ONCE upon a time there was a princess in Troezene, Aithra, the daughter of Pittheus the king. She had one fair son, named Theseus, the bravest lad in all the land; and Aithra never smiled but when she looked at him, for her husband had forgotten her, and lived far away. And she used to go up to the mountain above Troezene, to the temple of Poseidon and sit there all day looking out across the bay, over Methana, to the purple peaks of AEgina and the Attic shore beyond.
And when Theseus was full fifteen years old she took him up with her to the temple, and into the thickets of the grove which grew in the temple-yard. And she led him to a tall plane-tree, beneath whose shade grew arbutus, and lentisk, and purple heather-bushes. And there she sighed, and said, 'Theseus, my son, go into that thicket and you will find at the plane-tree foot a great flat stone; lift it, and bring me what lies underneath.'
Then Theseus pushed his way in through the thick bushes, and saw that they had not been moved for many a year. And searching among their roots he found a great flat stone, all overgrown with ivy, and acanthus, and moss. He tried to lift it, but he could not. And he tried till the sweat ran down his brow from heat, and the tears from his eyes for shame;but all was of no avail. And at last he came back to his mother, and said, 'I have found the stone, but I cannot lift it; nor do I think that any man could in all Troezene.'
Then she sighed, and said, 'The Gods wait long; but they are just at last. Let it be for another year. The day may come when you will be a stronger man than lives in all Troezene.'
Then she took him by the hand, and went into the temple and prayed, and came down again with Theseus to her home.
And when a full year was past she led Theseus up again to the temple, and bade him lift the stone; but he could not.
Then she sighed, and said the same words again, and went down, and came again the next year; but Theseus could not lift the stone then, nor the year after; and he longed to ask his mother the meaning of that stone, and what might lie underneath it; but her face was so sad that he had not the heart to ask.
So he said to himself, 'The day shall surely come when I will lift that stone, though no man in Troezene can.' And in order to grow strong he spent all his days in wrestling, and boxing, and hurling, and taming horses, and hunting the boar and the bull, and coursing goats and deer among the rocks;till upon all the mountains there was no hunter so swift as Theseus; and he killed Phaia the wild sow of Crommyon, which wasted all the land; till all the people said, 'Surely the Gods are with the lad.'
And when his eighteenth year was past, Aithra led him up again to the temple, and said, 'Theseus, lift the stone this day, or never know who you are.' And Theseus went into the thicket, and stood over the stone, and tugged at it; and it moved. Then his spirit swelled within him, and he said, 'If I break my heart in my body, it shall up.' And he tugged at it once more, and lifted it, and rolled it over with a shout.
And when he looked beneath it, on the ground lay a sword of bronze, with a hilt of glittering gold, and by it a pair of golden sandals; and he caught them up, and burst through the bushes like a wild boar, and leapt to his mother, holding them high above his head.
