<h3><!-- page 214--><SPAN name="page214"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>PART IV<br/> HOW THESEUS FELL BY HIS PRIDE</h3>
<p>But that fair Ariadne never came to Athens with her
husband. Some say that Theseus left her sleeping on Naxos
among the Cyclades; and that Dionusos the wine-king found her,
and took her up into the sky, as you shall see some day in a
painting of old Titian’s—one of the most glorious
pictures upon earth. And some say that Dionusos drove away
Theseus, and took Ariadne from him by force: but however that may
be, in his haste or in his grief, Theseus forgot to put up the
white sail. Now Ægeus his father sat and watched on
Sunium day after day, and strained his old eyes across the sea to
see the ship afar. And when he saw the black sail, and not
the white one, he gave up Theseus for dead, and in his grief he
fell into the sea, and died; so it is called the Ægean to
this day.</p>
<p>And now Theseus was king of Athens, and he guarded it and
ruled it well.</p>
<p>For he killed the bull of Marathon, which had killed
Androgeos, Minos’ son; and he drove back the famous
Amazons, the warlike women of the East, when they came from Asia,
and conquered all Hellas, and broke into Athens itself. But
Theseus stopped them there, and conquered them, and took
Hippolute their queen to be his wife. Then he went out to
fight against the Lapithai, and Peirithoos their famous king: but
when the two heroes came face to face they loved each other, and
embraced, and became noble friends; so that the friendship of
Theseus and Peirithoos is a proverb even now. And he
gathered (so the Athenians say) all the boroughs of the land
together, and knit them into one strong people, while before they
were all parted and weak: and many another wise thing he did, so
that his people honoured him after he was dead, for many a
hundred years, as the father of their freedom and their
laws. And six hundred years after his death, in the famous
fight at Marathon, men said that they saw the ghost of Theseus,
with his mighty brazen club, fighting in the van of battle
against the invading Persians, for the country which he
loved. And twenty years after Marathon his bones (they say)
were found in Scuros, an isle beyond the sea; and they were
bigger than the bones of mortal man. So the Athenians
brought them home in triumph; and all the people came out to
welcome them; and they built over them a noble temple, and
adorned it with sculptures and paintings in which we are told all
the noble deeds of Theseus, and the Centaurs, and the Lapithai,
and the Amazons; and the ruins of it are standing still.</p>
<p>But why did they find his bones in Scuros? Why did he
not die in peace at Athens, and sleep by his father’s
side? Because after his triumph he grew proud, and broke
the laws of God and man. And one thing worst of all he did,
which brought him to his grave with sorrow. For he went
down (they say beneath the earth) with that bold Peirithoos his
friend to help him to carry off Persephone, the queen of the
world below. But Peirithoos was killed miserably, in the
dark fire-kingdoms under ground; and Theseus was chained to a
rock in everlasting pain. And there he sat for years, till
Heracles the mighty came down to bring up the three-headed dog
who sits at Pluto’s gate. So Heracles loosed him from
his chain, and brought him up to the light once more.</p>
<p>But when he came back his people had forgotten him, and Castor
and Polydeuces, the sons of the wondrous Swan, had invaded his
land, and carried off his mother Aithra for a slave, in revenge
for a grievous wrong.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<SPAN href="images/p217b.jpg">
<ANTIMG alt= "Warriors fighting" title= "Warriors fighting" src="images/p217s.jpg" /></SPAN></p>
<p>So the fair land of Athens was wasted, and another king ruled
it, who drove out Theseus shamefully, and he fled across the sea
to Scuros. And there he lived in sadness, in the house of
Lucomedes the king, till Lucomedes killed him by treachery, and
there was an end of all his labours.</p>
<p>So it is still, my children, and so it will be to the
end. In those old Greeks, and in us also, all strength and
virtue come from God. But if men grow proud and
self-willed, and misuse God’s fair gifts, He lets them go
their own ways, and fall pitifully, that the glory may be His
alone. God help us all, and give us wisdom, and courage to
do noble deeds! but God keep pride from us when we have done
them, lest we fall, and come to shame!</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the
end</span></p>
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