'One must hand it to Theseus that he had bags of courage, for he volunteered at once to go as one of the lads. However, no one could say he was a particularly modest type, as he also declared that, after five minutes with him, the Minotaur would wish his mother had never set eyes on a bull. His old Pop implored him to stay put, but he said: "Not to worry, Dad. You go and do a spot of fishing off Sounion Head. You'll get first sight of my ship from there on her way back, and I'll hoist a white sail instead of a black to let you know that I'm O.K."
'When he reached Crete, he continued to throw his weight about and boast that the Minotaur wouldn't stand an earthly against him because he was a son of Poseidon. King Minos took him up on that, threw a gold ring into the harbour and said: "If the god's your father, in you go boy. Ask him to hand that back to you." Theseus stripped off his clothes, did a jack-knife dive and came up not only with the ring but also a diamond tiara straight out of Cartier's. This, with a graceful bow, he handed to the King's daughter, Ariadne, who happened to be looking on.
'Having had a good look at Theseus while he was still dripping wet, Ariadne felt her heart go pitter-pat; so she sought out Daedalus in his back room and said: "Look, you dear old egg-head. That Athenian diving champ has made me go all groggy at the knees. Please think of a way to save him for me so that he can restore my equilibrium." Upon this, Daedalus gave her a magic sword and a ball of twine, so that Theseus couldn't help killing the Minotaur with the one and, by unrolling the other as he went into the Labyrinth, find his way out again by it.
That evening, she passed on these useful accessories to her new boy friend. He gave her a pat on the behind and promised her the full treatment later; then went off to do his stuff. She didn't let the grass grow under her feet, either. She spent the night boring holes with a gimlet in the bottoms of all the ships in her papa's fleet, so that they sank to the mud of the harbour and could not be used for pursuit. Round about dawn, Theseus kept his date with her at his own ship and, just as a makeweight, brought along her pretty little sister, Phaedra.
Theseus's ship reached the island of Naxos, but accounts differ about what happened there. According to one version, poor Ariadne was so seasick that she had to be put ashore for a bit; then a terrible storm sprang up and drove the ship away from the island before Theseus had a chance of picking her up. In the Aegean, that could easily happen. The other version is that all the Athenians landed and spent several days holding a decidedly hectic party to celebrate their escape from an awful fate in the Labyrinth. That seems the more likely story. It goes on to say that Ariadne, being a daughter of Pasiphae, proved too much for Theseus. He simply could not take it, so he deliberately ditched her.'
'What a very sad end to the story,' said Stephanie.
'Oh, that's not the end. There's yards more of it. Theseus's abandoning of Ariadne turned out to be a stroke of luck for her. Dionysus happened to come along and found her weeping on the beach. Being a god he knew just how to console her, and they found that they were so well suited to one another that they got married.
Theseus, on the other hand, after he'd been a few days at sea, seems to have regretted giving her the brush-off. Anyhow, his thoughts are said to have been so full of her that he forgot to pull down the black sail of his ship and hoist a white one. Poor old Aegeus, upon Sounion Head, naturally took it that his son was a goner; so he threw himself over the cliff to feed the fishes that he had been killing time trying to catch.
'However, having inherited the kingdom didn't stop Theseus from taking time off now and then to go adventuring. He went with Hercules on an expedition to beat up the Amazons, captured their Queen, Antiope, and married her. But he soon got tired of her, kicked her out of bed, and installed Ariadne's sister, Phaedra, as his wife instead. Then, after several years during which he slew many more monsters, he went with a pal of his named Peirithous to Sparta and they abducted that precocious little ten-year-old poppet Helen. When they drew lots for who should have her, Theseus won and, judging by his form with the girls generally, maybe she wasn't quite as innocent as she looked when she got home again.
'Peirithous must have been as mad as a March hare. He conceived the fantastic idea of consoling himself for not having got Helen by going down to Hades and carrying Persephone off from Pluto. Theseus could not do less than lend a hand; so off they went and landed themselves literally in the Hell of a mess. Peirithous got stuck there for keeps, and Theseus got away only because the doyen of all the Heroes, tough old Hercules, came down and pulled him out by the coat-tails.
'When he got back to Athens, he found his palace in an uproar. Helen's brothers, Castor and Pollux, had turned up and were threatening blue murder unless he gave her back to them. Being pretty part-worn from his Hades adventure, he agreed; but he was faced with worse trouble between his wife and Hippolytus, a son he had had by the Amazon Queen, Antiope.
'Hippolytus had grown up into a good-looking teenager, and Phaedra felt that he was just the lad for her to talk to about this and that by the fireside on the long winter evenings, while his father was away killing dragons or teaching young girls like Helen how one and one can make three. But Hippolytus was a religious type and he had dedicated himself to Artemis; so he said to his stepmother: "Thanks awfully, but I've taken a vow never to do that sort of thing."
'If Phaedra had been a decent sort, she would have said: "You silly young mutt; you don't know what you are missing. Forget what I suggested and keep your mouth shut. That beefy Captain of the Guard is always asking me to go and hear his long-playing records; so I'll brighten up a few of my evenings with him until your pa comes home." Instead, she got mad with the youngster and, when Theseus did get back, she complained to him that his son had tried to rape her.
'That fairly put the cat among the pigeons. Theseus flung Hippolytus out on his ear and called down Poseidon's wrath upon him. The Sea god obliged by sending a sea-monster to scare the horses of Hippolytus's chariot, which resulted in it overturning and the unfortunate youth being crushed to death beneath it.
'Later, Theseus felt that perhaps he had acted a trifle hastily and that, by and large, he hadn't made a great success of his life; so he left Athens and went into retirement as the guest of Lycomedes, the King of Scyros. Unfortunately, he could not keep himself from boasting about his exploits; and Lycomedes got so bored with hearing about them, over and over again, that he had Theseus thrown into the sea so that he was drowned.'
As Robbie fell silent, Stephanie said: 'Then it was a sad ending after all.'
'Well, yes,' Robbie agreed, 'but Theseus had a wonderfully full life, you know. And, in between his expeditions, he did a lot for Athens. He was its first great King, and by his laws he laid the foundations for what it afterwards became.'
By half past four they were back in Heraklion. Stephanie dropped Robbie in Liberty Square, so that he had only to walk across it to the Museum of Antiquities, where it had been decided that he should spend a couple of hours while she bought the things he would need in his new quarters.