Shakespeare’s Duke of Athens

Usage examples of theseus.

His son Androgeus visited Athens, where King Aegeus, the father of Theseus, received him.

Emily, and howled Palamon, And Theseus his sister took anon Swooning, and bare her from the corpse away.

Is this the proud Hippolytus I see, Than whom there breathed no fiercer foe to love And to that yoke which Theseus has so oft Endured?

For Theseus, while Hippolytus his son Learns of his death from vessels that are now In port.

Theseus then went off with Hercules in his war against the Amazons, where he took time to invade hell, marry an Amazon warrior, and explore the Labryinth of the minotaur in Crete.

When set was Theseus full rich and high, Hippolyta the queen and Emily, And other ladies in their degrees about, Unto the seates presseth all the rout.

PART III - HOW THESEUS SLEW THE MINOTAUR And at last they came to Crete, and to Cnossus, beneath the peaks of Ida, and to the palace of Minos the great king, to whom Zeus himself taught laws.

This Theseus, this Duke, this worthy knight When he had brought them into his city, And inned* them, ev'reach at his degree, *lodged He feasteth them, and doth so great labour To *easen them*, and do them all honour, *make them comfortable* That yet men weene* that no mannes wit *think Of none estate could amenden* it.

And, shortly to conclude, such a place Was never on earth made in so little space, For in the land there was no craftes-man, That geometry or arsmetrike* can**, *arithmetic **knew Nor pourtrayor*, nor carver of images, *portrait painter That Theseus ne gave him meat and wages The theatre to make and to devise.

Looke how the Crowne, which Ariadne woreVpon her yuory forehead that same dayThat Theseus her vnto his bridale bore,When the bold Centaures made that bloudy frayWith the fierce Lapithes, which did them dismay.

Hermia, adamant in her refusal, says she wishes her father would look with her eyes, but Theseus chides her, saying that she must learn to see with her father's eyes.

And after this Theseus hath ysent After a beere, and it al over-spradde With clooth of gold, the richeste that he hadde.

Thanne semed me ther was a parlement At Atthenes, upon certein pointz and caas, Among the whiche pointz yspoken was To have with certein contrees alliaunce, And have fully of Thebans obeisaunce, For which this noble Theseus anon Leet senden after gentil Palamon, Unwist of hym what was the cause and why.

For which anon duc Theseus leet crye, To stynten alle rancour and envye, The gree, as wel of o syde as of oother, And eyther syde ylik as ootheres brother, And yaf hem yiftes after hir degree, And fully heeld a feeste dayes three, And convoyed the kynges worthily Out of his toun a journee, largely.

And thus withinne a while his name is spronge Bothe of hise dedes and his goode tonge, That Theseus hath taken hym so neer That of his chambre he made hym a Squier, And gaf hym gold to mayntene his degree.