"
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.
But when she saw them she wept long in silence, hiding her fair face in
her shawl: and Theseus stood by her wondering, and wept also, he knew
not why. And when she was tired of weeping, she lifted up her head, and
laid her finger on her lips, and said, "Hide them in your bosom,
Theseus my son, and come with me where we can look down upon the sea."
Then they went outside the sacred wall, and looked down over the bright
blue sea; and Aithra said,--
"Do you see this land at our feet?"
And he said, "Yes, this is Troezene, where I was born and bred.
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