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the shrine in the noon stillness; the youths in their horse-dance stamping for the god; and the sacrifice, my grandfather beckoning with his bloodstained hand. And then, just as when I was seven years old, I heard within me the sea-surge, bearing me up and on. It seemed to say to me, "Be quiet, my son, and let me carry you. Am I not strong enough?"
    My fear left me. I ceased to struggle, and my face broke water. I lay on the sea, as easy as the lost child the father finds on the mountain, and brings home in his arms. Once round the point, the current always sets for land again. But I should never have lived to remember it but for Poseidon, Shepherd of Ships.
    In the hills' shelter the sea was calm and the air gentle. Climbing to the torches I lost the last of the chill. I felt light and lucky, full of the god. Soon I saw light through apple leaves, and dancers whirling; there were pipes and singing and the thud of feet.
    It was a little village feast, on a slope of orchards. The torches were fixed on poles around the floor, for the torch-dance was over. The men were doing the Dance of the Quails, with feathered masks and wings, wheeling and hobbling and dipping and giving quail-calls; the women stood round singing the song, clapping and tapping their feet. When I came out into the torchlight, they broke off singing; and the tallest girl, the village beauty the men were whistling and calling to, cried out, "Here is the Kouros of Poseidon! Look at his hair all wet from the sea!" Then she laughed. But when I looked, I saw she was not mocking me.
    After the dancing we ran away, and lay hidden close in the deep wet grass among the apple trees, stifling each other's laughter when one of her suitors came crashing and roaring past. Afterwards she held me away from her; but it was only while she got out a windfall from under her back.
    That was my first girl, and I had my first war not long after. The men of Hermione came north over the hills, and lifted thirty head of cattle. When I heard my uncles shouting to each other, and calling for their horses and their arms, I slipped away and helped myself from the armory and the stable. I stole out by the postern, and joined them up on the hill road. Diokles thought it a good joke. It was the last he ever laughed at; one of the raiders speared him. When he was dead, I rode after the man who did it, and dragged him from his horse across the neck of mine, and killed him with my dagger. My grandfather had been angry at my going without leave; but he did not rebuke me after, saying it was only proper I should avenge Diokles, who had always been good to me. I had been so angry I could not even feel I was killing my first man; only that I wanted him dead, like a wolf or a boar. We got back all the cattle before nightfall, except for two which fell down a steep place on the mountain.
    A few months after this, the time of King Minos' tribute came round again.
    The tax goods were gathering at the harbor: hides and oil, wool and copper and boarhound bitches in whelp. People looked sour; but I had other trouble. I knew this was when the small boys were taken out from the tall ones, and sent to the hills to hide. I made offerings to Poseidon, and Zeus, and the Mother, praying in secret to be spared this shame. But soon after, my grandfather said to me, "Theseus, when you are up in the mountains, if there are broken necks, or cattle stolen, I am telling you now you will be the first to answer for it. There is your warning."
    My heart reproached the thankless gods. "Must I go, sir? Surely it's beneath the house, for me to hide away. They would never take me; they can't think so meanly of us as that." He looked at me testily. "They will think you are just the build of boy they like for the bull-dance; that and nothing more. Don't talk when you know nothing." I thought, "Well, that is blunt enough."
    "Who is King Minos," I said, "to treat kings' houses like a victor? Why do we pay him? Why not go to