Theseus - Perseus

Aegeus, son of Pandion, was a king of Athens who is chiefly remembered because he is said to have been the father of the renowned hero Theseus — though whether Theseus really was his son is a matter of dispute.

When Aegeus married, his dearest wish was to have a son to succeed him on the throne of Athens. But the years rolled by and still his wife had not borne him a single child. So desperate was he for a son that he remarried, again without result. Finally he decided to go to Delphi to learn at the oracle of Apollo what he must do to gain the son he yearned for.

The answer of Apollo’s priestess was mysterious:

“Ruler of men, do not untie your wineskin until you reach the Acropolis of Athens.”

Bewildered by this warning, Aegeus left the Delphic oracle even more melancholy than he had come.

“What sort of an answer was that?” he asked himself. “I can’t make head or tail of it!” Granted, he did not open the bulging wineskin he was carrying, but how could that help solve his problem? As he made his way home, he puzzled over how to make the oracle’s message give up its meaning.

“I shall go by way of Corinth and ask Medea,” he decided in the end.

Medea was the most powerful sorceress the world had ever known. Jason had brought her with him from the distant Caucasus, when he went to win the golden fleece but now, found guilty of a hideous crime, she lived alone in a wretched hut outside the walls of Corinth, shunned by all. Thus it seemed most strange to her to see a man actually crossing her threshold….