Then it so happened that Heracles came into the palace of the
king. The harsh king feasted Heracles and abated his savagery
before him. But he could not forbear boasting of how he had
trapped the heroes who had come to carry off Persephone. And he
told how they could not get out of the stone chairs and how they
were held captive in his dark dungeon. Heracles listened, his
heart full of pity for the heroes from Greece who had met with
such a harsh fate. And when the king mentioned that one of the
heroes was Theseus, Heracles would feast no more with him until
he had promised that the one who had been his comrade on the Argo
would be let go.
The king said he would give Theseus his liberty if Heracles would
carry the stone chair on which he was seated out of the dungeon
and into the outer world. Then Heracles went down into the
dungeon. He found the two heroes in the great chairs of stone.
But one of them, Peirithous, no longer breathed. Heracles took
the great chair of stone that Theseus was seated in, and he
carried it up, up, from the dungeon and out into the world. It
was a heavy task even for Heracles. He broke the chair in pieces,
and Theseus stood up, released.
Thereafter the world was before Theseus. He went with Heracles,
and in the deeds that Heracles was afterward to accomplish
Theseus shared.
IV. THE LIFE AND LABORS OF HERACLES
Heracles was the son of Zeus, but he was born into the family of
a mortal king.
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