Fill In the Blanks (Prepositions)

This exercise is useful to help you become aware of the way prepositions work in a sentence. Fill in the blanks with whatever word seems to make sense (paste over to your Grammar notebook)

Then Theseus pushed his way ___ through the thick bushes, and saw that they had not been moved ____ many a year. And searching _____ their roots he found a great flat stone, all overgrown ____ ivy, and acanthus, and moss. He tried to lift it, but he could not. And he tried till the sweat ran down his brow ____ heat, and the tears ____ his eyes ____ shame; but all was ____ no avail. And at last he came back ___ his mother, and said, 'I have found the stone, but I cannot lift it; nor do I think that any man could ____ all Troezene.'

Then she sighed, and said, 'The Gods wait long; but they are just at last. Let it be ____ another year. The day may come when you will be a stronger man than lives ____ all Troezene.'

Then she took him ___ the hand, and went ____ the temple and prayed, and came down again ____ Theseus ___ her home.

And when a full year was past she led Theseus up again ____ the temple, and bade him lift the stone; but he could not.

Then she sighed, and said the same words again, and went down, and came again the next year; but Theseus could not lift the stone then, nor the year after; and he longed to ask his mother the meaning ___ that stone, and what might lie ____ it; but her face was so sad that he had not the heart to ask.

So he said ___ himself, 'The day shall surely come when I will lift that stone, though no man ___ Troezene can.' And in order to grow strong he spent all his days ___ wrestling, and boxing, and hurling, and taming horses, and hunting the boar and the bull, and coursing goats and deer ____ the rocks; till ____ all the mountains there was no hunter so swift ___ Theseus; and he killed Phaia the wild sow of Crommyon, which wasted all the land; till all the people said, 'Surely the Gods are _____ the lad.'

End of Lesson!