ain he lifted up his hands and prayed to Thetis to draw away
Psamathe's enmity. The beast rushed toward them; but suddenly it
stopped. The bristles upon its body seemed to stiffen. The gaping jaws
became fixed. The hounds that were with them dashed upon the beast, but
then fell back with yelps of disappointment. And when Peleus and Ceyx
came to where it stood they found that the monstrous beast had been
turned into stone.

And a stone it remains in that bright valley, a wonder to all the men
of Ceyx's land. The country was spared the ravages of the beast. And
the heart of Peleus was uplifted to think that Thetis had harkened to
his prayer and had prevailed upon Psamathe to forego her enmity. Not
altogether unforgiving was his wife to him.

That day he went from the land of the bright valleys, from the land
ruled over by the kindly Ceyx, and he came back to rugged Phthia, his
own country. When he came near his hall he saw two at the doorway
awaiting him. Thetis stood there, and the child Achilles was by her
side. The radiance of the immortals was in her face no longer, but
there was a glow there, a glow of welcome for the hero Peleus. And thus
Peleus, long tormented by the enmity of the sea-born ones, came back to
the wife he had won from the sea.

III. THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR

I

Thereafter Theseus made up his mind to go in search of his father, the
unknown king, and Medea, the wise woman, counseled him to go to Athens.
After the hunt in Calydon he set forth. On his way he fought with and
slew two robbers who harassed countries and treated people unjustly.

The first was Sinnias. He was a robber who slew men cruelly by tying
them to strong branches of trees and letting the branches fly apart. On
him Theseus had no mercy. The second was a robber also, Procrustes: he
had a great iron bed on which he made his captives lie; if they were
too long for that bed he chopped pieces off them, and if they were too
short he stretched out their bodies with terrible racks. On him,
likewise, Theseus had no mercy; he slew Procrustes and gave liberty to
his captives.

The King of Athens at the time was named AEgeus. He was father of
Theseus, but neither Theseus nor he knew that this was so. Aethra was
his mother, and she was the daughter of the King of Troezen. Before
Theseus was born his father left a great sword under a stone, telling
Aethra that the boy was to have the sword when he was able to move that
stone away.

K