unfathomable to all but herself. Perhaps she sought some reconciliation with Poseidon; they had bitterly contested each other for the patronage of Athens and her bounteous olive tree had won its citizens to her, over Poseidon’s gift of a salt spring. Maybe she orchestrated the birth of Theseus to bind the father to the legend of his maybe-son, who would be so inextricably linked with her beloved Athens. It would be a clever move, for the favour of the Olympians was a great boon to any mortal – whilst it lasted, anyway.
Theseus certainly had the bearing of a king, and I did not detect in him the unpredictability of the sea, pounding at the rocks and swallowing ships whole, so I was inclined to see in him the blood of royal power rather than divine. But as I studied him – and believe me, I drank him in like a parched animal at a riverbank – I began to see the cold, steady certainty of the chill green depths. Not a dolphin leaping through the roiling waves, glittering in the sunlight, but rather a shark gliding through the murky quiet. Focused, powerful and inexorable. And that steady focus was turned upon me. To command the attention of such a man felt heady indeed and I felt his calm and his assurance roll through my veins like that cold, green water, soothing my rapid pulse with each heavy surge.
After a time, I stopped straining my ears at every distant noise and I was no longer poised to run, kneel, plead for my life at any second, if Minos’ guards should leap upon us from all sides. I settled my back against the wall of rock behind and I lost myself in his story.
7
‘My mother always told me that I was born of greatness, though she concealed my father’s identity from me. As a boy, I dreamed that he was a hero, away on gruelling and arduous labours, and I expected he would take comfort in the thought of his son growing up to follow in his footsteps and conquer the world. I wanted to fight monsters, rescue princesses and punish wrongdoers, as I imagined he was doing.
‘When I was fifteen, Heracles stayed with us for a number of days. He was the kind of man I had always imagined my father to be, and I was eager to hear his stories. He did not disappoint me. Firstly, his great size and strength were just as reported; he towered in our halls, and the lion skin he draped across his shoulders was so fierce that many of our maids dropped in a faint when they saw him. Indeed, it looked so much like a real lion that when I entered a room and saw it lying across a couch, I leapt upon it aiming to subdue the beast that I believed had somehow come to wreak havoc in our home.
‘Heracles laughed heartily at my foolishness but he praised my courage at attempting to wrestle a mighty lion with my bare hands, and so we struck up a friendship of sorts. I admired him so very much, it could not be described as a meeting of equals, but I hungered to learn what I could from him before he continued on his travels.
‘He told me of his labours: the Nemean lion he clubbed to death, so ending its plaguing of the town, and which he now wore as his cape; the subduing of the many-headed Hydra; the man-eating Stymphalian birds and carnivorous mares of Diomedes who devoured men whilst they were still alive; the arduous cleansing of the Augean stables. These tales and more thrilled me. But they spoke to me also; when I heard how Heracles burned away the serpent monster’s heads and how he captured the bull of Crete on these rocky shores – alas, too late, as its terrible progeny had already taken root in your mother’s womb – I saw myself take up the club, the burning torch and the bow and arrows to bring these monsters to their end, or to grasp the bull’s throat in my own hands and squeeze the life from it myself. His words did not just paint a picture of his deeds; they showed me the way.
‘Later on, when he had drunk deeply of our finest wine, he told me with tears in his eyes how he had slaughtered his own wife and child under the madness that jealous Hera had sent upon him. I knew that a heroic life would not be without pain and sacrifice, but I thirsted for it all the same . . .’
Theseus’ voice dropped. That gruff break in his tone, the shine in his eyes as he recalled the suffering of his friend, his respectful pause – all these touched my heart before he went on with his tale.
‘By day, he showed me some wrestling tricks, techniques you saw me use today upon that boorish thug in the arena. He instructed me in the use of weaponry, even allowing me to wield the club with which he had dashed out the lion’s brains. He advised me in many practical things but he told me also how I must think. He said that early on in his toils, he had been visited by two women whilst he tended his father’s flock on Mount Cithaeron. One invited him to follow the path of Virtue through life. It would be an arduous trek over rocky ground to reach a steep summit, but once there he would achieve immortal fame. The other young woman purred in sensuous tones of the life he might lead if he chose to follow Pleasure, indulging in all manner of earthly delights for the rest of his days. This would be an easy path, a road that was smoothed in front of him and would be free of toil and suffering . . .’