404And now Theseus had come, a son unknown to his father, and by his valour had brought peace to the Isthmus between two seas. 406For his destruction Medea mixes aconite, which she had once brought with her from the Scythian shores. 408This, they say, sprang from the teeth of Echidna's dog. 409There is a cave, dark with a gloomy mouth; there is a downward path, by which the Tirynthian hero dragged off Cerberus, bound with chains of adamant, as he resisted and turned his eyes aslant from the daylight and the gleaming rays; 413he, roused to rabid anger, filled the air alike with triple barking and sprinkled the green fields with white foam.
416This foam, they think, congealed, and finding nourishment in the fertile and fruitful soil, acquired the power to harm. 418Because these plants spring up hardy on hard rock, country folk call them aconites. 419Through his wife's cunning, Aegeus himself, the father, held this out to his son as to an enemy. 421Theseus had taken the cup offered him with unknowing right hand, when his father recognised on the ivory hilt of his sword the tokens of his own family, and struck the crime from his lips. 424She escaped death in clouds raised by her spells. 425But the father, although he rejoices that his son is safe, is yet astounded that so monstrous a crime could have been committed by so narrow a margin.
427He warms the altars with fires and fills the gods with gifts, and axes strike the brawny necks of oxen, their bodies bound with ribbons. 430No day, they say, ever dawned more festive for the sons of Erechtheus than that one. 431The elders and the common people hold banquets, and they sing songs too, as wine inspires their wit: 'You, greatest Theseus, Marathon admired for the blood of the Cretan bull; 435and that the farmer ploughs Cromyon free from fear is your gift and your work. 436Through you the land of Epidaurus saw the club-bearing son of Vulcan fall, the shore of Cephisus saw cruel Procrustes fall too, Eleusis, dear to Ceres, saw the death of Cercyon.
440That Sinis is dead, who used his great strength wickedly, who could bend tree-trunks and would drive pines down from on high to the earth to scatter bodies far and wide. 443The road to Alcathoe, the Lelegeian walls, lies open and safe now that Sciron has been laid to rest, and to the robber's scattered bones the earth refuses a resting place, the sea refuses a resting place; 446and they, tossed about for long, are said to have hardened with age into rocks: the name of Sciron clings to the rocks. 448If we should wish to count your honours and your years, your deeds would outweigh your years. 449For you, bravest of men, we undertake public vows, for you we drink draughts of Bacchus.' 451The palace resounds with the people's assent and the prayers of well-wishers, and there is no sad place anywhere in the whole city.