Having received such thanks as they could give him, he journeyed on and on until at last he reached Athens. What he was to do there he did not know; but there was no need for him to ask. Somehow the fame of his deeds had flown before him,--how he had rid the country of Sciron and Cercyon and Procrustes, and other wild beasts and brigands, and he was received as befitted his valor. Now the King of Athens at that time was Ægeus; and the queen was no other than the great and dreadful sorceress Medea, who had come to Athens after the murder of her children, and had married the king. Ægeus took a fancy to Theseus from the young stranger's first appearance in Athens, gave him a high place at Court, and treated him as if he had been his own son. But with Medea it was different. She had a son of her own, and she was filled with jealousy lest Ægeus should make Theseus the heir to his throne. Moreover, she envied and hated him for his courage and his fame, in which he so far surpassed her own son Medus; and she feared him too, for she failed to bring him under her spells. So she plotted to destroy him in such a way that his death should never be brought home to her, just as she had made the daughters of Pelias the seeming murderesses of their own father. She therefore pretended a great admiration for Theseus, and got the king to hold a great festival in his honor. It was arranged that Ægeus, during the feast, should send him a golden cup filled with wine, in which Medea secretly steeped one of her deadliest poisons. All went as she had planned. Ægeus sent the poisoned goblet by one of the cup-bearers to Theseus, who stood up to drink the health of the king and queen. But-- "Hold!" suddenly cried Ægeus, starting; "what sword is that at your side?" Theseus put down the cup to answer:-- "It is the sword with which I fought my way to Athens. I wear it to-day as my sword of honor." "But how comes it at _your_ side?" Then Theseus told the story of how it had been left by his unknown father under a stone at Trœzene, and how his mother's name was Æthra. Scarcely had he finished when Ægeus, leaving his throne, fell upon his neck, exclaiming:-- "I was that father! You are my first-born son, and the heir to my crown!" The Athenians, who already looked upon Theseus as their national hero, greeted their prince and future king with shouts of joy; and when the first excitement was over, Medea was seen no more. Enraged at the failure of her plot, and fearing discovery and vengeance, she vanished from Athens: some said they had seen her borne by dragons through the air. And this is the last of her.