“I hear,” he said, “that the god sent you a warning.”
I had been long alone with my thought, till I hardly knew the truth any longer; but this came as true to me. He knew such things, because he was priest as well as king. My mind rested.
“Henceforth,” he said, “you will know it again. If it comes to you, run out of doors, and call to the people that Poseidon is angry. Then they can save themselves, before the houses fall. Such warnings are a favor of the god. Try to be worthy.”
I said I would. I would have promised anything to the kind Horse Father, who had answered my long prayers with a sign.
Next day in the grove Simo sidled up to me, and thrust something warm into my hands. “For you,” he said, and ran away. It was a ring-dove. He had kept it to pluck, I suppose, and changed his mind. It trembled between my palms, while I chewed on the thought that Simo had done me sacrifice, as if I were divine.
I looked at its bright jewelled eye, its feet like dusky coral; the bloom of the back feathers, and the magic changing rainbow around its neck. A saying of my mother’s came into my mind, that we offer to the gods from their own creation; I remembered the birds and bulls I used to pinch from wet clay, and looked at the workmanship in my hand. It was Simo, after all, who taught me how far man is, even at his height of fortune, below the Immortals.
I wondered if I should sacrifice it to Poseidon. But he does not much care for birds, and I thought I would give it back to Apollo. So I held up my hands and opened them, and let it fly.
3
AFTER THE GOD’S SIGN, I no longer doubted I should grow tall. Season after season I waited, trusting. I had seen other boys shoot up all in a year or two, even without a god to help them. Seven feet, I thought, had been good enough for Herakles and would do for me; but I would settle for six, if Earth-Shaker required.
I turned eleven, and finished my service to Poseidon, and loosed a half-grown boar, whose tusks were showing, in the Great Hall when the King of Tiryns was dining there. Being younger than he had looked to me, he joined whooping in the chase, and said he had never spent an evening better; but my grandfather whipped me all the same, saying it might as easily have been the High King of Mycenae.
I turned twelve, and played in the thicket with a land baron’s daughter, who was thirteen. This came to nothing; she scolded me off, saying I hurt her. I argued that from all I heard, it was only to her credit; but she said she was sure I must be doing it wrong.
None the less, I was coming into manhood. In that way, I was better grown than boys much older. But I was still the smallest of my year but one; and when Simo brought a message from the shrine, I saw he was a whole hand taller.
My uncle Diokles could comb his beard to a point now, and would soon be married. He laughed at my scrapes when I was in disgrace with everyone else, taught me the skills of war and hunting, and tried to make me spend my spirits usefully. But one day when I was thirteen, finding me out of heart beside the wrestling ground, he said to me, “See, now, Theseus, no one can do everything. Some things need a light man, others a heavy one. Why can’t you take yourself as you are? You are doing well enough. You’re the best jumper about here, long or high; you nearly always win the foot race; as for riding, you can stay on anything; you are better than Dexios, who is better than all the rest. And you have a very straight eye, both for the bow and javelin; I know Maleus throws further, but how often does he hit? You will make a warrior, if you go on as you are; you’re not frightened, you are quick, and you’ve a grip like a grown man’s. If you are sensible, and get to know yourself, you’ll seldom come away from the games without two or three prizes. That should be enough for anyone. It’s time you stopped fretting your heart out, and wasting time, over contests where only weight will do. You will never make a wrestler, Theseus. Face it once for all.”
I had never seen him so serious; and I knew he was really fond of me. So I only said, “Yes, Diokles. I suppose you are right.” I was too old now to cry. I thought, “He has even forgotten why I should be big. It is not that he wants to hurt me, like Simo; not at all. Simply he never thinks of such a thing. It never enters his head.”
Poseidon’s sign was four years behind me. In youth, four years is long. And even the people thought less about it, now they saw I had not the stature of god-got men.
I was fourteen; the Corn Moon shone, and it was harvest home. My mother received the Goddess’ offerings, or read her the pledges written on leaves of clay. At evening she went down to the Navel Court, and following as far the cloister walk, I heard her soft voice, telling the House Snake all about the harvest; for, as she said, if we kept anything from him we should have no luck next year. I lingered in the shadow thinking how she must once have told him who my father was. Perhaps she was talking of me now. But it is death for men to spy on women’s mysteries. Lest I should hear a word of what she was saying, I slipped away.
Next day was the Corn Feast. In the morning she offered to the Mother at the sacred pillar, standing before it straight as the shaft, and graceful as the rising smoke. No one would have thought her sacred dress was so heavy, the flounces clashing with ivory lozenges and disks of gold. “Why does she not tell me?” I thought. “Does she need to be told I suffer?” And anger burned me like a red-hot rod, striking on my heart where it was tender with love.
Later we had the Games. I watched the wrestling, the big men grasping each other round the middle, straining and heaving to lift each other off the ground. Nowadays you will have to go far in the back hills to see Old Hellene style; but in those days, there was no other in the Isle of Pelops, and as much skill in it as in a tug of war.
In the boys’ events I won the jumping, and the foot race, and the javelin-throwing, just as Diokles had said. When the prizes were given on the threshing floor, I got a bag of arrowheads, a pair of javelins, and a belt sewn with scarlet. As I came away with them, I heard a voice say in the crowd, “He is blue-eyed and flaxen like a Hellene; but he is built like the Shore People, wiry and quick and small.” And someone answered softly, “Well, who can say?”
I went outside. The Corn Moon shone great and golden. I laid my prizes on the ground, and walked down to the sea.
The night was calm. Moonlight lay on the strait, and a night bird called, soft and bubbling, like water from a narrow jar. From uphill I heard the singing, and hands clapping to the dance.
I walked straight into the water as I was, in my belt and drawers. I wanted to be far from men and their voices. As I struck out with the current to the open sea, I said within me, “If I am the god’s he will look after me. If not I shall drown, and I do not care.”
Beyond the narrows and the headland, the strait opened to the sea. Then over on Kalauria I heard music and saw torches weaving; and boylike I wanted to go and see. I turned, and struck for the island shore; but the lights grew smaller whenever I looked. I saw I might truly die; and I wanted life.
The current had borne me easily; but when I fought it, it was cruel and strong. I began to be tired, and cold; my leather breeches dragged at my thighs, my wet belt pinched my breathing. A wave slapped me head-on, and I went under.
I could not right myself; I seemed to sink to the very bottom of the sea. My head and my chest felt bursting. I thought, “The god rejects me. I have lived for a lie and there is nothing left. Oh that I could be dead without dying! It is hard to die, harder than I know.” My eyes flashed and saw pictures: my mother in her bath; a hunchback the children laughed at; the shrine in the noon stillness; the youths in their horse-dance stamping for the god; and the sacrifice, my grandfather beckoning with his bloodstained hand. And then, just as when I was seven years old, I heard within me the sea-surge, bearing me up and on. It seemed to say to me, “Be quiet, my son, and let me carry you. Am I not strong enough?”