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[6] And when Theseus had killed it, Aegeus presented to him a poison which he had received the selfsame day from Medea. But just as the draught was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword, and on recognizing it Aegeus dashed the cup from his hands.1 And when Theseus was thus made known to his father and informed of the plot, he expelled Medea.


1 Compare Plut. Thes. 12; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.741; Ov. Met. 7.404-424. According to Ovid, the poison by which Medea attempted the life of Theseus was aconite, which she had brought with her from Scythia. The incident seems to have been narrated by Sophocles in his tragedy Aegeus. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 15ff.

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