THESEUS
tered to me during the first part of my life; but at least they taught
me to know myself, as did also the various monsters whom I sub–
dued. For "the first thing is to know exactly who one is," I used to
say to Hippolytus; "later comes the time to assess and adopt one's
inheritance. Whether you wish it or not, you are, as I was myself,
a king's son. Nothing to be done about it; it's a fact; it pins you
down." But Hippolytus never took much notice; even less than I
had taken, at his age; and like myself at that time, he got on very
nicely without it. 0 early years, .all innocently passed
!
0 careless
growth of body and mind! I was wind; I was wave. I grew with the
plant; I flew with the bird. My self knew no boundaries; every con–
tact with an outer world did not so much teach me my own limits
as awaken within me some new power of enjoyment. Fruit I caressed,
and the bark of young trees, and smooth stones on the foreshore, and
the coats of horses and dogs, before ever my hands were laid on a
woman. Towards all the charming things that Pan, Zeus or Thetis
could offer, I rose.
One day my father said to me that things couldn't go on as
they were. "Why not?" Because, good heavens, I was his son, and
must show myself worthy of the throne to which I should succeed.
. . . Just when I was feeling so happy, sprawled naked among cool
grasses, or on some scorching beach. Still, I can't say that he was
wrong. Certainly he was right in teaching me to rebel against myself.
To this I owe all that I have achieved since that day; no longer to
live .at random- agreeable as such licence might have been. He
taught me that nothing great, nothing of value and nothing that will
last, can be got without effort.
My first effort was made at his invitation.
It
was to overturn
boulders in the hope of finding the weapons which Poseidon (so he
told me) had hidden beneath one of them. He laughed to see how
quickly I grew strong through this training. With the toughening of
my body there came also a toughening of the will. After I had dis–
lodged the heaviest rocks of the neighborhood, and was about to con–
tinue my unfruitful search by attacking the flagstones of the palace
gateway, my father stopped me: "Weapons," said he, "count for less
than the arm which wields them, and the arm in its turn for less than
the thinking will which directs it. Here are the weapons. Before giving
them to you, I was waiting to see you deserve them, I can sense in
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