The Last Year-king (Poetic Prose; Theseus

The Last Year-king
(In Poetic Prose; Greek Calamity—Theseus)

In those far-off days, those days when a man’s word was very different—as was his courage to standby those words, in all the distances throughout the world—this was the measure of a man; Theseus, King of Athens (founder of Athens: tamer of fiends and monster beasts alike, slayer of kings, and bandits) who fought many battles, and had many foes and overcome them all, whose citadel looked much like the acropolis does today on a hilltop in Athens. It will be hard to explain this. For no one has yet to make clear this old story afar off legend yet unwound; but true it is, as the day is long, true as it is, as all known days, the sun has risen.
On this one morn, it was raining and inside the enclosure of the great temple of Athena, looking out among the city below, between two towering pillars, lighted adjacent to the early morning dark—there he stood on this high hilled citadel, that overlooked the smoke and buildings and the streets of this Hellenic city, landmark of Western Civilization, a bustling cosmopolitan metropolis of its day, there he stood against the great pillars—even at this early date, a powerful city-state. And he remembered his journey through Attica, near the township of Eleusina.
King Cercyon, also a high priest and judge, pre-ordained to human sacrifice—to be sacrificed himself at the end of his term or during times of famine or drought or uneasiness, was a wide breasted man, with a dark auburn beard, a crooked long hawk like nose, long feet and toes, and he wore a white bear-fur, that reached from his heels to his shoulders—a year-king, as he was known, whose duty was to challenge passers-by, and kill them; it was he who challenged Theseus in a wrestling match—a life for a life, when Theseus had beaten the king, he spared him not, and then thereafter, took on one more task before returning to Athens victorious.
But it was at King Cercyon’s death that Theseus overturned this archaic religious rite by refusing to be sacrificed.
“Colleagues…” he exclaimed, “I partook copiously in your sacred ritual… (and now he was king)” and there were many confreres present, all of them—the whole body—stood abreast, one to one another, shoulder to shoulder, and listened—for there was much cheer!
“Colleagues, I have partaken slightly in your ritual,” and Theseus, looked up at them, near eye to eye, and explained and proclaimed, “No, there is no merit, the past is all right, but there will be no more sacrificing kings for your peace of mind.”
It was to them an extremely, extraordinary chain of events, castrated by the command of Theseus. And so the legend goes, the last of the year-kings was Cercyon of old.

No: 607 (1 March, 2010)