Original subtitles

(adventurous music)

- [Narrator] He was a young man barely 20 years old

traveling the roads of ancient Greece.

He was handsome, strong and moreover of royal blood.

His name?

Theseus.

He was on his way to Athens to be recognized

by a father he had never met, King Aegeus.

And this young man, full of self-assurance,

was intent on claiming the position he was owed,

that of heir to the throne of Athens.

For a recent revelation had changed his young life forever,

his mother had told him the secret of his birth.

It was long, long ago.

The king of Athens, Aegeus, had ruled for many years

but he had no son to succeed him.

After his reign, the dynasty was doomed to disappear,

something the old king refused to accept.

Aegeus decided to call on the gods,

it was his last hope.

So he set off for Delphi to consult the oracle.

In Delphi, at the foot of Mount Parnassus,

was the biggest sanctuary in the known world.

It was here that a woman known as the Pythia

orally expressed the will of the gods.

(ominous music)

The Pythia lived as a recluse in the sacred enclosure

of the temple of Apollo.

Perched on a tripod and entranced by smoke and incense,

she sighted to her priests the words of the divine.

Aegeus questioned the gods, when would his

long awaited son be given to him?

The Pythia's response was puzzling:

do not loosen the wineskin's foot, oh, great prince,

until you have reached the people of Athens.

Aegeus didn't understand the oracle,

crushed and confused, he returned home

tormented by the enigma.

(ominous music)

On his way back, he stopped off in Troezen,

unaware that his wish was finally about to come true.

It was from Troezen that King Pittheus ruled,

the monarch was known throughout Greece

for his wisdom but also for his clairvoyance.

Pittheus immediately understood what the oracle

of Delphi meant, but he didn't tell Aegeus

of his interpretation for he had an idea.

He organized a grand banquet to honor his guest,

he fed him wine until Aegeus passed out,

then introduced his own daughter, Aethra, into his bed.

And that is how, by Pittheus' trickery,

Theseus was conceived.

When Aethra told Aegeus she was pregnant,

he was obviously overjoyed.

But he was also worried,

Athens was threatened from all angles,

it had many enemies and claimants to the throne

who would stop at nothing to gain power.

Even killing an infant

and hastening the death of an old man.

His decision was taken, his son would live in hiding

here in Troezen until he was old enough

and strong enough to be recognized as heir.

And so, in utmost secrecy, Theseus grew up

far from the intrigues and conspiracies of Athens.

However, Aegeus wondered how would he recognize

the son he had never met when he came to him in Athens?

Aegeus left Aethra what the Greeks called tokens,

objects that would allow Aegeus to recognize Theseus

as his legitimate son when the time came.

These tokens were his sword and sandals.

Aegeus had them buried in the ground

beneath a huge rock which only his son,

the future Theseus, would be strong enough to shift

without help from anyone.

(swelling music)

16 years passed, Theseus had grown

into a handsome young man, strong,

educated, brave, impetuous

and fascinated like all boys of his age,

by the feats of the great Greek heroes.

He unearthed in the place indicated

by his mother, the sword and sandals of his father.

He readied to leave Troezen,

his mother embraced him one last time.

She hesitated a moment and then made a confession,

she revealed to Theseus the truth about his origins.

The reason Pittheus had used trickery

to introduce her into Aegeus' bed

was because she had recently been raped

by one of the most infamous lovers of Mount Olympus,

the god Poseidon.

Poseidon, one of the most powerful gods of Olympus,

the elder brother of Zeus.

When the Greek gods divided up the world,

Poseidon received the kingdom of the seas and oceans.

Poseidon carried a trident, which he planted

in the sea as in the ground.

He was the god of storms and of earthquakes.

He was known as the Earth Shaker.

He incarnated anger, disorder, danger and violence.

A few days before being sneaked into Aegeus' bed,

the young Aethra had been taken to Poseidon

by a goddess who had come to her in a dream.

A goddess no one could refuse,

the goddess Athena.

Athena and Poseidon.

The goddess of war and the god of storms,

always fighting and quarreling.

The two of them couldn't stand each other.

As a show of her wish for peace,

Athena, not without ulterior motives,

delivered the poor Aethra

to the sexual appetites of Poseidon.

The fruit of the relations of Aethra with Poseidon

then with Aegeus meant that Theseus

was the son of both the god and the king.

This double parentage gave Theseus

a near perfect identity.

His divine ascendancy explained his supernatural strength

and would account for his later feats and quests.

His royal origin gave him political legitimacy,

he had work to accomplish, a political destiny to fulfill.

Theseus would leave Troezen,

his first quest would be that of his identity.

To reach Athens, there were two routes:

the safest of them was by sea,

but there was another much more dangerous way,

by road.

It crossed Greece via the Isthmus of Corinth

over steep hills along rocky paths,

but it's greatest danger lay in the monsters

and brigands that had spread terror there for years.

Theseus decided to take the road

and he defied one after the other,

all the evil creatures that crossed his path.

His greatest victory was over the ruthless Procrustes,

an infamous bandit who strapped passersby to a bed.

A bed that was either too long or too short for them.

He then set about making them fit the bed

by stretching them if it was too long

or cutting off their limbs if it was too short.

In victory, Theseus inflicted on him

the same punishment he had given his victims.

In a way, Theseus applied the law of Talion,

an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Procrustes would perish on the very bed

he had reserved for travelers, he was cut down to size.

As a side note, in statistics today,

Procrustes' analysis involves uniformly scaling

anything that doesn't fit into the mold.

Athens, at last.

Word of Theseus' feats had proceeded him,

thanks to the sword and sandals of Aegeus,

he was recognized by his father.

Here, the king and heir, Aegeus and Theseus

are finally united.

All is well in the best of worlds,

not always, for Athens was under attack

by the maritime superpower of the time, Crete.

Crete ruled by King Minos.

Minos defeated Athens and demanded that

every year seven boys and seven girls

be drawn by lots and then sent to Crete

to be devoured by a terrifying monster, the Minotaur.

The Minotaur, a monstrous beast,

the head of a bull on the body of a man.

The Minotaur was the fruit of an unthinkable union

between the consort of the king of Crete, Pasiphae,

and a white bull sent by the god of the sea, Poseidon.

The poor Pasiphae was not wholly at fault

for this beastly offspring.

She had been subjected, as was often the case,

to the vengeance of the gods following a mistake

made by her husband, King Minos.

To prove to his brother that Poseidon

was his protector, Minos asked the god

to deliver up a white bull from the waves

and promised to sacrifice it in honor of Poseidon.

Poseidon delivered up the white bull

but when Minos saw the animal, so beautiful

and so pure, he was unable to sacrifice it.

A furious Poseidon put a curse on the wife of Minos,

Queen Pasiphae, and sent her a love spell.

Pasiphae fell madly in love with the white bull

and did everything to mate with it.

It was from this monstrous union

come about by the wrath of a god

that the bull of Minos was born,

the beast known as the Minotaur.

Minos wanted to hide the scandalous adultery

committed by his wife, to do so

he imprisoned the Minotaur in a labyrinth

in which it became both prisoner and lord.

And the Minotaur grew up away from prying eyes.

But the beast needed feeding,

so having defeated Athens, Minos demanded

an annual tribute of human flesh.

Theseus, encouraged by his early successes,

swore to free Athens from this scourge.

When Minos' emissaries arrived,

as they did every year to claim their due,

Theseus stepped forward and to general surprise

volunteered to go to Crete.

However hard Aegeus tried to make his son renounce,

Theseus refused.

He would set off to fight the Minotaur, so be it,

but Aegeus asked one thing of him,

that his ship should leave with a black sail,

a sign of mourning.

Then if he were to return alive, to raise a white sail.

Every day Aegeus climbed to the top

of the highest hill to look out for his son's return.

Theseus, in a state of excitation

and already drunk on his anticipated glory,

agreed to his father's wish.

On landing in Crete, he was presented

to King Minos with the other Athenians

he paraded before the king and his court.

Suddenly, he caught the eye of Minos' daughter, Ariadne.

She was immediately enthralled by the handsome Theseus,

it was love at first sight.

Ariadne, the beautiful daughter of the king,

beseeched her father to spare the young man

with whom she had fallen in love.

Minos refused, he was an Athenian after all

and therefore, an enemy.

Theseus had also fallen in love with Ariadne

but refused to give up on his plan.

He confessed his reason for coming to Crete to Ariadne,

he would enter the labyrinth to confront the Minotaur

and he was certain he would win.

Ariadne had no doubts about her lover's strength

but she informed him, he was heading headfirst into a trap.

He had forgotten one small detail,

entering the labyrinth was easy,

getting back out again was the hard part.

The labyrinth surpassed in ingenuity

any maze that had ever existed.

It was designed and built by the greatest

architect of his day, Daedalus.

Daedalus had laid out a head-spinning plan,

with dead-ends everywhere, detours and false paths.

Every direction was a lure,

every exit an illusion.

The labyrinth was an inescapable trap,

no one had ever come out alive.

Theseus was distraught, his plan was reduced to ashes.

Not for one second had he considered that,

how to get out of the labyrinth.

Only one man held the secret, Daedalus himself.

Ariadne went to him and begged him to reveal

the secret of the labyrinth.

Moved by the love the young princess felt

for Theseus, the architect told her

that there was only one way of getting out,

to keep a trace of how you got in.

He gave Ariadne a ball of thread

which she would hold at the entrance to the labyrinth.

Theseus would gradually unroll the ball

and having found then slain the Minotaur,

if he was able, he would simply wind back

the thread to find his way out.

Ariadne gave the ball of wool to Theseus

in return for a promise,

that he would take her to Athens with him when all was over.

For not only was she about to betray her father

by helping him, but also her homeland.

Theseus promised and entered the labyrinth,

he walked and walked for what seemed like forever.

Suddenly he heard the powerful snorts of the Minotaur,

then he came face to face with the monster.

After a bloody battle to the death,

the Minotaur fell to the ground.

Theseus rewound Ariadne's thread

until he was back outside.

He immediately freed his fellow Athenians

and fled with Ariadne.

But a new threat hung over the young lovers' heads,

although Theseus was the son of Poseidon,

he had just killed the Minotaur, one of his creatures

and offending a god like Poseidon does not go unpunished.

Having harbored at Naxos, Ariadne went to shore.

Poseidon chose that exact moment

to unleash a violent storm,

Theseus had to act and fast.

Should he flee the storm or should he

go ashore to find Ariadne, thus risking

his ship being flung against the rocks?

But it was Athena who acted first.

Implacable, the patron goddess of Athenians

ordered Theseus to set sail

so as to avoid being shipwrecked.

She commanded him to leave Ariadne behind,

to forget her, his destiny lay elsewhere.

Thus, Theseus abandoned Ariadne.

By obeying Athena, goddess of war

but also of reason and wisdom,

Theseus broke his promise for a reason of state,

as Athena put it.

Theseus left to fulfill his destiny of becoming king,

leaving on the island of Naxos the daughter of Minos,

who believed she had betrayed her father and her homeland.

Having been abandoned by Theseus,

Ariadne was soon consoled by Dionysus,

Athena had seen to that.

Meanwhile, back in Athens,

the old king, Aegeus, continued to climb

every day the hill overlooking the sea.

Every day he scanned the horizon

in the hope of seeing the ship

that would bring home his son,

but in vain.

The sea was deserted.

And then one day, a ship.

Aegeus waited for it to approach

to make out the color of its sail,

he immediately recognized his son's ship

and it had hoisted a black sail.

Theseus was dead.

(thunder rumbles)

Overcome with grief, Aegeus threw himself

off the cliff into the sea,

the sea that still bears his name today, the Aegean.

And yet, Theseus was alive

but with the great joy of returning home,

he had forgotten his promise to his father

to hoist a white sail.

When he landed in Athens,

Theseus discovered a city where the joy

of his return was darkened with sadness.

Yes, Athens was saved from the terrible perils

of the Minotaur, but the legitimate king,

Aegeus, was dead.

Look closely at this scene of the hero,

the victor of all combats who returned to become king.

Theseus was a victor for sure, but at what cost?

Theseus incarnates insouciance,

the strong man who uses his strength alone

not his mind, the man who forgets his promises.

The striking thing about Theseus' early life

is that everything he accomplished

came with a terrible toll.

In the ancient Greek world,

grandeur always went hand in hand with excesses

that came back to haunt the hero

and often his family and compatriots.

So was he at fault?

Yes, certainly.

Theseus knew that, but all these experiences

finally taught him that strength

and trickery weren't enough.

Once he had seen the error of his ways,

Theseus once crowned king united the cities,

instilled justice and peace,

and placed power in the hands of the people.

Thus founding a new regime

which would become known as democracy,

then he withdrew to a place known only to him.

He had undoubtedly finally understood

into what precipices oversight drags those

who let themselves be distracted by it.

(adventurous music)