Theseus, as the protagonist of Renault's tragedy, passes through five stages of his tragic development in The King Must Die (1958), each connected, as Landon Burns has demonstrated, with the consenting death of a king. In Troizen, the King Horse is sacrificed by Theseus' grandfather Pittheus, who sounds the keynote for Renault's recurrent theme: "It is not the sacrifice . . . it is not the blood-letting that calls down the power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all." In Eleusis, Kerkyon, king-for-a-year, perishes, and in Athens, young Theseus voluntarily relinquishes his royalty to join the victims sent to Crete for Minos' tribute; Minos himself succumbs in Knossos, and Aigeus, Theseus' father, answers the god's call, leaving Theseus to assume the throne. Renault clearly demonstrates that it is the king's duty "to fulfill the appointed end with pride, with honor, and with humility."

With each death, as in...