Near Eleusis, on the banks of the river Cephissus, Theseus met with a new adventure. Here lived the giant Damastes, called Procrustes or the Stretcher,* who had two iron beds, one being long and the other short, into which he forced all strangers. In the short one he placed the tall men, whose limbs he cut to the size of the bed, whilst to the short ones he assigned the large bed, stretching them out to fit it; and thus he left his victims to expire in the most cruel torments. Theseus freed the country from this inhuman monster by serving him as he had done his unfortunate victims.
The hero now continued his journey, and at length reached Athens without meeting with any further adventures. When he arrived at his destination he found his father a helpless tool in the hands of the sorceress Medea, whom he had married after her departure from Corinth.*
* From the nickname of this giant we derive the adjective ‘Procrustean’, meaning one-size-fits-all. Anyone interested in public policy will find this word extremely useful. “Nothing has become clearer to me during this investigation,” wrote Sir Joshua Fitch for the Newcastle Commission of 1859, examining the state of education in the country, “than the fact that any sweeping or Procrustean measure will do great injustice.”
* Medea had been living in Corinth with her first husband, Jason, captain of the Argonauts. But Jason had jilted her, so after she had murdered her rival, slain her own children and driven Jason to suicide, Medea quitted Corinth and at length came to Athens. There she entangled Aegeus in her net of sorcery, and after she had induced him to forget Aethra, he made her his (fourth) wife.