Her lips to his warm cygnet neck, and swooned, Thereby apprised the destined hour had come, And having sped her boy upon his quest, Drooped, like a sun-void lily, and so died. Then radiant Theseus, journeying overland, All robber-plagues infesting those still glens Physicianed, and redeemed all realms distressed. Phæa, prodigious Crommyonian shape, Apt Cercyon of Arcadia, he slew; And of his dominant valor overcame The smith-god’s son, who with the mortal mace Beleaguered travellers in Epidaur; Unburied martyrs fitly to avenge, He harsh Procrustes bedded; limb from limb Rent the Pine-bender on recoiling boughs; And him that thrust the lavers of his feet Headlong in chasms, Theseus likewise served By dint of hospitable precedent; Wide Marathonia’s lordly bull he led, Engarlanded with hyacinth and rose, To the knife’s edge at bland Apollo’s shrine; Last, guided to a grove sabbatical, Knelt to the chanting white Phytalidæ, And in their midst was chrismed, and purified From all the bloodshed of his troublous path. On to the gate of Athens Theseus strode, Docile to Æthra’s warning, that unnamed, And with strict privacy, he should seek his sire; For fifty jealous sons of Pallas held The city’s sovereignty; and overruled Their father’s childless brother, Ægeus old: The agile, able, proud Pallantidæ, Whose wrath would rise against the tardy heir, Tumultuous, and encompass Greece in war. Therefore, unheralded, with wary step, Chancing upon an open banquet-hall, Preceded of his fame, came brave-arrayed The stranger hero, but erewhile a boy; And straight, along the heaped board glancing down, Evil Medea, on her harmful track From Corinth unto Colchis, intercepted.