{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1973/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1973","id":"gutenberg_1973","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1973","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Historical Novels","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Mythology, Greek -- Juvenile literature","Trojan War -- Juvenile literature"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1912 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David\nPrice, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTALES OF TROY: ULYSSES THE SACKER OF CITIES\nby Andrew Lang\n\n\nContents:\n\nThe Boyhood and Parents of Ulysses\nHow People Lived in the Time of Ulysses\nThe Wooing of Helen of the Fair Hands\nThe Stealing of Helen\nTrojan Victories\nBattle at the Ships\nThe Slaying and Avenging of Patroclus\nThe Cruelty of Achilles, and the Ransoming of Hector\nHow Ulysses Stole the Luck of Troy\nThe Battles with the Amazons and Memnon--the Death of Achilles\nUlysses Sails to seek the Son of Achilles.--The Valour of Eurypylus\nThe Slaying of Paris\nHow Ulysses Invented the Device of the Horse of Tree\nThe End of Troy and the Saving of Helen\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOYHOOD AND PARENTS OF ULYSSES\n\n\nLong ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece,\nthere lived a king named Laertes.  His kingdom was small and mountainous.\nPeople used to say that Ithaca \"lay like a shield upon the sea,\" which\nsounds as if it were a flat country.  But in those times shields were\nvery large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow between\nthem, so that Ithaca, seen far off in the sea, with her two chief\nmountain peaks, and a cloven valley between them, looked exactly like a\nshield.  The country was so rough that men kept no horses, for, at that\ntime, people drove, standing up in little light chariots with two horses;\nthey never rode, and there was no cavalry in battle: men fought from\nchariots.  When Ulysses, the son of Laertes, King of Ithaca grew up, he\nnever fought from a chariot, for he had none, but always on foot.\n\nIf there were no horses in Ithaca, there was plenty of cattle.  The\nfather of Ulysses had flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, and wild\ngoats, deer, and hares lived in the hills and in the plains.  The sea was\nfull of fish of many sorts, which men caught with nets, and with rod and\nline and hook.\n\nThus Ithaca was a good island to live in.  The summer was long, and there\nwas hardly any winter; only a few cold weeks, and then the swallows came\nback, and the plains were like a garden, all covered with wild\nflowers--violets, lilies, narcissus, and roses.  With the blue sky and\nthe blue sea, the island was beautiful.  White temples stood on the\nshores; and the Nymphs, a sort of fairies, had their little shrines built\nof stone, with wild rose-bushes hanging over them.\n\nOther islands lay within sight, crowned with mountains, stretching away,\none behind the other, into the sunset.  Ulysses in the course of his life\nsaw many rich countries, and great cities of men, but, wherever he was,\nhis heart was always in the little isle of Ithaca, where he had learned\nhow to row, and how to sail a boat, and how to shoot with bow and arrow,\nand to hunt boars and stags, and manage his hounds.\n\nThe mother of Ulysses was called Anticleia: she was the daughter of King\nAutolycus, who lived near Parnassus, a mountain on the mainland.  This\nKing Autolycus was the most cunning of men.  He was a Master Thief, and\ncould steal a man's pillow from under his head, but he does not seem to\nhave been thought worse of for this.  The Greeks had a God of Thieves,\nnamed Hermes, whom Autolycus worshipped, and people thought more good of\nhis cunning tricks than harm of his dishonesty.  Perhaps these tricks of\nhis were only practised for amusement; however that may be, Ulysses\nbecame as artful as his grandfather; he was both the bravest and the most\ncunning of men, but Ulysses never stole things, except once, as we shall\nhear, from the enemy in time of war.  He showed his cunning in stratagems\nof war, and in many strange escapes from giants and man-eaters.\n\nSoon after Ulysses was born, his grandfather came to see his mother and\nfather in Ithaca.  He was sitting at supper when the nurse of Ulysses,\nwhose name was Eurycleia, brought in the baby, and set him on the knees\nof Autolycus, saying, \"Find a name for your grandson, for he is a child\nof many prayers.\"\n\n\"I am very angry with many men and women in the world,\" said Autolycus,\n\"so let the child's name be _A Man of Wrath_,\" which, in Greek, was\nOdysseus.  So the child was called Odysseus by his own people, but the\nname was changed into Ulysses, and we shall call him Ulysses.\n\nWe do not know much about Ulysses when he was a little boy, except that\nhe used to run about the garden with his father, asking questions, and\nbegging that he might have fruit trees \"for his very own.\"  He was a\ngreat pet, for his parents had no other son, so his father gave him\nthirteen pear trees, and forty fig trees, and promised him fifty rows of\nvines, all covered with grapes, which he could eat when he liked, without\nasking leave of the gardener.  So he was not tempted to steal fruit, like\nhis grandfather.\n\nWhen Autolycus gave Ulysses his name, he said that he must come to stay\nwith him, when he was a big boy, and he would get splendid presents.\nUlysses was told about this, so, when he was a tall lad, he crossed the\nsea and drove in his chariot to the old man's house on Mount Parnassus.\nEverybody welcomed him, and next day his uncles and cousins and he went\nout to hunt a fierce wild boar, early in the morning.  Probably Ulysses\ntook his own dog, named Argos, the best of hounds, of which we shall hear\nagain, long afterwards, for the dog lived to be very old.  Soon the\nhounds came on the scent of a wild boar, and after them the men went,\nwith spears in their hands, and Ulysses ran foremost, for he was already\nthe swiftest runner in Greece.\n\nHe came on a great boar lying in a tangled thicket of boughs and bracken,\na dark place where the sun never shone, nor could the rain pierce\nthrough.  Then the noise of the men's shouts and the barking of the dogs\nawakened the boar, and up he sprang, bristling all over his back, and\nwith fire shining from his eyes.  In rushed Ulysses first of all, with\nhis spear raised to strike, but the boar was too quick for him, and ran\nin, and drove his sharp tusk sideways, ripping up the thigh of Ulysses.\nBut the boar's tusk missed the bone, and Ulysses sent his sharp spear\ninto the beast's right shoulder, and the spear went clean through, and\nthe boar fell dead, with a loud cry.  The uncles of Ulysses bound up his\nwound carefully, and sang a magical song over it, as the French soldiers\nwanted to do to Joan of Arc when the arrow pierced her shoulder at the\nsiege of Orleans.  Then the blood ceased to flow, and soon Ulysses was\nquite healed of his wound.  They thought that he would be a good warrior,\nand gave him splendid presents, and when he went home again he told all\nthat had happened to his father and mother, and his nurse, Eurycleia.  But\nthere was always a long white mark or scar above his left knee, and about\nthat scar we shall hear again, many years afterwards.\n\n\n\n\nHOW PEOPLE LIVED IN THE TIME OF ULYSSES\n\n\nWhen Ulysses was a young man he wished to marry a princess of his own\nrank.  Now there were at that time many kings in Greece, and you must be\ntold how they lived.  Each king had his own little kingdom, with his\nchief town, walled with huge walls of enormous stone.  Many of these\nwalls are still standing, though the grass has grown over the ruins of\nmost of them, and in later years, men believed that those walls must have\nbeen built by giants, the stones are so enormous.  Each king had nobles\nunder him, rich men, and all had their palaces, each with its courtyard,\nand its long hall, where the fire burned in the midst, and the King and\nQueen sat beside it on high thrones, between the four chief carved\npillars that held up the roof.  The thrones were made of cedar wood and\nivory, inlaid with gold, and there were many other chairs and small\ntables for guests, and the walls and doors were covered with bronze\nplates, and gold and silver, and sheets of blue glass.  Sometimes they\nwere painted with pictures of bull hunts, and a few of these pictures may\nstill be seen.  At night torches were lit, and placed in the hands of\ngolden figures of boys, but all the smoke of fire and torches escaped by\na hole in the roof, and made the ceiling black.  On the walls hung swords\nand spears and helmets and shields, which needed to be often cleaned from\nthe stains of the smoke.  The minstrel or poet sat beside the King and\nQueen, and, after supper he struck his harp, and sang stories of old\nwars.  At night the King and Queen slept in their own place, and the\nwomen in their own rooms; the princesses had their chambers upstairs, and\nthe young princes had each his room built separate in the courtyard.\n\nThere were bath rooms with polished baths, where guests were taken when\nthey arrived dirty from a journey.  The guests lay at night on beds in\nthe portico, for the climate was warm.  There were plenty of servants,\nwho were usually slaves taken in war, but they were very kindly treated,\nand were friendly with their masters.  No coined money was used; people\npaid for things in cattle, or in weighed pieces of gold.  Rich men had\nplenty of gold cups, and gold-hilted swords, and bracelets, and brooches.\nThe kings were the leaders in war and judges in peace, and did sacrifices\nto the Gods, killing cattle and swine and sheep, on which they afterwards\ndined.\n\nThey dressed in a simple way, in a long smock of linen or silk, which\nfell almost to the feet, but was tucked up into a belt round the waist,\nand worn longer or shorter, as they happened to choose.  Where it needed\nfastening at the throat, golden brooches were used, beautifully made,\nwith safety pins.  This garment was much like the plaid that the\nHighlanders used to wear, with its belt and brooches.  Over it the Greeks\nwore great cloaks of woollen cloth when the weather was cold, but these\nthey did not use in battle.  They fastened their breastplates, in war,\nover their smocks, and had other armour covering the lower parts of the\nbody, and leg armour called \"greaves\"; while the great shield which\nguarded the whole body from throat to ankles was carried by a broad belt\nslung round the neck.  The sword was worn in another belt, crossing the\nshield belt.  They had light shoes in peace, and higher and heavier boots\nin war, or for walking across country.\n\nThe women wore the smock, with more brooches and jewels than the men; and\nhad head coverings, with veils, and mantles over all, and necklaces of\ngold and amber, earrings, and bracelets of gold or of bronze.  The\ncolours of their dresses were various, chiefly white and purple; and,\nwhen in mourning, they wore very dark blue, not black.  All the armour,\nand the sword blades and spearheads were made, not of steel or iron, but\nof bronze, a mixture of copper and tin.  The shields were made of several\nthicknesses of leather, with a plating of bronze above; tools, such as\naxes and ploughshares, were either of iron or bronze; and so were the\nblades of knives and daggers.\n\nTo us the houses and way of living would have seemed very splendid, and\nalso, in some ways, rather rough.  The palace floors, at least in the\nhouse of Ulysses, were littered with bones and feet of the oxen slain for\nfood, but this happened when Ulysses had been long from home.  The floor\nof the hall in the house of Ulysses was not boarded with planks, or paved\nwith stone: it was made of clay; for he was a poor king of small islands.\nThe cooking was coarse: a pig or sheep was killed, roasted and eaten\nimmediately.  We never hear of boiling meat, and though people probably\nate fish, we do not hear of their doing so, except when no meat could be\nprocured.  Still some people must have liked them; for in the pictures\nthat were painted or cut in precious stones in these times we see the\nhalf-naked fisherman walking home, carrying large fish.\n\nThe people were wonderful workers of gold and bronze.  Hundreds of their\ngolden jewels have been found in their graves, but probably these were\nmade and buried two or three centuries before the time of Ulysses.  The\ndagger blades had pictures of fights with lions, and of flowers, inlaid\non them, in gold of various colours, and in silver; nothing so beautiful\nis made now.  There are figures of men hunting bulls on some of the gold\ncups, and these are wonderfully life-like.  The vases and pots of\nearthenware were painted in charming patterns: in short, it was a\nsplendid world to live in.\n\nThe people believed in many Gods, male and female, under the chief God,\nZeus.  The Gods were thought to be taller than men, and immortal, and to\nlive in much the same way as men did, eating, drinking, and sleeping in\nglorious palaces.  Though they were supposed to reward good men, and to\npunish people who broke their oaths and were unkind to strangers, there\nwere many stories told in which the Gods were fickle, cruel, selfish, and\nset very bad examples to men.  How far these stories were believed is not\nsure; it is certain that \"all men felt a need of the Gods,\" and thought\nthat they were pleased by good actions and displeased by evil.  Yet, when\na man felt that his behaviour had been bad, he often threw the blame on\nthe Gods, and said that they had misled him, which really meant no more\nthan that \"he could not help it.\"\n\nThere was a curious custom by which the princes bought wives from the\nfathers of the princesses, giving cattle and gold, and bronze and iron,\nbut sometimes a prince got a wife as the reward for some very brave\naction.  A man would not give his daughter to a wooer whom she did not\nlove, even if he offered the highest price, at least this must have been\nthe general rule, for husbands and wives were very fond of each other,\nand of their children, and husbands always allowed their wives to rule\nthe house, and give their advice on everything.  It was thought a very\nwicked thing for a woman to like another man better than her husband, and\nthere were few such wives, but among them was the most beautiful woman\nwho ever lived.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WOOING OF HELEN OF THE FAIR HANDS\n\n\nThis was the way in which people lived when Ulysses was young, and wished\nto be married.  The worst thing in the way of life was that the greatest\nand most beautiful princesses might be taken prisoners, and carried off\nas slaves to the towns of the men who had killed their fathers and\nhusbands.  Now at that time one lady was far the fairest in the world:\nnamely, Helen, daughter of King Tyndarus.  Every young prince heard of\nher and desired to marry her; so her father invited them all to his\npalace, and entertained them, and found out what they would give.  Among\nthe rest Ulysses went, but his father had a little kingdom, a rough\nisland, with others near it, and Ulysses had not a good chance.  He was\nnot tall; though very strong and active, he was a short man with broad\nshoulders, but his face was handsome, and, like all the princes, he wore\nlong yellow hair, clustering like a hyacinth flower.  His manner was\nrather hesitating, and he seemed to speak very slowly at first, though\nafterwards his words came freely.  He was good at everything a man can\ndo; he could plough, and build houses, and make ships, and he was the\nbest archer in Greece, except one, and could bend the great bow of a dead\nking, Eurytus, which no other man could string.  But he had no horses,\nand had no great train of followers; and, in short, neither Helen nor her\nfather thought of choosing Ulysses for her husband out of so many tall,\nhandsome young princes, glittering with gold ornaments.  Still, Helen was\nvery kind to Ulysses, and there was great friendship between them, which\nwas fortunate for her in the end.\n\nTyndarus first made all the princes take an oath that they would stand by\nthe prince whom he chose, and would fight for him in all his quarrels.\nThen he named for her husband Menelaus, King of Lacedaemon.  He was a\nvery brave man, but not one of the strongest; he was not such a fighter\nas the gigantic Aias, the tallest and strongest of men; or as Diomede,\nthe friend of Ulysses; or as his own brother, Agamemnon, the King of the\nrich city of Mycenae, who was chief over all other princes, and general\nof the whole army in war.  The great lions carved in stone that seemed to\nguard his city are still standing above the gate through which Agamemnon\nused to drive his chariot.\n\nThe man who proved to be the best fighter of all, Achilles, was not among\nthe lovers of Helen, for he was still a boy, and his mother, Thetis of\nthe silver feet, a goddess of the sea, had sent him to be brought up as a\ngirl, among the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros, in an island far away.\nThetis did this because Achilles was her only child, and there was a\nprophecy that, if he went to the wars, he would win the greatest glory,\nbut die very young, and never see his mother again.  She thought that if\nwar broke out he would not be found hiding in girl's dress, among girls,\nfar away.\n\nSo at last, after thinking over the matter for long, Tyndarus gave fair\nHelen to Menelaus, the rich King of Lacedaemon; and her twin sister\nClytaemnestra, who was also very beautiful, was given to King Agamemnon,\nthe chief over all the princes.  They all lived very happily together at\nfirst, but not for long.\n\nIn the meantime King Tyndarus spoke to his brother Icarius, who had a\ndaughter named Penelope.  She also was very pretty, but not nearly so\nbeautiful as her cousin, fair Helen, and we know that Penelope was not\nvery fond of her cousin.  Icarius, admiring the strength and wisdom of\nUlysses, gave him his daughter Penelope to be his wife, and Ulysses loved\nher very dearly, no man and wife were ever dearer to each other.  They\nwent away together to rocky Ithaca, and perhaps Penelope was not sorry\nthat a wide sea lay between her home and that of Helen; for Helen was not\nonly the fairest woman that ever lived in the world, but she was so kind\nand gracious and charming that no man could see her without loving her.\nWhen she was only a child, the famous prince Theseus, who was famous in\nGreek Story, carried her away to his own city of Athens, meaning to marry\nher when she grew up, and even at that time, there was a war for her\nsake, for her brothers followed Theseus with an army, and fought him, and\nbrought her home.\n\nShe had fairy gifts; for instance, she had a great red jewel, called \"the\nStar,\" and when she wore it red drops seemed to fall from it and vanished\nbefore they touched and stained her white breast--so white that people\ncalled her \"the Daughter of the Swan.\"  She could speak in the very voice\nof any man or woman, so folk also named her Echo, and it was believed\nthat she could neither grow old nor die, but would at last pass away to\nthe Elysian plain and the world's end, where life is easiest for men.  No\nsnow comes thither, nor great storm, nor any rain; but always the river\nof Ocean that rings round the whole earth sends forth the west wind to\nblow cool on the people of King Rhadamanthus of the fair hair.  These\nwere some of the stories that men told of fair Helen, but Ulysses was\nnever sorry that he had not the fortune to marry her, so fond he was of\nher cousin, his wife, Penelope, who was very wise and good.\n\nWhen Ulysses brought his wife home they lived, as the custom was, in the\npalace of his father, King Laertes, but Ulysses, with his own hands,\nbuilt a chamber for Penelope and himself.  There grew a great olive tree\nin the inner court of the palace, and its stem was as large as one of the\ntall carved pillars of the hall.  Round about this tree Ulysses built the\nchamber, and finished it with close-set stones, and roofed it over, and\nmade close-fastening doors.  Then he cut off all the branches of the\nolive tree, and smoothed the trunk, and shaped it into the bed-post, and\nmade the bedstead beautiful with inlaid work of gold and silver and\nivory.  There was no such bed in Greece, and no man could move it from\nits place, and this bed comes again into the story, at the very end.\n\nNow time went by, and Ulysses and Penelope had one son called Telemachus;\nand Eurycleia, who had been his father's nurse, took care of him.  They\nwere all very happy, and lived in peace in rocky Ithaca, and Ulysses\nlooked after his lands, and flocks, and herds, and went hunting with his\ndog Argos, the swiftest of hounds.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STEALING OF HELEN\n\n\nThis happy time did not last long, and Telemachus was still a baby, when\nwar arose, so great and mighty and marvellous as had never been known in\nthe world.  Far across the sea that lies on the east of Greece, there\ndwelt the rich King Priam.  His town was called Troy, or Ilios, and it\nstood on a hill near the seashore, where are the straits of Hellespont,\nbetween Europe and Asia; it was a great city surrounded by strong walls,\nand its ruins are still standing.  The kings could make merchants who\npassed through the straits pay toll to them, and they had allies in\nThrace, a part of Europe opposite Troy, and Priam was chief of all\nprinces on his side of the sea, as Agamemnon was chief king in Greece.\nPriam had many beautiful things; he had a vine made of gold, with golden\nleaves and clusters, and he had the swiftest horses, and many strong and\nbrave sons; the strongest and bravest was named Hector, and the youngest\nand most beautiful was named Paris.\n\nThere was a prophecy that Priam's wife would give birth to a burning\ntorch, so, when Paris was born, Priam sent a servant to carry the baby\ninto a wild wood on Mount Ida, and leave him to die or be eaten by wolves\nand wild cats.  The servant left the child, but a shepherd found him, and\nbrought him up as his own son.  The boy became as beautiful, for a boy,\nas Helen was for a girl, and was the best runner, and hunter, and archer\namong the country people.  He was loved by the beautiful OEnone, a\nnymph--that is, a kind of fairy--who dwelt in a cave among the woods of\nIda.  The Greeks and Trojans believed in these days that such fair nymphs\nhaunted all beautiful woodland places, and the mountains, and wells, and\nhad crystal palaces, like mermaids, beneath the waves of the sea.  These\nfairies were not mischievous, but gentle and kind.  Sometimes they\nmarried mortal men, and OEnone was the bride of Paris, and hoped to keep\nhim for her own all the days of his life.\n\nIt was believed that she had the magical power of healing wounded men,\nhowever sorely they were hurt.  Paris and OEnone lived most happily\ntogether in the forest; but one day, when the servants of Priam had\ndriven off a beautiful bull that was in the herd of Paris, he left the\nhills to seek it, and came into the town of Troy.  His mother, Hecuba,\nsaw him, and looking at him closely, perceived that he wore a ring which\nshe had tied round her baby's neck when he was taken away from her soon\nafter his birth.  Then Hecuba, beholding him so beautiful, and knowing\nhim to be her son, wept for joy, and they all forgot the prophecy that he\nwould be a burning torch of fire, and Priam gave him a house like those\nof his brothers, the Trojan princes.\n\nThe fame of beautiful Helen reached Troy, and Paris quite forgot unhappy\nOEnone, and must needs go to see Helen for himself.  Perhaps he meant to\ntry to win her for his wife, before her marriage.  But sailing was little\nunderstood in these times, and the water was wide, and men were often\ndriven for years out of their course, to Egypt, and Africa, and far away\ninto the unknown seas, where fairies lived in enchanted islands, and\ncannibals dwelt in caves of the hills.\n\nParis came much too late to have a chance of marrying Helen; however, he\nwas determined to see her, and he made his way to her palace beneath the\nmountain Taygetus, beside the clear swift river Eurotas.  The servants\ncame out of the hall when they heard the sound of wheels and horses'\nfeet, and some of them took the horses to the stables, and tilted the\nchariots against the gateway, while others led Paris into the hall, which\nshone like the sun with gold and silver.  Then Paris and his companions\nwere led to the baths, where they were bathed, and clad in new clothes,\nmantles of white, and robes of purple, and next they were brought before\nKing Menelaus, and he welcomed them kindly, and meat was set before them,\nand wine in cups of gold.  While they were talking, Helen came forth from\nher fragrant chamber, like a Goddess, her maidens following her, and\ncarrying for her an ivory distaff with violet-coloured wool, which she\nspan as she sat, and heard Paris tell how far he had travelled to see her\nwho was so famous for her beauty even in countries far away.\n\nThen Paris knew that he had never seen, and never could see, a lady so\nlovely and gracious as Helen as she sat and span, while the red drops\nfell and vanished from the ruby called the Star; and Helen knew that\namong all the princes in the world there was none so beautiful as Paris.\nNow some say that Paris, by art magic, put on the appearance of Menelaus,\nand asked Helen to come sailing with him, and that she, thinking he was\nher husband, followed him, and he carried her across the wide waters of\nTroy, away from her lord and her one beautiful little daughter, the child\nHermione.  And others say that the Gods carried Helen herself off to\nEgypt, and that they made in her likeness a beautiful ghost, out of\nflowers and sunset clouds, whom Paris bore to Troy, and this they did to\ncause war between Greeks and Trojans.  Another story is that Helen and\nher bower maiden and her jewels were seized by force, when Menelaus was\nout hunting.  It is only certain that Paris and Helen did cross the seas\ntogether, and that Menelaus and little Hermione were left alone in the\nmelancholy palace beside the Eurotas.  Penelope, we know for certain,\nmade no excuses for her beautiful cousin, but hated her as the cause of\nher own sorrows and of the deaths of thousands of men in war, for all the\nGreek princes were bound by their oath to fight for Menelaus against any\none who injured him and stole his wife away.  But Helen was very unhappy\nin Troy, and blamed herself as bitterly as all the other women blamed\nher, and most of all OEnone, who had been the love of Paris.  The men\nwere much more kind to Helen, and were determined to fight to the death\nrather than lose the sight of her beauty among them.\n\nThe news of the dishonour done to Menelaus and to all the princes of\nGreece ran through the country like fire through a forest.  East and west\nand south and north went the news: to kings in their castles on the\nhills, and beside the rivers and on cliffs above the sea.  The cry came\nto ancient Nestor of the white beard at Pylos, Nestor who had reigned\nover two generations of men, who had fought against the wild folk of the\nhills, and remembered the strong Heracles, and Eurytus of the black bow\nthat sang before the day of battle.\n\nThe cry came to black-bearded Agamemnon, in his strong town called\n\"golden Mycenae,\" because it was so rich; it came to the people in\nThisbe, where the wild doves haunt; and it came to rocky Pytho, where is\nthe sacred temple of Apollo and the maid who prophesies.  It came to\nAias, the tallest and strongest of men, in his little isle of Salamis;\nand to Diomede of the loud war-cry, the bravest of warriors, who held\nArgos and Tiryns of the black walls of huge, stones, that are still\nstanding.  The summons came to the western islands and to Ulysses in\nIthaca, and even far south to the great island of Crete of the hundred\ncities, where Idomeneus ruled in Cnossos; Idomeneus, whose ruined palace\nmay still be seen with the throne of the king, and pictures painted on\nthe walls, and the King's own draught-board of gold and silver, and\nhundreds of tablets of clay, on which are written the lists of royal\ntreasures.  Far north went the news to Pelasgian Argos, and Hellas, where\nthe people of Peleus dwelt, the Myrmidons; but Peleus was too old to\nfight, and his boy, Achilles, dwelt far away, in the island of Scyros,\ndressed as a girl, among the daughters of King Lycomedes.  To many\nanother town and to a hundred islands went the bitter news of approaching\nwar, for all princes knew that their honour and their oaths compelled\nthem to gather their spearmen, and bowmen, and slingers from the fields\nand the fishing, and to make ready their ships, and meet King Agamemnon\nin the harbour of Aulis, and cross the wide sea to besiege Troy town.\n\nNow the story is told that Ulysses was very unwilling to leave his island\nand his wife Penelope, and little Telemachus; while Penelope had no wish\nthat he should pass into danger, and into the sight of Helen of the fair\nhands.  So it is said that when two of the princes came to summon\nUlysses, he pretended to be mad, and went ploughing the sea sand with\noxen, and sowing the sand with salt.  Then the prince Palamedes took the\nbaby Telemachus from the arms of his nurse, Eurycleia, and laid him in\nthe line of the furrow, where the ploughshare would strike him and kill\nhim.  But Ulysses turned the plough aside, and they cried that he was not\nmad, but sane, and he must keep his oath, and join the fleet at Aulis, a\nlong voyage for him to sail, round the stormy southern Cape of Maleia.\n\nWhether this tale be true or not, Ulysses did go, leading twelve black\nships, with high beaks painted red at prow and stern.  The ships had\noars, and the warriors manned the oars, to row when there was no wind.\nThere was a small raised deck at each end of the ships; on these decks\nmen stood to fight with sword and spear when there was a battle at sea.\nEach ship had but one mast, with a broad lugger sail, and for anchors\nthey had only heavy stones attached to cables.  They generally landed at\nnight, and slept on the shore of one of the many islands, when they\ncould, for they greatly feared to sail out of sight of land.\n\nThe fleet consisted of more than a thousand ships, each with fifty\nwarriors, so the army was of more than fifty thousand men.  Agamemnon had\na hundred ships, Diomede had eighty, Nestor had ninety, the Cretans with\nIdomeneus, had eighty, Menelaus had sixty; but Aias and Ulysses, who\nlived in small islands, had only twelve ships apiece.  Yet Aias was so\nbrave and strong, and Ulysses so brave and wise, that they were ranked\namong the greatest chiefs and advisers of Agamemnon, with Menelaus,\nDiomede, Idomeneus, Nestor, Menestheus of Athens, and two or three\nothers.  These chiefs were called the Council, and gave advice to\nAgamemnon, who was commander-in-chief.  He was a brave fighter, but so\nanxious and fearful of losing the lives of his soldiers that Ulysses and\nDiomede were often obliged to speak to him very severely.  Agamemnon was\nalso very insolent and greedy, though, when anybody stood up to him, he\nwas ready to apologise, for fear the injured chief should renounce his\nservice and take away his soldiers.\n\nNestor was much respected because he remained brave, though he was too\nold to be very useful in battle.  He generally tried to make peace when\nthe princes quarrelled with Agamemnon.  He loved to tell long stories\nabout his great deeds when he was young, and he wished the chiefs to\nfight in old-fashioned ways.\n\nFor instance, in his time the Greeks had fought in clan regiments, and\nthe princely men had never dismounted in battle, but had fought in\nsquadrons of chariots, but now the owners of chariots fought on foot,\neach man for himself, while his squire kept the chariot near him to\nescape on if he had to retreat.  Nestor wished to go back to the good old\nway of chariot charges against the crowds of foot soldiers of the enemy.\nIn short, he was a fine example of the old-fashioned soldier.\n\nAias, though so very tall, strong, and brave, was rather stupid.  He\nseldom spoke, but he was always ready to fight, and the last to retreat.\nMenelaus was weak of body, but as brave as the best, or more brave, for\nhe had a keen sense of honour, and would attempt what he had not the\nstrength to do.  Diomede and Ulysses were great friends, and always\nfought side by side, when they could, and helped each other in the most\ndangerous adventures.\n\nThese were the chiefs who led the great Greek armada from the harbour of\nAulis.  A long time had passed, after the flight of Helen, before the\nlarge fleet could be collected, and more time went by in the attempt to\ncross the sea to Troy.  There were tempests that scattered the ships, so\nthey were driven back to Aulis to refit; and they fought, as they went\nout again, with the peoples of unfriendly islands, and besieged their\ntowns.  What they wanted most of all was to have Achilles with them, for\nhe was the leader of fifty ships and 2,500 men, and he had magical armour\nmade, men said, for his father, by Hephaestus, the God of armour-making\nand smithy work.\n\nAt last the fleet came to the Isle of Scyros, where they suspected that\nAchilles was concealed.  King Lycomedes received the chiefs kindly, and\nthey saw all his beautiful daughters dancing and playing at ball, but\nAchilles was still so young and slim and so beautiful that they did not\nknow him among the others.  There was a prophecy that they could not take\nTroy without him, and yet they could not find him out.  Then Ulysses had\na plan.  He blackened his eyebrows and beard and put on the dress of a\nPhoenician merchant.  The Phoenicians were a people who lived near the\nJews, and were of the same race, and spoke much the same language, but,\nunlike the Jews, who, at that time were farmers in Palestine, tilling the\nground, and keeping flocks and herds, the Phoenicians were the greatest\nof traders and sailors, and stealers of slaves.  They carried cargoes of\nbeautiful cloths, and embroideries, and jewels of gold, and necklaces of\namber, and sold these everywhere about the shores of Greece and the\nislands.\n\nUlysses then dressed himself like a Phoenician pedlar, with his pack on\nhis back: he only took a stick in his hand, his long hair was turned up,\nand hidden under a red sailor's cap, and in this figure he came, stooping\nbeneath his pack, into the courtyard of King Lycomedes.  The girls heard\nthat a pedlar had come, and out they all ran, Achilles with the rest to\nwatch the pedlar undo his pack.  Each chose what she liked best: one took\na wreath of gold; another a necklace of gold and amber; another earrings;\na fourth a set of brooches, another a dress of embroidered scarlet cloth;\nanother a veil; another a pair of bracelets; but at the bottom of the\npack lay a great sword of bronze, the hilt studded with golden nails.\nAchilles seized the sword.  \"This is for me!\" he said, and drew the sword\nfrom the gilded sheath, and made it whistle round his head.\n\n\"You are Achilles, Peleus' son!\" said Ulysses; \"and you are to be the\nchief warrior of the Achaeans,\" for the Greeks then called themselves\nAchaeans.  Achilles was only too glad to hear these words, for he was\nquite tired of living among maidens.  Ulysses led him into the hall where\nthe chiefs were sitting at their wine, and Achilles was blushing like any\ngirl.\n\n\"Here is the Queen of the Amazons,\" said Ulysses--for the Amazons were a\nrace of warlike maidens--\"or rather here is Achilles, Peleus' son, with\nsword in hand.\"  Then they all took his hand, and welcomed him, and he\nwas clothed in man's dress, with the sword by his side, and presently\nthey sent him back with ten ships to his home.  There his mother, Thetis,\nof the silver feet, the goddess of the sea, wept over him, saying, \"My\nchild, thou hast the choice of a long and happy and peaceful life here\nwith me, or of a brief time of war and undying renown.  Never shall I see\nthee again in Argos if thy choice is for war.\"  But Achilles chose to die\nyoung, and to be famous as long as the world stands.  So his father gave\nhim fifty ships, with Patroclus, who was older than he, to be his friend,\nand with an old man, Phoenix, to advise him; and his mother gave him the\nglorious armour that the God had made for his father, and the heavy ashen\nspear that none but he could wield, and he sailed to join the host of the\nAchaeans, who all praised and thanked Ulysses that had found for them\nsuch a prince.  For Achilles was the fiercest fighter of them all, and\nthe swiftest-footed man, and the most courteous prince, and the gentlest\nwith women and children, but he was proud and high of heart, and when he\nwas angered his anger was terrible.\n\nThe Trojans would have had no chance against the Greeks if only the men\nof the city of Troy had fought to keep Helen of the fair hands.  But they\nhad allies, who spoke different languages, and came to fight for them\nboth from Europe and from Asia.  On the Trojan as well as on the Greek\nside were people called Pelasgians, who seem to have lived on both shores\nof the sea.  There were Thracians, too, who dwelt much further north than\nAchilles, in Europe and beside the strait of Hellespont, where the narrow\nsea runs like a river.  There were warriors of Lycia, led by Sarpedon and\nGlaucus; there were Carians, who spoke in a strange tongue; there were\nMysians and men from Alybe, which was called \"the birthplace of silver,\"\nand many other peoples sent their armies, so that the war was between\nEastern Europe, on one side, and Western Asia Minor on the other.  The\npeople of Egypt took no part in the war: the Greeks and Islesmen used to\ncome down in their ships and attack the Egyptians as the Danes used to\ninvade England.  You may see the warriors from the islands, with their\nhorned helmets, in old Egyptian pictures.\n\nThe commander-in-chief, as we say now, of the Trojans was Hector, the son\nof Priam.  He was thought a match for any one of the Greeks, and was\nbrave and good.  His brothers also were leaders, but Paris preferred to\nfight from a distance with bow and arrows.  He and Pandarus, who dwelt on\nthe slopes of Mount Ida, were the best archers in the Trojan army.  The\nprinces usually fought with heavy spears, which they threw at each other,\nand with swords, leaving archery to the common soldiers who had no armour\nof bronze.  But Teucer, Meriones, and Ulysses were the best archers of\nthe Achaeans.  People called Dardanians were led by Aeneas, who was said\nto be the son of the most beautiful of the goddesses.  These, with\nSarpedon and Glaucus, were the most famous of the men who fought for\nTroy.\n\nTroy was a strong town on a hill.  Mount Ida lay behind it, and in front\nwas a plain sloping to the sea shore.  Through this plain ran two\nbeautiful clear rivers, and there were scattered here and there what you\nwould have taken for steep knolls, but they were really mounds piled up\nover the ashes of warriors who had died long ago.  On these mounds\nsentinels used to stand and look across the water to give warning if the\nGreek fleet drew near, for the Trojans had heard that it was on its way.\nAt last the fleet came in view, and the sea was black with ships, the\noarsmen pulling with all their might for the honour of being the first to\nland.  The race was won by the ship of the prince Protesilaus, who was\nfirst of all to leap on shore, but as he leaped he was struck to the\nheart by an arrow from the bow of Paris.  This must have seemed a good\nomen to the Trojans, and to the Greeks evil, but we do not hear that the\nlanding was resisted in great force, any more than that of Norman William\nwas, when he invaded England.\n\nThe Greeks drew up all their ships on shore, and the men camped in huts\nbuilt in front of the ships.  There was thus a long row of huts with the\nships behind them, and in these huts the Greeks lived all through the ten\nyears that the siege of Troy lasted.  In these days they do not seem to\nhave understood how to conduct a siege.  You would have expected the\nGreeks to build towers and dig trenches all round Troy, and from the\ntowers watch the roads, so that provisions might not be brought in from\nthe country.  This is called \"investing\" a town, but the Greeks never\ninvested Troy.  Perhaps they had not men enough; at all events the place\nremained open, and cattle could always be driven in to feed the warriors\nand the women and children.\n\nMoreover, the Greeks for long never seem to have tried to break down one\nof the gates, nor to scale the walls, which were very high, with ladders.\nOn the other hand, the Trojans and allies never ventured to drive the\nGreeks into the sea; they commonly remained within the walls or\nskirmished just beneath them.  The older men insisted on this way of\nfighting, in spite of Hector, who always wished to attack and storm the\ncamp of the Greeks.  Neither side had machines for throwing heavy stones,\nsuch as the Romans used later, and the most that the Greeks did was to\nfollow Achilles and capture small neighbouring cities, and take the women\nfor slaves, and drive the cattle.  They got provisions and wine from the\nPhoenicians, who came in ships, and made much profit out of the war.\n\nIt was not till the tenth year that the war began in real earnest, and\nscarcely any of the chief leaders had fallen.  Fever came upon the\nGreeks, and all day the camp was black with smoke, and all night shone\nwith fire from the great piles of burning wood, on which the Greeks\nburned their dead, whose bones they then buried under hillocks of earth.\nMany of these hillocks are still standing on the plain of Troy.  When the\nplague had raged for ten days, Achilles called an assembly of the whole\narmy, to try to find out why the Gods were angry.  They thought that the\nbeautiful God Apollo (who took the Trojan side) was shooting invisible\narrows at them from his silver bow, though fevers in armies are usually\ncaused by dirt and drinking bad water.  The great heat of the sun, too,\nmay have helped to cause the disease; but we must tell the story as the\nGreeks told it themselves.  So Achilles spoke in the assembly, and\nproposed to ask some prophet why Apollo was angry.  The chief prophet was\nCalchas.  He rose and said that he would declare the truth if Achilles\nwould promise to protect him from the anger of any prince whom the truth\nmight offend.\n\nAchilles knew well whom Calchas meant.  Ten days before, a priest of\nApollo had come to the camp and offered ransom for his daughter Chryseis,\na beautiful girl, whom Achilles had taken prisoner, with many others,\nwhen he captured a small town.  Chryseis had been given as a slave to\nAgamemnon, who always got the best of the plunder because he was chief\nking, whether he had taken part in the fighting or not.  As a rule he did\nnot.  To Achilles had been given another girl, Briseis, of whom he was\nvery fond.  Now when Achilles had promised to protect Calchas, the\nprophet spoke out, and boldly said, what all men knew already, that\nApollo caused the plague because Agamemnon would not return Chryseis, and\nhad insulted her father, the priest of the God.\n\nOn hearing this, Agamemnon was very angry.  He said that he would send\nChryseis home, but that he would take Briseis away from Achilles.  Then\nAchilles was drawing his great sword from the sheath to kill Agamemnon,\nbut even in his anger he knew that this was wrong, so he merely called\nAgamemnon a greedy coward, \"with face of dog and heart of deer,\" and he\nswore that he and his men would fight no more against the Trojans.  Old\nNestor tried to make peace, and swords were not drawn, but Briseis was\ntaken away from Achilles, and Ulysses put Chryseis on board of his ship\nand sailed away with her to her father's town, and gave her up to her\nfather.  Then her father prayed to Apollo that the plague might cease,\nand it did cease--when the Greeks had cleansed their camp, and purified\nthemselves and cast their filth into the sea.\n\nWe know how fierce and brave Achilles was, and we may wonder that he did\nnot challenge Agamemnon to fight a duel.  But the Greeks never fought\nduels, and Agamemnon was believed to be chief king by right divine.\nAchilles went alone to the sea shore when his dear Briseis was led away,\nand he wept, and called to his mother, the silver-footed lady of the\nwaters.  Then she arose from the grey sea, like a mist, and sat down\nbeside her son, and stroked his hair with her hand, and he told her all\nhis sorrows.  So she said that she would go up to the dwelling of the\nGods, and pray Zeus, the chief of them all, to make the Trojans win a\ngreat battle, so that Agamemnon should feel his need of Achilles, and\nmake amends for his insolence, and do him honour.\n\nThetis kept her promise, and Zeus gave his word that the Trojans should\ndefeat the Greeks.  That night Zeus sent a deceitful dream to Agamemnon.\nThe dream took the shape of old Nestor, and said that Zeus would give him\nvictory that day.  While he was still asleep, Agamemnon was fun of hope\nthat he would instantly take Troy, but, when he woke, he seems not to\nhave been nearly so confident, for in place of putting on his armour, and\nbidding the Greeks arm themselves, he merely dressed in his robe and\nmantle, took his sceptre, and went and told the chiefs about his dream.\nThey did not feel much encouraged, so he said that he would try the\ntemper of the army.  He would call them together, and propose to return\nto Greece; but, if the soldiers took him at his word, the other chiefs\nwere to stop them.  This was a foolish plan, for the soldiers were\nwearying for beautiful Greece, and their homes, and wives and children.\nTherefore, when Agamemnon did as he had said, the whole army rose, like\nthe sea under the west wind, and, with a shout, they rushed to the ships,\nwhile the dust blew in clouds from under their feet.  Then they began to\nlaunch their ships, and it seems that the princes were carried away in\nthe rush, and were as eager as the rest to go home.\n\nBut Ulysses only stood in sorrow and anger beside his ship, and never put\nhand to it, for he felt how disgraceful it was to run away.  At last he\nthrew down his mantle, which his herald Eurybates of Ithaca, a\nround-shouldered, brown, curly-haired man, picked up, and he ran to find\nAgamemnon, and took his sceptre, a gold-studded staff, like a marshal's\nbaton, and he gently told the chiefs whom he met that they were doing a\nshameful thing; but he drove the common soldiers back to the place of\nmeeting with the sceptre.  They all returned, puzzled and chattering, but\none lame, bandy-legged, bald, round-shouldered, impudent fellow, named\nThersites, jumped up and made an insolent speech, insulting the princes,\nand advising the army to run away.  Then Ulysses took him and beat him\ntill the blood came, and he sat down, wiping away his tears, and looking\nso foolish that the whole army laughed at him, and cheered Ulysses when\nhe and Nestor bade them arm and fight.  Agamemnon still believed a good\ndeal in his dream, and prayed that he might take Troy that very day, and\nkill Hector.  Thus Ulysses alone saved the army from a cowardly retreat;\nbut for him the ships would have been launched in an hour.  But the\nGreeks armed and advanced in full force, all except Achilles and his\nfriend Patroclus with their two or three thousand men.  The Trojans also\ntook heart, knowing that Achilles would not fight, and the armies\napproached each other.  Paris himself, with two spears and a bow, and\nwithout armour, walked into the space between the hosts, and challenged\nany Greek prince to single combat.  Menelaus, whose wife Paris had\ncarried away, was as glad as a hungry lion when he finds a stag or a\ngoat, and leaped in armour from his chariot, but Paris turned and slunk\naway, like a man when he meets a great serpent on a narrow path in the\nhills.  Then Hector rebuked Paris for his cowardice, and Paris was\nashamed and offered to end the war by fighting Menelaus.  If he himself\nfell, the Trojans must give up Helen and all her jewels; if Menelaus\nfell, the Greeks were to return without fair Helen.  The Greeks accepted\nthis plan, and both sides disarmed themselves to look on at the fight in\ncomfort, and they meant to take the most solemn oaths to keep peace till\nthe combat was lost and won, and the quarrel settled.  Hector sent into\nTroy for two lambs, which were to be sacrificed when the oaths were\ntaken.\n\nIn the meantime Helen of the fair hands was at home working at a great\npurple tapestry on which she embroidered the battles of the Greeks and\nTrojans.  It was just like the tapestry at Bayeux on which Norman ladies\nembroidered the battles in the Norman Conquest of England.  Helen was\nvery fond of embroidering, like poor Mary, Queen of Scots, when a\nprisoner in Loch Leven Castle.  Probably the work kept both Helen and\nMary from thinking of their past lives and their sorrows.\n\nWhen Helen heard that her husband was to fight Paris, she wept, and threw\na shining veil over her head, and with her two bower maidens went to the\nroof of the gate tower, where king Priam was sitting with the old Trojan\nchiefs.  They saw her and said that it was small blame to fight for so\nbeautiful a lady, and Priam called her \"dear child,\" and said, \"I do not\nblame you, I blame the Gods who brought about this war.\"  But Helen said\nthat she wished she had died before she left her little daughter and her\nhusband, and her home: \"Alas! shameless me!\"  Then she told Priam the\nnames of the chief Greek warriors, and of Ulysses, who was shorter by a\nhead than Agamemnon, but broader in chest and shoulders.  She wondered\nthat she could not see her own two brothers, Castor and Polydeuces, and\nthought that they kept aloof in shame for her sin; but the green grass\ncovered their graves, for they had both died in battle, far away in\nLacedaemon, their own country.\n\nThen the lambs were sacrificed, and the oaths were taken, and Paris put\non his brother's armour, helmet, breastplate, shield, and leg-armour.\nLots were drawn to decide whether Paris or Menelaus should throw his\nspear first, and, as Paris won, he threw his spear, but the point was\nblunted against the shield of Menelaus.  But when Menelaus threw his\nspear it went clean through the shield of Paris, and through the side of\nhis breastplate, but only grazed his robe.  Menelaus drew his sword, and\nrushed in, and smote at the crest of the helmet of Paris, but his bronze\nblade broke into four pieces.  Menelaus caught Paris by the horsehair\ncrest of his helmet, and dragged him towards the Greeks, but the chin-\nstrap broke, and Menelaus turning round threw the helmet into the ranks\nof the Greeks.  But when Menelaus looked again for Paris, with a spear in\nhis hand, he could see him nowhere!  The Greeks believed that the\nbeautiful goddess Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus, hid him in a\nthick cloud of darkness and carried him to his own house, where Helen of\nthe fair hands found him and said to him, \"Would that thou hadst\nperished, conquered by that great warrior who was my lord!  Go forth\nagain and challenge him to fight thee face to face.\"  But Paris had no\nmore desire to fight, and the Goddess threatened Helen, and compelled her\nto remain with him in Troy, coward as he had proved himself.  Yet on\nother days Paris fought well; it seems that he was afraid of Menelaus\nbecause, in his heart, he was ashamed of himself.\n\nMeanwhile Menelaus was seeking for Paris everywhere, and the Trojans, who\nhated him, would have shown his hiding place.  But they knew not where he\nwas, and the Greeks claimed the victory, and thought that, as Paris had\nthe worst of the fight, Helen would be restored to them, and they would\nall sail home.\n\n\n\n\nTROJAN VICTORIES\n\n\nThe war might now have ended, but an evil and foolish thought came to\nPandarus, a prince of Ida, who fought for the Trojans.  He chose to shoot\nan arrow at Menelaus, contrary to the sworn vows of peace, and the arrow\npierced the breastplate of Menelaus through the place where the clasped\nplates meet, and drew his blood.  Then Agamemnon, who loved his brother\ndearly, began to lament, saying that if he died, the army would all go\nhome and Trojans would dance on the grave of Menelaus.  \"Do not alarm all\nour army,\" said Menelaus, \"the arrow has done me little harm;\" and so it\nproved, for the surgeon easily drew the arrow out of the wound.\n\nThen Agamemnon hastened here and there, bidding the Greeks arm and attack\nthe Trojans, who would certainly be defeated, for they had broken the\noaths of peace.  But with his usual insolence he chose to accuse Ulysses\nand Diomede of cowardice, though Diomede was as brave as any man, and\nUlysses had just prevented the whole army from launching their ships and\ngoing home.  Ulysses answered him with spirit, but Diomede said nothing\nat the moment; later he spoke his mind.  He leaped from his chariot, and\nall the chiefs leaped down and advanced in line, the chariots following\nthem, while the spearmen and bowmen followed the chariots.  The Trojan\narmy advanced, all shouting in their different languages, but the Greeks\ncame on silently.  Then the two front lines clashed, shield against\nshield, and the noise was like the roaring of many flooded torrents among\nthe hills.  When a man fell he who had slain him tried to strip off his\narmour, and his friends fought over his body to save the dead from this\ndishonour.\n\nUlysses fought above a wounded friend, and drove his spear through head\nand helmet of a Trojan prince, and everywhere men were falling beneath\nspears and arrows and heavy stones which the warriors threw.  Here\nMenelaus speared the man who built the ships with which Paris had sailed\nto Greece; and the dust rose like a cloud, and a mist went up from the\nfighting men, while Diomede stormed across the plain like a river in\nflood, leaving dead bodies behind him as the river leaves boughs of trees\nand grass to mark its course.  Pandarus wounded Diomede with an arrow,\nbut Diomede slew him, and the Trojans were being driven in flight, when\nSarpedon and Hector turned and hurled themselves on the Greeks; and even\nDiomede shuddered when Hector came on, and charged at Ulysses, who was\nslaying Trojans as he went, and the battle swayed this way and that, and\nthe arrows fell like rain.\n\nBut Hector was sent into the city to bid the women pray to the goddess\nAthene for help, and he went to the house of Paris, whom Helen was\nimploring to go and fight like a man, saying: \"Would that the winds had\nwafted me away, and the tides drowned me, shameless that I am, before\nthese things came to pass!\"\n\nThen Hector went to see his dear wife, Andromache, whose father had been\nslain by Achilles early in the siege, and he found her and her nurse\ncarrying her little boy, Hector's son, and like a star upon her bosom lay\nhis beautiful and shining golden head.  Now, while Helen urged Paris to\ngo into the fight, Andromache prayed Hector to stay with her in the town,\nand fight no more lest he should be slain and leave her a widow, and the\nboy an orphan, with none to protect him.  The army she said, should come\nback within the walls, where they had so long been safe, not fight in the\nopen plain.  But Hector answered that he would never shrink from battle,\n\"yet I know this in my heart, the day shall come for holy Troy to be laid\nlow, and Priam and the people of Priam.  But this and my own death do not\ntrouble me so much as the thought of you, when you shall be carried as a\nslave to Greece, to spin at another woman's bidding, and bear water from\na Grecian well.  May the heaped up earth of my tomb cover me ere I hear\nthy cries and the tale of thy captivity.\"\n\nThen Hector stretched out his hands to his little boy, but the child was\nafraid when he saw the great glittering helmet of his father and the\nnodding horsehair crest.  So Hector laid his helmet on the ground and\ndandled the child in his arms, and tried to comfort his wife, and said\ngood-bye for the last time, for he never came back to Troy alive.  He\nwent on his way back to the battle, and Paris went with him, in glorious\narmour, and soon they were slaying the princes of the Greeks.\n\nThe battle raged till nightfall, and in the night the Greeks and Trojans\nburned their dead; and the Greeks made a trench and wall round their\ncamp, which they needed for safety now that the Trojans came from their\ntown and fought in the open plain.\n\nNext day the Trojans were so successful that they did not retreat behind\ntheir walls at night, but lit great fires on the plain: a thousand fires,\nwith fifty men taking supper round each of them, and drinking their wine\nto the music of flutes.  But the Greeks were much discouraged, and\nAgamemnon called the whole army together, and proposed that they should\nlaunch their ships in the night and sail away home.  Then Diomede stood\nup, and said: \"You called me a coward lately.  You are the coward!  Sail\naway if you are afraid to remain here, but all the rest of us will fight\ntill we take Troy town.\"\n\nThen all shouted in praise of Diomede, and Nestor advised them to send\nfive hundred young men, under his own son, Thrasymedes, to watch the\nTrojans, and guard the new wall and the ditch, in case the Trojans\nattacked them in the darkness.  Next Nestor counselled Agamemnon to send\nUlysses and Aias to Achilles, and promise to give back Briseis, and rich\npresents of gold, and beg pardon for his insolence.  If Achilles would be\nfriends again with Agamemnon, and fight as he used to fight, the Trojans\nwould soon be driven back into the town.\n\nAgamemnon was very ready to beg pardon, for he feared that the whole army\nwould be defeated, and cut off from their ships, and killed or kept as\nslaves.  So Ulysses and Aias and the old tutor of Achilles, Phoenix, went\nto Achilles and argued with him, praying him to accept the rich presents,\nand help the Greeks.  But Achilles answered that he did not believe a\nword that Agamemnon said; Agamemnon had always hated him, and always\nwould hate him.  No; he would not cease to be angry, he would sail away\nnext day with all his men, and he advised the rest to come with him.  \"Why\nbe so fierce?\" said tall Aias, who seldom spoke.  \"Why make so much\ntrouble about one girl?  We offer you seven girls, and plenty of other\ngifts.\"\n\nThen Achilles said that he would not sail away next day, but he would not\nfight till the Trojans tried to burn his own ships, and there he thought\nthat Hector would find work enough to do.  This was the most that\nAchilles would promise, and all the Greeks were silent when Ulysses\ndelivered his message.  But Diomede arose and said that, with or without\nAchilles, fight they must; and all men, heavy at heart, went to sleep in\ntheir huts or in the open air at their doors.\n\nAgamemnon was much too anxious to sleep.  He saw the glow of the thousand\nfires of the Trojans in the dark, and heard their merry flutes, and he\ngroaned and pulled out his long hair by handfuls.  When he was tired of\ncrying and groaning and tearing his hair, he thought that he would go for\nadvice to old Nestor.  He threw a lion skin, the coverlet of his bed,\nover his shoulder, took his spear, went out and met Menelaus--for he,\ntoo, could not sleep--and Menelaus proposed to send a spy among the\nTrojans, if any man were brave enough to go, for the Trojan camp was all\nalight with fires, and the adventure was dangerous.  Therefore the two\nwakened Nestor and the other chiefs, who came just as they were, wrapped\nin the fur coverlets of their beds, without any armour.  First they\nvisited the five hundred young men set to watch the wall, and then they\ncrossed the ditch and sat down outside and considered what might be done.\n\"Will nobody go as a spy among the Trojans?\" said Nestor; he meant would\nnone of the young men go.  Diomede said that he would take the risk if\nany other man would share it with him, and, if he might choose a\ncompanion, he would take Ulysses.\n\n\"Come, then, let us be going,\" said Ulysses, \"for the night is late, and\nthe dawn is near.\"  As these two chiefs had no armour on, they borrowed\nshields and leather caps from the young men of the guard, for leather\nwould not shine as bronze helmets shine in the firelight.  The cap lent\nto Ulysses was strengthened outside with rows of boars' tusks.  Many of\nthese tusks, shaped for this purpose, have been found, with swords and\narmour, in a tomb in Mycenae, the town of Agamemnon.  This cap which was\nlent to Ulysses had once been stolen by his grandfather, Autolycus, who\nwas a Master Thief, and he gave it as a present to a friend, and so,\nthrough several hands, it had come to young Meriones of Crete, one of the\nfive hundred guards, who now lent it to Ulysses.  So the two princes set\nforth in the dark, so dark it was that though they heard a heron cry,\nthey could not see it as it flew away.\n\nWhile Ulysses and Diomede stole through the night silently, like two\nwolves among the bodies of dead men, the Trojan leaders met and\nconsidered what they ought to do.  They did not know whether the Greeks\nhad set sentinels and outposts, as usual, to give warning if the enemy\nwere approaching; or whether they were too weary to keep a good watch; or\nwhether perhaps they were getting ready their ships to sail homewards in\nthe dawn.  So Hector offered a reward to any man who would creep through\nthe night and spy on the Greeks; he said he would give the spy the two\nbest horses in the Greek camp.\n\nNow among the Trojans there was a young man named Dolon, the son of a\nrich father, and he was the only boy in a family of five sisters.  He was\nugly, but a very swift runner, and he cared for horses more than for\nanything else in the world.  Dolon arose and said, \"If you will swear to\ngive me the horses and chariot of Achilles, son of Peleus, I will steal\nto the hut of Agamemnon and listen and find out whether the Greeks mean\nto fight or flee.\"  Hector swore to give these horses, which were the\nbest in the world, to Dolon, so he took his bow and threw a grey wolf's\nhide over his shoulders, and ran towards the ships of the Greeks.\n\nNow Ulysses saw Dolon as he came, and said to Diomede, \"Let us suffer him\nto pass us, and then do you keep driving him with your spear towards the\nships, and away from Troy.\"  So Ulysses and Diomede lay down among the\ndead men who had fallen in the battle, and Dolon ran on past them towards\nthe Greeks.  Then they rose and chased him as two greyhounds course a\nhare, and, when Dolon was near the sentinels, Diomede cried \"Stand, or I\nwill slay you with my spear!\" and he threw his spear just over Dolon's\nshoulder.  So Dolon stood still, green with fear, and with his teeth\nchattering.  When the two came up, he cried, and said that his father was\na rich man, who would pay much gold, and bronze, and iron for his ransom.\n\nUlysses said, \"Take heart, and put death out of your mind, and tell us\nwhat you are doing here.\"  Dolon said that Hector had promised him the\nhorses of Achilles if he would go and spy on the Greeks.  \"You set your\nhopes high,\" said Ulysses, \"for the horses of Achilles are not earthly\nsteeds, but divine; a gift of the Gods, and Achilles alone can drive\nthem.  But, tell me, do the Trojans keep good watch, and where is Hector\nwith his horses?\" for Ulysses thought that it would be a great adventure\nto drive away the horses of Hector.\n\n\"Hector is with the chiefs, holding council at the tomb of Ilus,\" said\nDolon; \"but no regular guard is set.  The people of Troy, indeed, are\nround their watch fires, for they have to think of the safety of their\nwives and children; but the allies from far lands keep no watch, for\ntheir wives and children are safe at home.\"  Then he told where all the\ndifferent peoples who fought for Priam had their stations; but, said he,\n\"if you want to steal horses, the best are those of Rhesus, King of the\nThracians, who has only joined us to-night.  He and his men are asleep at\nthe furthest end of the line, and his horses are the best and greatest\nthat ever I saw: tall, white as snow, and swift as the wind, and his\nchariot is adorned with gold and silver, and golden is his armour.  Now\ntake me prisoner to the ships, or bind me and leave me here while you go\nand try whether I have told you truth or lies.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Diomede, \"if I spare your life you may come spying again,\" and\nhe drew his sword and smote off the head of Dolon.  They hid his cap and\nbow and spear where they could find them easily, and marked the spot, and\nwent through the night to the dark camp of King Rhesus, who had no watch-\nfire and no guards.  Then Diomede silently stabbed each sleeping man to\nthe heart, and Ulysses seized the dead by the feet and threw them aside\nlest they should frighten the horses, which had never been in battle, and\nwould shy if they were led over the bodies of dead men.  Last of all\nDiomede killed King Rhesus, and Ulysses led forth his horses, beating\nthem with his bow, for he had forgotten to take the whip from the\nchariot.  Then Ulysses and Diomede leaped on the backs of the horses, as\nthey had not time to bring away the chariot, and they galloped to the\nships, stopping to pick up the spear, and bow, and cap of Dolon.  They\nrode to the princes, who welcomed them, and all laughed for glee when\nthey saw the white horses and heard that King Rhesus was dead, for they\nguessed that all his army would now go home to Thrace.  This they must\nhave done, for we never hear of them in the battles that followed, so\nUlysses and Diomede deprived the Trojans of thousands of men.  The other\nprinces went to bed in good spirits, but Ulysses and Diomede took a swim\nin the sea, and then went into hot baths, and so to breakfast, for rosy-\nfingered Dawn was coming up the sky.\n\n\n\n\nBATTLE AT THE SHIPS\n\n\nWith dawn Agamemnon awoke, and fear had gone out of his heart.  He put on\nhis armour, and arrayed the chiefs on foot in front of their chariots,\nand behind them came the spearmen, with the bowmen and slingers on the\nwings of the army.  Then a great black cloud spread over the sky, and red\nwas the rain that fell from it.  The Trojans gathered on a height in the\nplain, and Hector, shining in armour, went here and there, in front and\nrear, like a star that now gleams forth and now is hidden in a cloud.\n\nThe armies rushed on each other and hewed each other down, as reapers cut\ntheir way through a field of tall corn.  Neither side gave ground, though\nthe helmets of the bravest Trojans might be seen deep in the ranks of the\nGreeks; and the swords of the bravest Greeks rose and fell in the ranks\nof the Trojans, and all the while the arrows showered like rain.  But at\nnoon-day, when the weary woodman rests from cutting trees, and takes his\ndinner in the quiet hills, the Greeks of the first line made a charge,\nAgamemnon running in front of them, and he speared two Trojans, and took\ntheir breastplates, which he laid in his chariot, and then he speared one\nbrother of Hector and struck another down with his sword, and killed two\nmore who vainly asked to be made prisoners of war.  Footmen slew footmen,\nand chariot men slew chariot men, and they broke into the Trojan line as\nfire falls on a forest in a windy day, leaping and roaring and racing\nthrough the trees.  Many an empty chariot did the horses hurry madly\nthrough the field, for the charioteers were lying dead, with the greedy\nvultures hovering above them, flapping their wide wings.  Still Agamemnon\nfollowed and slew the hindmost Trojans, but the rest fled till they came\nto the gates, and the oak tree that grew outside the gates, and there\nthey stopped.\n\nBut Hector held his hands from fighting, for in the meantime he was\nmaking his men face the enemy and form up in line and take breath, and\nwas encouraging them, for they had retreated from the wall of the Greeks\nacross the whole plain, past the hill that was the tomb of Ilus, a king\nof old, and past the place of the wild fig-tree.  Much ado had Hector to\nrally the Trojans, but he knew that when men do turn again they are hard\nto beat.  So it proved, for when the Trojans had rallied and formed in\nline, Agamemnon slew a Thracian chief who had come to fight for Troy\nbefore King Rhesus came.  But the eldest brother of the slain man smote\nAgamemnon through the arm with his spear, and, though Agamemnon slew him\nin turn, his wound bled much and he was in great pain, so he leaped into\nhis chariot and was driven back to the ships.\n\nThen Hector gave the word to charge, as a huntsman cries on his hounds\nagainst a lion, and he rushed forward at the head of the Trojan line,\nslaying as he went.  Nine chiefs of the Greeks he slew, and fell upon the\nspearmen and scattered them, as the spray of the waves is scattered by\nthe wandering wind.\n\nNow the ranks of the Greeks were broken, and they would have been driven\namong their ships and killed without mercy, had not Ulysses and Diomede\nstood firm in the centre, and slain four Trojan leaders.  The Greeks\nbegan to come back and face their enemies in line of battle again, though\nHector, who had been fighting on the Trojan right, rushed against them.\nBut Diomede took good aim with his spear at the helmet of Hector, and\nstruck it fairly.  The spear-point did not go through the helmet, but\nHector was stunned and fell; and, when he came to himself, he leaped into\nhis chariot, and his squire drove him against the Pylians and Cretans,\nunder Nestor and Idomeneus, who were on the left wing of the Greek army.\nThen Diomede fought on till Paris, who stood beside the pillar on the\nhillock that was the tomb of old King Ilus, sent an arrow clean through\nhis foot.  Ulysses went and stood in front of Diomede, who sat down, and\nUlysses drew the arrow from his foot, and Diomede stepped into his\nchariot and was driven back to the ships.\n\nUlysses was now the only Greek chief that still fought in the centre.  The\nGreeks all fled, and he was alone in the crowd of Trojans, who rushed on\nhim as hounds and hunters press round a wild boar that stands at bay in a\nwood.  \"They are cowards that flee from the fight,\" said Ulysses to\nhimself; \"but I will stand here, one man against a multitude.\"  He\ncovered the front of his body with his great shield, that hung by a belt\nround his neck, and he smote four Trojans and wounded a fifth.  But the\nbrother of the wounded man drove a spear through the shield and\nbreastplate of Ulysses, and tore clean through his side.  Then Ulysses\nturned on this Trojan, and he fled, and Ulysses sent a spear through his\nshoulder and out at his breast, and he died.  Ulysses dragged from his\nown side the spear that had wounded him, and called thrice with a great\nvoice to the other Greeks, and Menelaus and Aias rushed to rescue him,\nfor many Trojans were round him, like jackals round a wounded stag that a\nman has struck with an arrow.  But Aias ran and covered the wounded\nUlysses with his huge shield till he could climb into the chariot of\nMenelaus, who drove him back to the ships.\n\nMeanwhile, Hector was slaying the Greeks on the left of their battle, and\nParis struck the Greek surgeon, Machaon, with an arrow; and Idomeneus\nbade Nestor put Machaon in his chariot and drive him to Nestor's hut,\nwhere his wound might be tended.  Meanwhile, Hector sped to the centre of\nthe line, where Aias was slaying the Trojans; but Eurypylus, a Greek\nchief, was wounded by an arrow from the bow of Paris, and his friends\nguarded him with their shields and spears.\n\nThus the best of the Greeks were wounded and out of the battle, save\nAias, and the spearmen were in flight.  Meanwhile Achilles was standing\nby the stern of his ship watching the defeat of the Greeks, but when he\nsaw Machaon being carried past, sorely wounded, in the chariot of Nestor,\nhe bade his friend Patroclus, whom he loved better than all the rest, to\ngo and ask how Machaon did.  He was sitting drinking wine with Nestor\nwhen Patroclus came, and Nestor told Patroclus how many of the chiefs\nwere wounded, and though Patroclus was in a hurry Nestor began a very\nlong story about his own great deeds of war, done when he was a young\nman.  At last he bade Patroclus tell Achilles that, if he would not fight\nhimself, he should at least send out his men under Patroclus, who should\nwear the splendid armour of Achilles.  Then the Trojans would think that\nAchilles himself had returned to the battle, and they would be afraid,\nfor none of them dared to meet Achilles hand to hand.\n\nSo Patroclus ran off to Achilles; but, on his way, he met the wounded\nEurypylus, and he took him to his hut and cut the arrow out of his thigh\nwith a knife, and washed the wound with warm water, and rubbed over it a\nbitter root to take the pain away.  Thus he waited for some time with\nEurypylus, but the advice of Nestor was in the end to cause the death of\nPatroclus.  The battle now raged more fiercely, while Agamemnon and\nDiomede and Ulysses could only limp about leaning on their spears; and\nagain Agamemnon wished to moor the ships near shore, and embark in the\nnight and run away.  But Ulysses was very angry with him, and said: \"You\nshould lead some other inglorious army, not us, who will fight on till\nevery soul of us perish, rather than flee like cowards!  Be silent, lest\nthe soldiers hear you speaking of flight, such words as no man should\nutter.  I wholly scorn your counsel, for the Greeks will lose heart if,\nin the midst of battle, you bid them launch the ships.\"\n\nAgamemnon was ashamed, and, by Diomede's advice, the wounded kings went\ndown to the verge of the war to encourage the others, though they were\nthemselves unable to fight.  They rallied the Greeks, and Aias led them\nand struck Hector full in the breast with a great rock, so that his\nfriends carried him out of the battle to the river side, where they\npoured water over him, but he lay fainting on the ground, the black blood\ngushing up from his mouth.  While Hector lay there, and all men thought\nthat he would die, Aias and Idomeneus were driving back the Trojans, and\nit seemed that, even without Achilles and his men, the Greeks were able\nto hold their own against the Trojans.  But the battle was never lost\nwhile Hector lived.  People in those days believed in \"omens:\" they\nthought that the appearance of birds on the right or left hand meant good\nor bad luck.  Once during the battle a Trojan showed Hector an unlucky\nbird, and wanted him to retreat into the town.  But Hector said, \"One\nomen is the best: to fight for our own country.\"  While Hector lay\nbetween death and life the Greeks were winning, for the Trojans had no\nother great chief to lead them.  But Hector awoke from his faint, and\nleaped to his feet and ran here and there, encouraging the men of Troy.\nThen the most of the Greeks fled when they saw him; but Aias and\nIdomeneus, and the rest of the bravest, formed in a square between the\nTrojans and the ships, and down on them came Hector and Aeneas and Paris,\nthrowing their spears, and slaying on every hand.  The Greeks turned and\nran, and the Trojans would have stopped to strip the armour from the\nslain men, but Hector cried: \"Haste to the ships and leave the spoils of\nwar.  I will slay any man who lags behind!\"\n\nOn this, all the Trojans drove their chariots down into the ditch that\nguarded the ships of the Greeks, as when a great wave sweeps at sea over\nthe side of a vessel; and the Greeks were on the ship decks, thrusting\nwith very long spears, used in sea fights, and the Trojans were boarding\nthe ships, and striking with swords and axes.  Hector had a lighted torch\nand tried to set fire to the ship of Aias; but Aias kept him back with\nthe long spear, and slew a Trojan, whose lighted torch fell from his\nhand.  And Aias kept shouting: \"Come on, and drive away Hector; it is not\nto a dance that he is calling his men, but to battle.\"\n\nThe dead fell in heaps, and the living ran over them to mount the heaps\nof slain and climb the ships.  Hector rushed forward like a sea wave\nagainst a great steep rock, but like the rock stood the Greeks; still the\nTrojans charged past the beaks of the foremost ships, while Aias,\nthrusting with a spear more than twenty feet long, leaped from deck to\ndeck like a man that drives four horses abreast, and leaps from the back\nof one to the back of another.  Hector seized with his hand the stern of\nthe ship of Protesilaus, the prince whom Paris shot when he leaped ashore\non the day when the Greeks first landed; and Hector kept calling: \"Bring\nfire!\" and even Aias, in this strange sea fight on land, left the decks\nand went below, thrusting with his spear through the portholes.  Twelve\nmen lay dead who had brought fire against the ship which Aias guarded.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SLAYING AND AVENGING OF PATROCLUS\n\n\nAt this moment, when torches were blazing round the ships, and all seemed\nlost, Patroclus came out of the hut of Eurypylus, whose wound he had been\ntending, and he saw that the Greeks were in great danger, and ran weeping\nto Achilles.  \"Why do you weep,\" said Achilles, \"like a little girl that\nruns by her mother's side, and plucks at her gown and looks at her with\ntears in her eyes, till her mother takes her up in her arms?  Is there\nbad news from home that your father is dead, or mine; or are you sorry\nthat the Greeks are getting what they deserve for their folly?\"  Then\nPatroclus told Achilles how Ulysses and many other princes were wounded\nand could not fight, and begged to be allowed to put on Achilles' armour\nand lead his men, who were all fresh and unwearied, into the battle, for\na charge of two thousand fresh warriors might turn the fortune of the\nday.\n\nThen Achilles was sorry that he had sworn not to fight himself till\nHector brought fire to his own ships.  He would lend Patroclus his\narmour, and his horses, and his men; but Patroclus must only drive the\nTrojans from the ships, and not pursue them.  At this moment Aias was\nweary, so many spears smote his armour, and he could hardly hold up his\ngreat shield, and Hector cut off his spear-head with the sword; the\nbronze head fell ringing on the ground, and Aias brandished only the\npointless shaft.  So he shrank back and fire blazed all over his ship;\nand Achilles saw it, and smote his thigh, and bade Patroclus make haste.\nPatroclus armed himself in the shining armour of Achilles, which all\nTrojans feared, and leaped into the chariot where Automedon, the squire,\nhad harnessed Xanthus and Balius, two horses that were the children, men\nsaid, of the West Wind, and a led horse was harnessed beside them in the\nside traces.  Meanwhile the two thousand men of Achilles, who were called\nMyrmidons, had met in armour, five companies of four hundred apiece,\nunder five chiefs of noble names.  Forth they came, as eager as a pack of\nwolves that have eaten a great red deer and run to slake their thirst\nwith the dark water of a well in the hills.\n\nSo all in close array, helmet touching helmet and shield touching shield,\nlike a moving wall of shining bronze, the men of Achilles charged, and\nPatroclus, in the chariot led the way.  Down they came at full speed on\nthe flank of the Trojans, who saw the leader, and knew the bright armour\nand the horses of the terrible Achilles, and thought that he had returned\nto the war.  Then each Trojan looked round to see by what way he could\nescape, and when men do that in battle they soon run by the way they have\nchosen.  Patroclus rushed to the ship of Protesilaus, and slew the leader\nof the Trojans there, and drove them out, and quenched the fire; while\nthey of Troy drew back from the ships, and Aias and the other unwounded\nGreek princes leaped among them, smiting with sword and spear.  Well did\nHector know that the break in the battle had come again; but even so he\nstood, and did what he might, while the Trojans were driven back in\ndisorder across the ditch, where the poles of many chariots were broken\nand the horses fled loose across the plain.\n\nThe horses of Achilles cleared the ditch, and Patroclus drove them\nbetween the Trojans and the wall of their own town, slaying many men,\nand, chief of all, Sarpedon, king of the Lycians; and round the body of\nSarpedon the Trojans rallied under Hector, and the fight swayed this way\nand that, and there was such a noise of spears and swords smiting shields\nand helmets as when many woodcutters fell trees in a glen of the hills.\nAt last the Trojans gave way, and the Greeks stripped the armour from the\nbody of brave Sarpedon; but men say that Sleep and Death, like two winged\nangels, bore his body away to his own country.  Now Patroclus forgot how\nAchilles had told him not to pursue the Trojans across the plain, but to\nreturn when he had driven them from the ships.  On he raced, slaying as\nhe went, even till he reached the foot of the wall of Troy.  Thrice he\ntried to climb it, but thrice he fell back.\n\nHector was in his chariot in the gateway, and he bade his squire lash his\nhorses into the war, and struck at no other man, great or small, but\ndrove straight against Patroclus, who stood and threw a heavy stone at\nHector; which missed him, but killed his charioteer.  Then Patroclus\nleaped on the charioteer to strip his armour, but Hector stood over the\nbody, grasping it by the head, while Patroclus dragged at the feet, and\nspears and arrows flew in clouds around the fallen man.  At last, towards\nsunset, the Greeks drew him out of the war, and Patroclus thrice charged\ninto the thick of the Trojans.  But the helmet of Achilles was loosened\nin the fight, and fell from the head of Patroclus, and he was wounded\nfrom behind, and Hector, in front, drove his spear clean through his\nbody.  With his last breath Patroclus prophesied: \"Death stands near\nthee, Hector, at the hands of noble Achilles.\"  But Automedon was driving\nback the swift horses, carrying to Achilles the news that his dearest\nfriend was slain.\n\nAfter Ulysses was wounded, early in this great battle, he was not able to\nfight for several days, and, as the story is about Ulysses, we must tell\nquite shortly how Achilles returned to the war to take vengeance for\nPatroclus, and how he slew Hector.  When Patroclus fell, Hector seized\nthe armour which the Gods had given to Peleus, and Peleus to his son\nAchilles, while Achilles had lent it to Patroclus that he might terrify\nthe Trojans.  Retiring out of reach of spears, Hector took off his own\narmour and put on that of Achilles, and Greeks and Trojans fought for the\ndead body of Patroclus.  Then Zeus, the chief of the Gods, looked down\nand said that Hector should never come home out of the battle to his\nwife, Andromache.  But Hector returned into the fight around the dead\nPatroclus, and here all the best men fought, and even Automedon, who had\nbeen driving the chariot of Patroclus.  Now when the Trojans seemed to\nhave the better of the fight, the Greeks sent Antilochus, a son of old\nNestor, to tell Achilles that his friend was slain, and Antilochus ran,\nand Aias and his brother protected the Greeks who were trying to carry\nthe body of Patroclus back to the ships.\n\nSwiftly Antilochus came running to Achilles, saying: \"Fallen is\nPatroclus, and they are fighting round his naked body, for Hector has his\narmour.\"  Then Achilles said never a word, but fell on the floor of his\nhut, and threw black ashes on his yellow hair, till Antilochus seized his\nhands, fearing that he would cut his own throat with his dagger, for very\nsorrow.  His mother, Thetis, arose from the sea to comfort him, but he\nsaid that he desired to die if he could not slay Hector, who had slain\nhis friend.  Then Thetis told him that he could not fight without armour,\nand now he had none; but she would go to the God of armour-making and\nbring from him such a shield and helmet and breastplate as had never been\nseen by men.\n\nMeanwhile the fight raged round the dead body of Patroclus, which was\ndefiled with blood and dust, near the ships, and was being dragged this\nway and that, and torn and wounded.  Achilles could not bear this sight,\nyet his mother had warned him not to enter without armour the battle\nwhere stones and arrows and spears were flying like hail; and he was so\ntall and broad that he could put on the arms of no other man.  So he went\ndown to the ditch as he was, unarmed, and as he stood high above it,\nagainst the red sunset, fire seemed to flow from his golden hair like the\nbeacon blaze that soars into the dark sky when an island town is attacked\nat night, and men light beacons that their neighbours may see them and\ncome to their help from other isles.  There Achilles stood in a splendour\nof fire, and he shouted aloud, as clear as a clarion rings when men fall\non to attack a besieged city wall.  Thrice Achilles shouted mightily, and\nthrice the horses of the Trojans shuddered for fear and turned back from\nthe onslaught,--and thrice the men of Troy were confounded and shaken\nwith terror.  Then the Greeks drew the body of Patroclus out of the dust\nand the arrows, and laid him on a bier, and Achilles followed, weeping,\nfor he had sent his friend with chariot and horses to the war; but home\nagain he welcomed him never more.  Then the sun set and it was night.\n\nNow one of the Trojans wished Hector to retire within the walls of Troy,\nfor certainly Achilles would to-morrow be foremost in the war.  But\nHector said, \"Have ye not had your fill of being shut up behind walls?\nLet Achilles fight; I will meet him in the open field.\"  The Trojans\ncheered, and they camped in the plain, while in the hut of Achilles women\nwashed the dead body of Patroclus, and Achilles swore that he would slay\nHector.\n\nIn the dawn came Thetis, bearing to Achilles the new splendid armour that\nthe God had made for him.  Then Achilles put on that armour, and roused\nhis men; but Ulysses, who knew all the rules of honour, would not let him\nfight till peace had been made, with a sacrifice and other ceremonies,\nbetween him and Agamemnon, and till Agamemnon had given him all the\npresents which Achilles had before refused.  Achilles did not want them;\nhe wanted only to fight, but Ulysses made him obey, and do what was\nusual.  Then the gifts were brought, and Agamemnon stood up, and said\nthat he was sorry for his insolence, and the men took breakfast, but\nAchilles would neither eat nor drink.  He mounted his chariot, but the\nhorse Xanthus bowed his head till his long mane touched the ground, and,\nbeing a fairy horse, the child of the West Wind, he spoke (or so men\nsaid), and these were his words: \"We shall bear thee swiftly and\nspeedily, but thou shalt be slain in fight, and thy dying day is near at\nhand.\"  \"Well I know it,\" said Achilles, \"but I will not cease from\nfighting till I have given the Trojans their fill of war.\"\n\nSo all that day he chased and slew the Trojans.  He drove them into the\nriver, and, though the river came down in a red flood, he crossed, and\nslew them on the plain.  The plain caught fire, the bushes and long dry\ngrass blazed round him, but he fought his way through the fire, and drove\nthe Trojans to their walls.  The gates were thrown open, and the Trojans\nrushed through like frightened fawns, and then they climbed to the\nbattlements, and looked down in safety, while the whole Greek army\nadvanced in line under their shields.\n\nBut Hector stood still, alone, in front of the gate, and old Priam, who\nsaw Achilles rushing on, shining like a star in his new armour, called\nwith tears to Hector, \"Come within the gate!  This man has slain many of\nmy sons, and if he slays thee whom have I to help me in my old age?\"  His\nmother also called to Hector, but he stood firm, waiting for Achilles.\nNow the story says that he was afraid, and ran thrice in full armour\nround Troy, with Achilles in pursuit.  But this cannot be true, for no\nmortal men could run thrice, in heavy armour, with great shields that\nclanked against their ankles, round the town of Troy: moreover Hector was\nthe bravest of men, and all the Trojan women were looking down at him\nfrom the walls.\n\nWe cannot believe that he ran away, and the story goes on to tell that he\nasked Achilles to make an agreement with him.  The conqueror in the fight\nshould give back the body of the fallen to be buried by his friends, but\nshould keep his armour.  But Achilles said that he could make no\nagreement with Hector, and threw his spear, which flew over Hector's\nshoulder.  Then Hector threw his spear, but it could not pierce the\nshield which the God had made for Achilles.  Hector had no other spear,\nand Achilles had one, so Hector cried, \"Let me not die without honour!\"\nand drew his sword, and rushed at Achilles, who sprang to meet him, but\nbefore Hector could come within a sword-stroke Achilles had sent his\nspear clean through the neck of Hector.  He fell in the dust and Achilles\nsaid, \"Dogs and birds shall tear your flesh unburied.\"  With his dying\nbreath Hector prayed him to take gold from Priam, and give back his body\nto be burned in Troy.  But Achilles said, \"Hound! would that I could\nbring myself to carve and eat thy raw flesh, but dogs shall devour it,\neven if thy father offered me thy weight in gold.\"  With his last words\nHector prophesied and said, \"Remember me in the day when Paris shall slay\nthee in the Scaean gate.\"  Then his brave soul went to the land of the\nDead, which the Greeks called Hades.  To that land Ulysses sailed while\nhe was still a living man, as the story tells later.\n\nThen Achilles did a dreadful deed; he slit the feet of dead Hector from\nheel to ankle, and thrust thongs through, and bound him by the thongs to\nhis chariot and trailed the body in the dust.  All the women of Troy who\nwere on the walls raised a shriek, and Hector's wife, Andromache, heard\nthe sound.  She had been in an inner room of her house, weaving a purple\nweb, and embroidering flowers on it, and she was calling her bower\nmaidens to make ready a bath for Hector when he should come back tired\nfrom battle.  But when she heard the cry from the wall she trembled, and\nthe shuttle with which she was weaving fell from her hands.  \"Surely I\nheard the cry of my husband's mother,\" she said, and she bade two of her\nmaidens come with her to see why the people lamented.\n\nShe ran swiftly, and reached the battlements, and thence she saw her dear\nhusband's body being whirled through the dust towards the ships, behind\nthe chariot of Achilles.  Then night came over her eyes and she fainted.\nBut when she returned to herself she cried out that now none would defend\nher little boy, and other children would push him away from feasts,\nsaying, \"Out with you; no father of thine is at our table,\" and his\nfather, Hector, would lie naked at the ships, unclad, unburned,\nunlamented.  To be unburned and unburied was thought the greatest of\nmisfortunes, because the dead man unburned could not go into the House of\nHades, God of the Dead, but must always wander, alone and comfortless, in\nthe dark borderland between the dead and the living.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CRUELTY OF ACHILLES, AND THE RANSOMING OF HECTOR\n\n\nWhen Achilles was asleep that night the ghost of Patroclus came, saying,\n\"Why dost thou not burn and bury me? for the other shadows of dead men\nsuffer me not to come near them, and lonely I wander along the dark\ndwelling of Hades.\"  Then Achilles awoke, and he sent men to cut down\ntrees, and make a huge pile of fagots and logs.  On this they laid\nPatroclus, covered with white linen, and then they slew many cattle, and\nAchilles cut the throats of twelve Trojan prisoners of war, meaning to\nburn them with Patroclus to do him honour.  This was a deed of shame, for\nAchilles was mad with sorrow and anger for the death of his friend.  Then\nthey drenched with wine the great pile of wood, which was thirty yards\nlong and broad, and set fire to it, and the fire blazed all through the\nnight and died down in the morning.  They put the white bones of\nPatroclus in a golden casket, and laid it in the hut of Achilles, who\nsaid that, when he died, they must burn his body, and mix the ashes with\nthe ashes of his friend, and build over it a chamber of stone, and cover\nthe chamber with a great hill of earth, and set a pillar of stone above\nit.  This is one of the hills on the plain of Troy, but the pillar has\nfallen from the tomb, long ago.\n\nThen, as the custom was, Achilles held games--chariot races, foot races,\nboxing, wrestling, and archery--in honour of Patroclus.  Ulysses won the\nprize for the foot race, and for the wrestling, so now his wound must\nhave been healed.\n\nBut Achilles still kept trailing Hector's dead body each day round the\nhill that had been raised for the tomb of Patroclus, till the Gods in\nheaven were angry, and bade Thetis tell her son that he must give back\nthe dead body to Priam, and take ransom for it, and they sent a messenger\nto Priam to bid him redeem the body of his son.  It was terrible for\nPriam to have to go and humble himself before Achilles, whose hands had\nbeen red with the blood of his sons, but he did not disobey the Gods.  He\nopened his chests, and took out twenty-four beautiful embroidered changes\nof raiment; and he weighed out ten heavy bars, or talents, of gold, and\nchose a beautiful golden cup, and he called nine of his sons, Paris, and\nHelenus, and Deiphobus, and the rest, saying, \"Go, ye bad sons, my shame;\nwould that Hector lived and all of you were dead!\" for sorrow made him\nangry; \"go, and get ready for me a wain, and lay on it these treasures.\"\nSo they harnessed mules to the wain, and placed in it the treasures, and,\nafter praying, Priam drove through the night to the hut of Achilles.  In\nhe went, when no man looked for him, and kneeled to Achilles, and kissed\nhis terrible death-dealing hands.  \"Have pity on me, and fear the Gods,\nand give me back my dead son,\" he said, \"and remember thine own father.\nHave pity on me, who have endured to do what no man born has ever done\nbefore, to kiss the hands that slew my sons.\"\n\nThen Achilles remembered his own father, far away, who now was old and\nweak: and he wept, and Priam wept with him, and then Achilles raised\nPriam from his knees and spoke kindly to him, admiring how beautiful he\nstill was in his old age, and Priam himself wondered at the beauty of\nAchilles.  And Achilles thought how Priam had long been rich and happy,\nlike his own father, Peleus, and now old age and weakness and sorrow were\nlaid upon both of them, for Achilles knew that his own day of death was\nat hand, even at the doors.  So Achilles bade the women make ready the\nbody of Hector for burial, and they clothed him in a white mantle that\nPriam had brought, and laid him in the wain; and supper was made ready,\nand Priam and Achilles ate and drank together, and the women spread a bed\nfor Priam, who would not stay long, but stole away back to Troy while\nAchilles was asleep.\n\nAll the women came out to meet him, and to lament for Hector.  They\ncarried the body into the house of Andromache and laid it on a bed, and\nthe women gathered around, and each in turn sang her song over the great\ndead warrior.  His mother bewailed him, and his wife, and Helen of the\nfair hands, clad in dark mourning raiment, lifted up her white arms, and\nsaid: \"Hector, of all my brethren in Troy thou wert the dearest, since\nParis brought me hither.  Would that ere that day I had died!  For this\nis now the twentieth year since I came, and in all these twenty years\nnever heard I a word from thee that was bitter and unkind; others might\nupbraid me, thy sisters or thy mother, for thy father was good to me as\nif he had been my own; but then thou wouldst restrain them that spoke\nevil by the courtesy of thy heart and thy gentle words.  Ah! woe for\nthee, and woe for me, whom all men shudder at, for there is now none in\nwide Troyland to be my friend like thee, my brother and my friend!\"\n\nSo Helen lamented, but now was done all that men might do; a great pile\nof wood was raised, and Hector was burned, and his ashes were placed in a\ngolden urn, in a dark chamber of stone, within a hollow hill.\n\n\n\n\nHOW ULYSSES STOLE THE LUCK OF TROY\n\n\nAfter Hector was buried, the siege went on slowly, as it had done during\nthe first nine years of the war.  The Greeks did not know at that time\nhow to besiege a city, as we saw, by way of digging trenches and building\ntowers, and battering the walls with machines that threw heavy stones.\nThe Trojans had lost courage, and dared not go into the open plain, and\nthey were waiting for the coming up of new armies of allies--the Amazons,\nwho were girl warriors from far away, and an Eastern people called the\nKhita, whose king was Memnon, the son of the Bright Dawn.\n\nNow everyone knew that, in the temple of the Goddess Pallas Athene, in\nTroy, was a sacred image, which fell from heaven, called the Palladium,\nand this very ancient image was the Luck of Troy.  While it remained safe\nin the temple people believed that Troy could never be taken, but as it\nwas in a guarded temple in the middle of the town, and was watched by\npriestesses day and night, it seemed impossible that the Greeks should\never enter the city secretly and steal the Luck away.\n\nAs Ulysses was the grandson of Autolycus, the Master Thief, he often\nwished that the old man was with the Greeks, for if there was a thing to\nsteal Autolycus could steal it.  But by this time Autolycus was dead, and\nso Ulysses could only puzzle over the way to steal the Luck of Troy, and\nwonder how his grandfather would have set about it.  He prayed for help\nsecretly to Hermes, the God of Thieves, when he sacrificed goats to him,\nand at last he had a plan.\n\nThere was a story that Anius, the King of the Isle of Delos, had three\ndaughters, named OEno, Spermo, and Elais, and that OEno could turn water\ninto wine, while Spermo could turn stones into bread, and Elais could\nchange mud into olive oil.  Those fairy gifts, people said, were given to\nthe maidens by the Wine God, Dionysus, and by the Goddess of Corn,\nDemeter.  Now corn, and wine, and oil were sorely needed by the Greeks,\nwho were tired of paying much gold and bronze to the Phoenician merchants\nfor their supplies.  Ulysses therefore went to Agamemnon one day, and\nasked leave to take his ship and voyage to Delos, to bring, if he could,\nthe three maidens to the camp, if indeed they could do these miracles.  As\nno fighting was going on, Agamemnon gave Ulysses leave to depart, so he\nwent on board his ship, with a crew of fifty men of Ithaca, and away they\nsailed, promising to return in a month.\n\nTwo or three days after that, a dirty old beggar man began to be seen in\nthe Greek camp.  He had crawled in late one evening, dressed in a dirty\nsmock and a very dirty old cloak, full of holes, and stained with smoke.\nOver everything he wore the skin of a stag, with half the hair worn off,\nand he carried a staff, and a filthy tattered wallet, to put food in,\nwhich swung from his neck by a cord.  He came crouching and smiling up to\nthe door of the hut of Diomede, and sat down just within the doorway,\nwhere beggars still sit in the East.  Diomede saw him, and sent him a\nloaf and two handfuls of flesh, which the beggar laid on his wallet,\nbetween his feet, and he made his supper greedily, gnawing a bone like a\ndog.\n\nAfter supper Diomede asked him who he was and whence he came, and he told\na long story about how he had been a Cretan pirate, and had been taken\nprisoner by the Egyptians when he was robbing there, and how he had\nworked for many years in their stone quarries, where the sun had burned\nhim brown, and had escaped by hiding among the great stones, carried down\nthe Nile in a raft, for building a temple on the seashore.  The raft\narrived at night, and the beggar said that he stole out from it in the\ndark and found a Phoenician ship in the harbour, and the Phoenicians took\nhim on board, meaning to sell him somewhere as a slave.  But a tempest\ncame on and wrecked the ship off the Isle of Tenedos, which is near Troy,\nand the beggar alone escaped to the island on a plank of the ship.  From\nTenedos he had come to Troy in a fisher's boat, hoping to make himself\nuseful in the camp, and earn enough to keep body and soul together till\nhe could find a ship sailing to Crete.\n\nHe made his story rather amusing, describing the strange ways of the\nEgyptians; how they worshipped cats and bulls, and did everything in just\nthe opposite of the Greek way of doing things.  So Diomede let him have a\nrug and blankets to sleep on in the portico of the hut, and next day the\nold wretch went begging about the camp and talking with the soldiers.  Now\nhe was a most impudent and annoying old vagabond, and was always in\nquarrels.  If there was a disagreeable story about the father or\ngrandfather of any of the princes, he knew it and told it, so that he got\na blow from the baton of Agamemnon, and Aias gave him a kick, and\nIdomeneus drubbed him with the butt of his spear for a tale about his\ngrandmother, and everybody hated him and called him a nuisance.  He was\nfor ever jeering at Ulysses, who was far away, and telling tales about\nAutolycus, and at last he stole a gold cup, a very large cup, with two\nhandles, and a dove sitting on each handle, from the hut of Nestor.  The\nold chief was fond of this cup, which he had brought from home, and, when\nit was found in the beggar's dirty wallet, everybody cried that he must\nbe driven out of the camp and well whipped.  So Nestor's son, young\nThrasymedes, with other young men, laughing and shouting, pushed and\ndragged the beggar close up to the Scaean gate of Troy, where Thrasymedes\ncalled with a loud voice, \"O Trojans, we are sick of this shameless\nbeggar.  First we shall whip him well, and if he comes back we shall put\nout his eyes and cut off his hands and feet, and give him to the dogs to\neat.  He may go to you, if he likes; if not, he must wander till he dies\nof hunger.\"\n\nThe young men of Troy heard this and laughed, and a crowd gathered on the\nwall to see the beggar punished.  So Thrasymedes whipped him with his\nbowstring till he was tired, and they did not leave off beating the\nbeggar till he ceased howling and fell, all bleeding, and lay still.  Then\nThrasymedes gave him a parting kick, and went away with his friends.  The\nbeggar lay quiet for some time, then he began to stir, and sat up, wiping\nthe tears from his eyes, and shouting curses and bad words after the\nGreeks, praying that they might be speared in the back, and eaten by\ndogs.\n\nAt last he tried to stand up, but fell down again, and began to crawl on\nhands and knees towards the Scaean gate.  There he sat down, within the\ntwo side walls of the gate, where he cried and lamented.  Now Helen of\nthe fair hands came down from the gate tower, being sorry to see any man\ntreated so much worse than a beast, and she spoke to the beggar and asked\nhim why he had been used in this cruel way?\n\nAt first he only moaned, and rubbed his sore sides, but at last he said\nthat he was an unhappy man, who had been shipwrecked, and was begging his\nway home, and that the Greeks suspected him of being a spy sent out by\nthe Trojans.  But he had been in Lacedaemon, her own country, he said,\nand could tell her about her father, if she were, as he supposed, the\nbeautiful Helen, and about her brothers, Castor and Polydeuces, and her\nlittle daughter, Hermione.\n\n\"But perhaps,\" he said, \"you are no mortal woman, but some goddess who\nfavours the Trojans, and if indeed you are a goddess then I liken you to\nAphrodite, for beauty, and stature, and shapeliness.\"  Then Helen wept;\nfor many a year had passed since she had heard any word of her father,\nand daughter, and her brothers, who were dead, though she knew it not.  So\nshe stretched out her white hand, and raised the beggar, who was kneeling\nat her feet, and bade him follow her to her own house, within the palace\ngarden of King Priam.\n\nHelen walked forward, with a bower maiden at either side, and the beggar\ncrawling after her.  When she had entered her house, Paris was not there,\nso she ordered the bath to be filled with warm water, and new clothes to\nbe brought, and she herself washed the old beggar and anointed him with\noil.  This appears very strange to us, for though Saint Elizabeth of\nHungary used to wash and clothe beggars, we are surprised that Helen\nshould do so, who was not a saint.  But long afterwards she herself told\nthe son of Ulysses, Telemachus, that she had washed his father when he\ncame into Troy disguised as a beggar who had been sorely beaten.\n\nYou must have guessed that the beggar was Ulysses, who had not gone to\nDelos in his ship, but stolen back in a boat, and appeared disguised\namong the Greeks.  He did all this to make sure that nobody could\nrecognise him, and he behaved so as to deserve a whipping that he might\nnot be suspected as a Greek spy by the Trojans, but rather be pitied by\nthem.  Certainly he deserved his name of \"the much-enduring Ulysses.\"\n\nMeanwhile he sat in his bath and Helen washed his feet.  But when she had\ndone, and had anointed his wounds with olive oil, and when she had\nclothed him in a white tunic and a purple mantle, then she opened her\nlips to cry out with amazement, for she knew Ulysses; but he laid his\nfinger on her lips, saying \"Hush!\"  Then she remembered how great danger\nhe was in, for the Trojans, if they found him, would put him to some\ncruel death, and she sat down, trembling and weeping, while he watched\nher.\n\n\"Oh thou strange one,\" she said, \"how enduring is thy heart and how\ncunning beyond measure!  How hast thou borne to be thus beaten and\ndisgraced, and to come within the walls of Troy?  Well it is for thee\nthat Paris, my lord, is far from home, having gone to guide Penthesilea,\nthe Queen of the warrior maids whom men call Amazons, who is on her way\nto help the Trojans.\"\n\nThen Ulysses smiled, and Helen saw that she had said a word which she\nought not to have spoken, and had revealed the secret hope of the\nTrojans.  Then she wept, and said, \"Oh cruel and cunning!  You have made\nme betray the people with whom I live, though woe is me that ever I left\nmy own people, and my husband dear, and my child!  And now if you escape\nalive out of Troy, you will tell the Greeks, and they will lie in ambush\nby night for the Amazons on the way to Troy and will slay them all.  If\nyou and I were not friends long ago, I would tell the Trojans that you\nare here, and they would give your body to the dogs to eat, and fix your\nhead on the palisade above the wall.  Woe is me that ever I was born.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Lady, as you have said, we two are friends from of\nold, and your friend I will be till the last, when the Greeks break into\nTroy, and slay the men, and carry the women captives.  If I live till\nthat hour no man shall harm you, but safely and in honour you shall come\nto your palace in Lacedaemon of the rifted hills.  Moreover, I swear to\nyou a great oath, by Zeus above, and by Them that under earth punish the\nsouls of men who swear falsely, that I shall tell no man the thing which\nyou have spoken.\"\n\nSo when he had sworn and done that oath, Helen was comforted and dried\nher tears.  Then she told him how unhappy she was, and how she had lost\nher last comfort when Hector died.  \"Always am I wretched,\" she said,\n\"save when sweet sleep falls on me.  Now the wife of Thon, King of Egypt,\ngave me this gift when we were in Egypt, on our way to Troy, namely, a\ndrug that brings sleep even to the most unhappy, and it is pressed from\nthe poppy heads of the garland of the God of Sleep.\"  Then she showed him\nstrange phials of gold, full of this drug: phials wrought by the\nEgyptians, and covered with magic spells and shapes of beasts and\nflowers.  \"One of these I will give you,\" she said, \"that even from Troy\ntown you may not go without a gift in memory of the hands of Helen.\"  So\nUlysses took the phial of gold, and was glad in his heart, and Helen set\nbefore him meat and wine.  When he had eaten and drunk, and his strength\nhad come back to him, he said:\n\n\"Now I must dress me again in my old rags, and take my wallet, and my\nstaff, and go forth, and beg through Troy town.  For here I must abide\nfor some days as a beggar man, lest if I now escape from your house in\nthe night the Trojans may think that you have told me the secrets of\ntheir counsel, which I am carrying to the Greeks, and may be angry with\nyou.\"  So he clothed himself again as a beggar, and took his staff, and\nhid the phial of gold with the Egyptian drug in his rags, and in his\nwallet also he put the new clothes that Helen had given him, and a sword,\nand he took farewell, saying, \"Be of good heart, for the end of your\nsorrows is at hand.  But if you see me among the beggars in the street,\nor by the well, take no heed of me, only I will salute you as a beggar\nwho has been kindly treated by a Queen.\"\n\nSo they parted, and Ulysses went out, and when it was day he was with the\nbeggars in the streets, but by night he commonly slept near the fire of a\nsmithy forge, as is the way of beggars.  So for some days he begged,\nsaying that he was gathering food to eat while he walked to some town far\naway that was at peace, where he might find work to do.  He was not\nimpudent now, and did not go to rich men's houses or tell evil tales, or\nlaugh, but he was much in the temples, praying to the Gods, and above all\nin the temple of Pallas Athene.  The Trojans thought that he was a pious\nman for a beggar.\n\nNow there was a custom in these times that men and women who were sick or\nin distress, should sleep at night on the floors of the temples.  They\ndid this hoping that the God would send them a dream to show them how\ntheir diseases might be cured, or how they might find what they had lost,\nor might escape from their distresses.\n\nUlysses slept in more than one temple, and once in that of Pallas Athene,\nand the priests and priestesses were kind to him, and gave him food in\nthe morning when the gates of the temple were opened.\n\nIn the temple of Pallas Athene, where the Luck of Troy lay always on her\naltar, the custom was that priestesses kept watch, each for two hours,\nall through the night, and soldiers kept guard within call.  So one night\nUlysses slept there, on the floor, with other distressed people, seeking\nfor dreams from the Gods.  He lay still all through the night till the\nturn of the last priestess came to watch.  The priestess used to walk up\nand down with bare feet among the dreaming people, having a torch in her\nhand, and muttering hymns to the Goddess.  Then Ulysses, when her back\nwas turned, slipped the gold phial out of his rags, and let it lie on the\npolished floor beside him.  When the priestess came back again, the light\nfrom her torch fell on the glittering phial, and she stooped and picked\nit up, and looked at it curiously.  There came from it a sweet fragrance,\nand she opened it, and tasted the drug.  It seemed to her the sweetest\nthing that ever she had tasted, and she took more and more, and then\nclosed the phial and laid it down, and went along murmuring her hymn.\n\nBut soon a great drowsiness came over her, and she sat down on the step\nof the altar, and fell sound asleep, and the torch sunk in her hand, and\nwent out, and all was dark.  Then Ulysses put the phial in his wallet,\nand crept very cautiously to the altar, in the dark, and stole the Luck\nof Troy.  It was only a small black mass of what is now called meteoric\niron, which sometimes comes down with meteorites from the sky, but it was\nshaped like a shield, and the people thought it an image of the warlike\nshielded Goddess, fallen from Heaven.  Such sacred shields, made of glass\nand ivory, are found deep in the earth in the ruined cities of Ulysses'\ntime.  Swiftly Ulysses hid the Luck in his rags and left in its place on\nthe altar a copy of the Luck, which he had made of blackened clay.  Then\nhe stole back to the place where he had lain, and remained there till\ndawn appeared, and the sleepers who sought for dreams awoke, and the\ntemple gates were opened, and Ulysses walked out with the rest of them.\n\nHe stole down a lane, where as yet no people were stirring, and crept\nalong, leaning on his staff, till he came to the eastern gate, at the\nback of the city, which the Greeks never attacked, for they had never\ndrawn their army in a circle round the town.  There Ulysses explained to\nthe sentinels that he had gathered food enough to last for a long journey\nto some other town, and opened his bag, which seemed full of bread and\nbroken meat.  The soldiers said he was a lucky beggar, and let him out.\nHe walked slowly along the waggon road by which wood was brought into\nTroy from the forests on Mount Ida, and when he found that nobody was\nwithin sight he slipped into the forest, and stole into a dark thicket,\nhiding beneath the tangled boughs.  Here he lay and slept till evening,\nand then took the new clothes which Helen had given him out of his\nwallet, and put them on, and threw the belt of the sword over his\nshoulder, and hid the Luck of Troy in his bosom.  He washed himself clean\nin a mountain brook, and now all who saw him must have known that he was\nno beggar, but Ulysses of Ithaca, Laertes' son.\n\nSo he walked cautiously down the side of the brook which ran between high\nbanks deep in trees, and followed it till it reached the river Xanthus,\non the left of the Greek lines.  Here he found Greek sentinels set to\nguard the camp, who cried aloud in joy and surprise, for his ship had not\nyet returned from Delos, and they could not guess how Ulysses had come\nback alone across the sea.  So two of the sentinels guarded Ulysses to\nthe hut of Agamemnon, where he and Achilles and all the chiefs were\nsitting at a feast.  They all leaped up, but when Ulysses took the Luck\nof Troy from within his mantle, they cried that this was the bravest deed\nthat had been done in the war, and they sacrificed ten oxen to Zeus.\n\n\"So you were the old beggar,\" said young Thrasymedes.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ulysses, \"and when next you beat a beggar, Thrasymedes, do\nnot strike so hard and so long.\"\n\nThat night all the Greeks were full of hope, for now they had the Luck of\nTroy, but the Trojans were in despair, and guessed that the beggar was\nthe thief, and that Ulysses had been the beggar.  The priestess, Theano,\ncould tell them nothing; they found her, with the extinguished torch\ndrooping in her hand, asleep, as she sat on the step of the altar, and\nshe never woke again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BATTLES WITH THE AMAZONS AND MEMNON--THE DEATH OF ACHILLES\n\n\nUlysses thought much and often of Helen, without whose kindness he could\nnot have saved the Greeks by stealing the Luck of Troy.  He saw that,\nthough she remained as beautiful as when the princes all sought her hand,\nshe was most unhappy, knowing herself to be the cause of so much misery,\nand fearing what the future might bring.  Ulysses told nobody about the\nsecret which she had let fall, the coming of the Amazons.\n\nThe Amazons were a race of warlike maids, who lived far away on the banks\nof the river Thermodon.  They had fought against Troy in former times,\nand one of the great hill-graves on the plain of Troy covered the ashes\nof an Amazon, swift-footed Myrine.  People believed that they were the\ndaughters of the God of War, and they were reckoned equal in battle to\nthe bravest men.  Their young Queen, Penthesilea, had two reasons for\ncoming to fight at Troy: one was her ambition to win renown, and the\nother her sleepless sorrow for having accidentally killed her sister,\nHippolyte, when hunting.  The spear which she threw at a stag struck\nHippolyte and slew her, and Penthesilea cared no longer for her own life,\nand desired to fall gloriously in battle.  So Penthesilea and her\nbodyguard of twelve Amazons set forth from the wide streams of Thermodon,\nand rode into Troy.  The story says that they did not drive in chariots,\nlike all the Greek and Trojan chiefs, but rode horses, which must have\nbeen the manner of their country.\n\nPenthesilea was the tallest and most beautiful of the Amazons, and shone\namong her twelve maidens like the moon among the stars, or the bright\nDawn among the Hours which follow her chariot wheels.  The Trojans\nrejoiced when they beheld her, for she looked both terrible and\nbeautiful, with a frown on her brow, and fair shining eyes, and a blush\non her cheeks.  To the Trojans she came like Iris, the Rainbow, after a\nstorm, and they gathered round her cheering, and throwing flowers and\nkissing her stirrup, as the people of Orleans welcomed Joan of Arc when\nshe came to deliver them.  Even Priam was glad, as is a man long blind,\nwhen he has been healed, and again looks upon the light of the sun.  Priam\nheld a great feast, and gave to Penthesilea many beautiful gifts: cups of\ngold, and embroideries, and a sword with a hilt of silver, and she vowed\nthat she would slay Achilles.  But when Andromache, the wife of Hector,\nheard her she said within herself, \"Ah, unhappy girl, what is this boast\nof thine!  Thou hast not the strength to fight the unconquerable son of\nPeleus, for if Hector could not slay him, what chance hast thou?  But the\npiled-up earth covers Hector!\"\n\nIn the morning Penthesilea sprang up from sleep and put on her glorious\narmour, with spear in hand, and sword at side, and bow and quiver hung\nbehind her back, and her great shield covering her side from neck to\nstirrup, and mounted her horse, and galloped to the plain.  Beside her\ncharged the twelve maidens of her bodyguard, and all the company of\nHector's brothers and kinsfolk.  These headed the Trojan lines, and they\nrushed towards the ships of the Greeks.\n\nThen the Greeks asked each other, \"Who is this that leads the Trojans as\nHector led them, surely some God rides in the van of the charioteers!\"\nUlysses could have told them who the new leader of the Trojans was, but\nit seems that he had not the heart to fight against women, for his name\nis not mentioned in this day's battle.  So the two lines clashed, and the\nplain of Troy ran red with blood, for Penthesilea slew Molios, and\nPersinoos, and Eilissos, and Antiphates, and Lernos high of heart, and\nHippalmos of the loud warcry, and Haemonides, and strong Elasippus, while\nher maidens Derinoe and Clonie slew each a chief of the Greeks.  But\nClonie fell beneath the spear of Podarkes, whose hand Penthesilea cut off\nwith the sword, while Idomeneus speared the Amazon Bremousa, and Meriones\nof Crete slew Evadre, and Diomede killed Alcibie and Derimacheia in close\nfight with the sword, so the company of the Twelve were thinned, the\nbodyguard of Penthesilea.\n\nThe Trojans and Greeks kept slaying each other, but Penthesilea avenged\nher maidens, driving the ranks of Greece as a lioness drives the cattle\non the hills, for they could not stand before her.  Then she shouted,\n\"Dogs! to-day shall you pay for the sorrows of Priam!  Where is Diomede,\nwhere is Achilles, where is Aias, that, men say, are your bravest?  Will\nnone of them stand before my spear?\"  Then she charged again, at the head\nof the Household of Priam, brothers and kinsmen of Hector, and where they\ncame the Greeks fell like yellow leaves before the wind of autumn.  The\nwhite horse that Penthesilea rode, a gift from the wife of the North\nWind, flashed like lightning through a dark cloud among the companies of\nthe Greeks, and the chariots that followed the charge of the Amazon\nrocked as they swept over the bodies of the slain.  Then the old Trojans,\nwatching from the walls, cried: \"This is no mortal maiden but a Goddess,\nand to-day she will burn the ships of the Greeks, and they will all\nperish in Troyland, and see Greece never more again.\"\n\nNow it so was that Aias and Achilles had not heard the din and the cry of\nwar, for both had gone to weep over the great new grave of Patroclus.\nPenthesilea and the Trojans had driven back the Greeks within their\nditch, and they were hiding here and there among the ships, and torches\nwere blazing in men's hands to burn the ships, as in the day of the\nvalour of Hector: when Aias heard the din of battle, and called to\nAchilles to make speed towards the ships.\n\nSo they ran swiftly to their huts, and armed themselves, and Aias fell\nsmiting and slaying upon the Trojans, but Achilles slew five of the\nbodyguard of Penthesilea.  She, beholding her maidens fallen, rode\nstraight against Aias and Achilles, like a dove defying two falcons, and\ncast her spear, but it fell back blunted from the glorious shield that\nthe God had made for the son of Peleus.  Then she threw another spear at\nAias, crying, \"I am the daughter of the God of War,\" but his armour kept\nout the spear, and he and Achilles laughed aloud.  Aias paid no more heed\nto the Amazon, but rushed against the Trojan men; while Achilles raised\nthe heavy spear that none but he could throw, and drove it down through\nbreastplate and breast of Penthesilea, yet still her hand grasped her\nsword-hilt.  But, ere she could draw her sword, Achilles speared her\nhorse, and horse and rider fell, and died in their fall.\n\nThere lay fair Penthesilea in the dust, like a tall poplar tree that the\nwind has overthrown, and her helmet fell, and the Greeks who gathered\nround marvelled to see her lie so beautiful in death, like Artemis, the\nGoddess of the Woods, when she sleeps alone, weary with hunting on the\nhills.  Then the heart of Achilles was pierced with pity and sorrow,\nthinking how she might have been his wife in his own country, had he\nspared her, but he was never to see pleasant Phthia, his native land,\nagain.  So Achilles stood and wept over Penthesilea dead.\n\nNow the Greeks, in pity and sorrow, held their hands, and did not pursue\nthe Trojans who had fled, nor did they strip the armour from Penthesilea\nand her twelve maidens, but laid the bodies on biers, and sent them back\nin peace to Priam.  Then the Trojans burned Penthesilea in the midst of\nher dead maidens, on a great pile of dry wood, and placed their ashes in\na golden casket, and buried them all in the great hill-grave of Laomedon,\nan ancient King of Troy, while the Greeks with lamentation buried them\nwhom the Amazon had slain.\n\nThe old men of Troy and the chiefs now held a council, and Priam said\nthat they must not yet despair, for, if they had lost many of their\nbravest warriors, many of the Greeks had also fallen.  Their best plan\nwas to fight only with arrows from the walls and towers, till King Memnon\ncame to their rescue with a great army of Aethiopes.  Now Memnon was the\nson of the bright Dawn, a beautiful Goddess who had loved and married a\nmortal man, Tithonus.  She had asked Zeus, the chief of the Gods, to make\nher lover immortal, and her prayer was granted.  Tithonus could not die,\nbut he began to grow grey, and then white haired, with a long white\nbeard, and very weak, till nothing of him seemed to be left but his\nvoice, always feebly chattering like the grasshoppers on a summer day.\n\nMemnon was the most beautiful of men, except Paris and Achilles, and his\nhome was in a country that borders on the land of sunrising.  There he\nwas reared by the lily maidens called Hesperides, till he came to his\nfull strength, and commanded the whole army of the Aethiopes.  For their\narrival Priam wished to wait, but Polydamas advised that the Trojans\nshould give back Helen to the Greeks, with jewels twice as valuable as\nthose which she had brought from the house of Menelaus.  Then Paris was\nvery angry, and said that Polydamas was a coward, for it was little to\nParis that Troy should be taken and burned in a month if for a month he\ncould keep Helen of the fair hands.\n\nAt length Memnon came, leading a great army of men who had nothing white\nabout them but the teeth, so fiercely the sun burned on them in their own\ncountry.  The Trojans had all the more hopes of Memnon because, on his\nlong journey from the land of sunrising, and the river Oceanus that\ngirdles the round world, he had been obliged to cross the country of the\nSolymi.  Now the Solymi were the fiercest of men and rose up against\nMemnon, but he and his army fought them for a whole day, and defeated\nthem, and drove them to the hills.  When Memnon came, Priam gave him a\ngreat cup of gold, full of wine to the brim, and Memnon drank the wine at\none draught.  But he did not make great boasts of what he could do, like\npoor Penthesilea, \"for,\" said he, \"whether I am a good man at arms will\nbe known in battle, where the strength of men is tried.  So now let us\nturn to sleep, for to wake and drink wine all through the night is an ill\nbeginning of war.\"\n\nThen Priam praised his wisdom, and all men betook them to bed, but the\nbright Dawn rose unwillingly next day, to throw light on the battle where\nher son was to risk his fife.  Then Memnon led out the dark clouds of his\nmen into the plain, and the Greeks foreboded evil when they saw so great\na new army of fresh and unwearied warriors, but Achilles, leading them in\nhis shining armour, gave them courage.  Memnon fell upon the left wing of\nthe Greeks, and on the men of Nestor, and first he slew Ereuthus, and\nthen attacked Nestor's young son, Antilochus, who, now that Patroclus had\nfallen, was the dearest friend of Achilles.  On him Memnon leaped, like a\nlion on a kid, but Antilochus lifted a huge stone from the plain, a\npillar that had been set on the tomb of some great warrior long ago, and\nthe stone smote full on the helmet of Memnon, who reeled beneath the\nstroke.  But Memnon seized his heavy spear, and drove it through shield\nand corselet of Antilochus, even into his heart, and he fell and died\nbeneath his father's eyes.  Then Nestor in great sorrow and anger strode\nacross the body of Antilochus and called to his other son, Thrasymedes,\n\"Come and drive afar this man that has slain thy brother, for if fear be\nin thy heart thou art no son of mine, nor of the race of Periclymenus,\nwho stood up in battle even against the strong man Heracles!\"\n\nBut Memnon was too strong for Thrasymedes, and drove him off, while old\nNestor himself charged sword in hand, though Memnon bade him begone, for\nhe was not minded to strike so aged a man, and Nestor drew back, for he\nwas weak with age.  Then Memnon and his army charged the Greeks, slaying\nand stripping the dead.  But Nestor had mounted his chariot and driven to\nAchilles, weeping, and imploring him to come swiftly and save the body of\nAntilochus, and he sped to meet Memnon, who lifted a great stone, the\nlandmark of a field, and drove it against the shield of the son of\nPeleus.  But Achilles was not shaken by the blow; he ran forward, and\nwounded Memnon over the rim of his shield.  Yet wounded as he was Memnon\nfought on and struck his spear through the arm of Achilles, for the\nGreeks fought with no sleeves of bronze to protect their arms.\n\nThen Achilles drew his great sword, and flew on Memnon, and with sword-\nstrokes they lashed at each other on shield and helmet, and the long\nhorsehair crests of the helmets were shorn off, and flew down the wind,\nand their shields rang terribly beneath the sword strokes.  They thrust\nat each others' throats between shield and visor of the helmet, they\nsmote at knee, and thrust at breast, and the armour rang about their\nbodies, and the dust from beneath their feet rose up in a cloud around\nthem, like mist round the falls of a great river in flood.  So they\nfought, neither of them yielding a step, till Achilles made so rapid a\nthrust that Memnon could not parry it, and the bronze sword passed clean\nthrough his body beneath the breast-bone, and he fell, and his armour\nclashed as he fell.\n\nThen Achilles, wounded as he was and weak from loss of blood, did not\nstay to strip the golden armour of Memnon, but shouted his warcry, and\npressed on, for he hoped to enter the gate of Troy with the fleeing\nTrojans, and all the Greeks followed after him.  So they pursued, slaying\nas they went, and the Scaean gate was choked with the crowd of men,\npursuing and pursued.  In that hour would the Greeks have entered Troy,\nand burned the city, and taken the women captive, but Paris stood on the\ntower above the gate, and in his mind was anger for the death of his\nbrother Hector.  He tried the string of his bow, and found it frayed, for\nall day he had showered his arrows on the Greeks; so he chose a new\nbowstring, and fitted it, and strung the bow, and chose an arrow from his\nquiver, and aimed at the ankle of Achilles, where it was bare beneath the\ngreave, or leg-guard of metal, that the God had fashioned for him.\nThrough the ankle flew the arrow, and Achilles wheeled round, weak as he\nwas, and stumbled, and fell, and the armour that the God had wrought was\ndefiled with dust and blood.\n\nThen Achilles rose again, and cried: \"What coward has smitten me with a\nsecret arrow from afar?  Let him stand forth and meet me with sword and\nspear!\"  So speaking he seized the shaft with his strong hands and tore\nit out of the wound, and much blood gushed, and darkness came over his\neyes.  Yet he staggered forward, striking blindly, and smote Orythaon, a\ndear friend of Hector, through the helmet, and others he smote, but now\nhis force failed him, and he leaned on his spear, and cried his warcry,\nand said, \"Cowards of Troy, ye shall not all escape my spear, dying as I\nam.\"  But as he spoke he fell, and all his armour rang around him, yet\nthe Trojans stood apart and watched; and as hunters watch a dying lion\nnot daring to go nigh him, so the Trojans stood in fear till Achilles\ndrew his latest breath.  Then from the wall the Trojan women raised a\ngreat cry of joy over him who had slain the noble Hector: and thus was\nfulfilled the prophecy of Hector, that Achilles should fall in the Scaean\ngateway, by the hand of Paris.\n\nThen the best of the Trojans rushed forth from the gate to seize the body\nof Achilles, and his glorious armour, but the Greeks were as eager to\ncarry the body to the ships that it might have due burial.  Round the\ndead Achilles men fought long and sore, and both sides were mixed, Greeks\nand Trojans, so that men dared not shoot arrows from the walls of Troy\nlest they should kill their own friends.  Paris, and Aeneas, and Glaucus,\nwho had been the friend of Sarpedon, led the Trojans, and Aias and\nUlysses led the Greeks, for we are not told that Agamemnon was fighting\nin this great battle of the war.  Now as angry wild bees flock round a\nman who is taking their honeycombs, so the Trojans gathered round Aias,\nstriving to stab him, but he set his great shield in front, and smote and\nslew all that came within reach of his spear.  Ulysses, too, struck down\nmany, and though a spear was thrown and pierced his leg near the knee he\nstood firm, protecting the body of Achilles.  At last Ulysses caught the\nbody of Achilles by the hands, and heaved it upon his back, and so limped\ntowards the ships, but Aias and the men of Aias followed, turning round\nif ever the Trojans ventured to come near, and charging into the midst of\nthem.  Thus very slowly they bore the dead Achilles across the plain,\nthrough the bodies of the fallen and the blood, till they met Nestor in\nhis chariot and placed Achilles therein, and swiftly Nestor drove to the\nships.\n\nThere the women, weeping, washed Achilles' comely body, and laid him on a\nbier with a great white mantle over him, and all the women lamented and\nsang dirges, and the first was Briseis, who loved Achilles better than\nher own country, and her father, and her brothers whom he had slain in\nwar.  The Greek princes, too, stood round the body, weeping and cutting\noff their long locks of yellow hair, a token of grief and an offering to\nthe dead.\n\nMen say that forth from the sea came Thetis of the silver feet, the\nmother of Achilles, with her ladies, the deathless maidens of the waters.\nThey rose up from their glassy chambers below the sea, moving on, many\nand beautiful, like the waves on a summer day, and their sweet song\nechoed along the shores, and fear came upon the Greeks.  Then they would\nhave fled, but Nestor cried: \"Hold, flee not, young lords of the\nAchaeans!  Lo, she that comes from the sea is his mother, with the\ndeathless maidens of the waters, to look on the face of her dead son.\"\nThen the sea nymphs stood around the dead Achilles and clothed him in the\ngarments of the Gods, fragrant raiment, and all the Nine Muses, one to\nthe other replying with sweet voices, began their lament.\n\nNext the Greeks made a great pile of dry wood, and laid Achilles on it,\nand set fire to it, till the flames had consumed his body except the\nwhite ashes.  These they placed in a great golden cup and mingled with\nthem the ashes of Patroclus, and above all they built a tomb like a hill,\nhigh on a headland above the sea, that men for all time may see it as\nthey go sailing by, and may remember Achilles.  Next they held in his\nhonour foot races and chariot races, and other games, and Thetis gave\nsplendid prizes.  Last of all, when the games were ended, Thetis placed\nbefore the chiefs the glorious armour that the God had made for her son\non the night after the slaying of Patroclus by Hector.  \"Let these arms\nbe the prize of the best of the Greeks,\" she said, \"and of him that saved\nthe body of Achilles out of the hands of the Trojans.\"\n\nThen stood up on one side Aias and on the other Ulysses, for these two\nhad rescued the body, and neither thought himself a worse warrior than\nthe other.  Both were the bravest of the brave, and if Aias was the\ntaller and stronger, and upheld the fight at the ships on the day of the\nvalour of Hector; Ulysses had alone withstood the Trojans, and refused to\nretreat even when wounded, and his courage and cunning had won for the\nGreeks the Luck of Troy.  Therefore old Nestor arose and said: \"This is a\nluckless day, when the best of the Greeks are rivals for such a prize.  He\nwho is not the winner will be heavy at heart, and will not stand firm by\nus in battle, as of old, and hence will come great loss to the Greeks.\nWho can be a just judge in this question, for some men will love Aias\nbetter, and some will prefer Ulysses, and thus will arise disputes among\nourselves.  Lo! have we not here among us many Trojan prisoners, waiting\ntill their friends pay their ransom in cattle and gold and bronze and\niron?  These hate all the Greeks alike, and will favour neither Aias nor\nUlysses.  Let _them_ be the judges, and decide who is the best of the\nGreeks, and the man who has done most harm to the Trojans.\"\n\nAgamemnon said that Nestor had spoken wisely.  The Trojans were then made\nto sit as judges in the midst of the Assembly, and Aias and Ulysses\nspoke, and told the stories of their own great deeds, of which we have\nheard already, but Aias spoke roughly and discourteously, calling Ulysses\na coward and a weakling.  \"Perhaps the Trojans know,\" said Ulysses\nquietly, \"whether they think that I deserve what Aias has said about me,\nthat I am a coward; and perhaps Aias may remember that he did not find me\nso weak when we wrestled for a prize at the funeral of Patroclus.\"\n\nThen the Trojans all with one voice said that Ulysses was the best man\namong the Greeks, and the most feared by them, both for his courage and\nhis skill in stratagems of war.  On this, the blood of Aias flew into his\nface, and he stood silent and unmoving, and could not speak a word, till\nhis friends came round him and led him away to his hut, and there he sat\ndown and would not eat or drink, and the night fell.\n\nLong he sat, musing in his mind, and then rose and put on all his armour,\nand seized a sword that Hector had given him one day when they two fought\nin a gentle passage of arms, and took courteous farewell of each other,\nand Aias had given Hector a broad sword-belt, wrought with gold.  This\nsword, Hector's gift, Aias took, and went towards the hut of Ulysses,\nmeaning to carve him limb from limb, for madness had come upon him in his\ngreat grief.  Rushing through the night to slay Ulysses he fell upon the\nflock of sheep that the Greeks kept for their meat.  And up and down\namong them he went, smiting blindly till the dawn came, and, lo! his\nsenses returned to him, and he saw that he had not smitten Ulysses, but\nstood in a pool of blood among the sheep that he had slain.  He could not\nendure the disgrace of his madness, and he fixed the sword, Hector's\ngift, with its hilt firmly in the ground, and went back a little way, and\nran and fell upon the sword, which pierced his heart, and so died the\ngreat Aias, choosing death before a dishonoured life.\n\n\n\n\nULYSSES SAILS TO SEEK THE SON OF ACHILLES.--THE VALOUR OF EURYPYLUS\n\n\nWhen the Greeks found Aias lying dead, slain by his own hand, they made\ngreat lament, and above all the brother of Aias, and his wife Tecmessa\nbewailed him, and the shores of the sea rang with their sorrow.  But of\nall no man was more grieved than Ulysses, and he stood up and said:\n\"Would that the sons of the Trojans had never awarded to me the arms of\nAchilles, for far rather would I have given them to Aias than that this\nloss should have befallen the whole army of the Greeks.  Let no man blame\nme, or be angry with me, for I have not sought for wealth, to enrich\nmyself, but for honour only, and to win a name that will be remembered\namong men in times to come.\"  Then they made a great fire of wood, and\nburned the body of Aias, lamenting him as they had sorrowed for Achilles.\n\nNow it seemed that though the Greeks had won the Luck of Troy and had\ndefeated the Amazons and the army of Memnon, they were no nearer taking\nTroy than ever.  They had slain Hector, indeed, and many other Trojans,\nbut they had lost the great Achilles, and Aias, and Patroclus, and\nAntilochus, with the princes whom Penthesilea and Memnon slew, and the\nbands of the dead chiefs were weary of fighting, and eager to go home.\nThe chiefs met in council, and Menelaus arose and said that his heart was\nwasted with sorrow for the death of so many brave men who had sailed to\nTroy for his sake.  \"Would that death had come upon me before I gathered\nthis host,\" he said, \"but come, let the rest of us launch our swift\nships, and return each to our own country.\"\n\nHe spoke thus to try the Greeks, and see of what courage they were, for\nhis desire was still to burn Troy town and to slay Paris with his own\nhand.  Then up rose Diomede, and swore that never would the Greeks turn\ncowards.  No! he bade them sharpen their swords, and make ready for\nbattle.  The prophet Calchas, too, arose and reminded the Greeks how he\nhad always foretold that they would take Troy in the tenth year of the\nsiege, and how the tenth year had come, and victory was almost in their\nhands.  Next Ulysses stood up and said that, though Achilles was dead,\nand there was no prince to lead his men, yet a son had been born to\nAchilles, while he was in the isle of Scyros, and that son he would bring\nto fill his father's place.\n\n\"Surely he will come, and for a token I will carry to him those unhappy\narms of the great Achilles.  Unworthy am I to wear them, and they bring\nback to my mind our sorrow for Aias.  But his son will wear them, in the\nfront of the spearmen of Greece and in the thickest ranks of Troy shall\nthe helmet of Achilles shine, as it was wont to do, for always he fought\namong the foremost.\"  Thus Ulysses spoke, and he and Diomede, with fifty\noarsmen, went on board a swift ship, and sitting all in order on the\nbenches they smote the grey sea into foam, and Ulysses held the helm and\nsteered them towards the isle of Scyros.\n\nNow the Trojans had rest from war for a while, and Priam, with a heavy\nheart, bade men take his chief treasure, the great golden vine, with\nleaves and clusters of gold, and carry it to the mother of Eurypylus, the\nking of the people who dwell where the wide marshlands of the river\nCayster clang with the cries of the cranes and herons and wild swans.  For\nthe mother of Eurypylus had sworn that never would she let her son go to\nthe war unless Priam sent her the vine of gold, a gift of the gods to an\nancient King of Troy.\n\nWith a heavy heart, then, Priam sent the golden vine, but Eurypylus was\nglad when he saw it, and bade all his men arm, and harness the horses to\nthe chariots, and glad were the Trojans when the long line of the new\narmy wound along the road and into the town.  Then Paris welcomed\nEurypylus who was his nephew, son of his sister Astyoche, a daughter of\nPriam; but the grandfather of Eurypylus was the famous Heracles, the\nstrongest man who ever lived on earth.  So Paris brought Eurypylus to his\nhouse, where Helen sat working at her embroideries with her four bower\nmaidens, and Eurypylus marvelled when he saw her, she was so beautiful.\nBut the Khita, the people of Eurypylus, feasted in the open air among the\nTrojans, by the light of great fires burning, and to the music of pipes\nand flutes.  The Greeks saw the fires, and heard the merry music, and\nthey watched all night lest the Trojans should attack the ships before\nthe dawn.  But in the dawn Eurypylus rose from sleep and put on his\narmour, and hung from his neck by the belt the great shield on which were\nfashioned, in gold of many colours and in silver, the Twelve Adventures\nof Heracles, his grandfather; strange deeds that he did, fighting with\nmonsters and giants and with the Hound of Hades, who guards the dwellings\nof the dead.  Then Eurypylus led on his whole army, and with the brothers\nof Hector he charged against the Greeks, who were led by Agamemnon.\n\nIn that battle Eurypylus first smote Nireus, who was the most beautiful\nof the Greeks now that Achilles had fallen.  There lay Nireus, like an\napple tree, all covered with blossoms red and white, that the wind has\noverthrown in a rich man's orchard.  Then Eurypylus would have stripped\noff his armour, but Machaon rushed in, Machaon who had been wounded and\ntaken to the tent of Nestor, on the day of the Valour of Hector, when he\nbrought fire against the ships.  Machaon drove his spear through the left\nshoulder of Eurypylus, but Eurypylus struck at his shoulder with his\nsword, and the blood flowed; nevertheless, Machaon stooped, and grasped a\ngreat stone, and sent it against the helmet of Eurypylus.  He was shaken,\nbut he did not fall, he drove his spear through breastplate and breast of\nMachaon, who fell and died.  With his last breath he said, \"Thou, too,\nshalt fall,\" but Eurypylus made answer, \"So let it be!  Men cannot live\nfor ever, and such is the fortune of war.\"\n\nThus the battle rang, and shone, and shifted, till few of the Greeks kept\nsteadfast, except those with Menelaus and Agamemnon, for Diomede and\nUlysses were far away upon the sea, bringing from Scyros the son of\nAchilles.  But Teucer slew Polydamas, who had warned Hector to come\nwithin the walls of Troy; and Menelaus wounded Deiphobus, the bravest of\nthe sons of Priam who were still in arms, for many had fallen; and\nAgamemnon slew certain spearmen of the Trojans.  Round Eurypylus fought\nParis, and Aeneas, who wounded Teucer with a great stone, breaking in his\nhelmet, but he drove back in his chariot to the ships.  Menelaus and\nAgamemnon stood alone and fought in the crowd of Trojans, like two wild\nboars that a circle of hunters surrounds with spears, so fiercely they\nstood at bay.  There they would both have fallen, but Idomeneus, and\nMeriones of Crete, and Thrasymedes, Nestor's son, ran to their rescue,\nand fiercer grew the fighting.  Eurypylus desired to slay Agamemnon and\nMenelaus, and end the war, but, as the spears of the Scots encompassed\nKing James at Flodden Field till he ran forward, and fell within a\nlance's length of the English general, so the men of Crete and Pylos\nguarded the two princes with their spears.\n\nThere Paris was wounded in the thigh with a spear, and he retreated a\nlittle way, and showered his arrows among the Greeks; and Idomeneus\nlifted and hurled a great stone at Eurypylus which struck his spear out\nof his hand, and he went back to find it, and Menelaus and Agamemnon had\na breathing space in the battle.  But soon Eurypylus returned, crying on\nhis men, and they drove back foot by foot the ring of spears round\nAgamemnon, and Aeneas and Paris slew men of Crete and of Mycenae till the\nGreeks were pushed to the ditch round the camp; and then great stones and\nspears and arrows rained down on the Trojans and the people of Eurypylus\nfrom the battlements and towers of the Grecian wall.  Now night fell, and\nEurypylus knew that he could not win the wall in the dark, so he withdrew\nhis men, and they built great fires, and camped upon the plain.\n\nThe case of the Greeks was now like that of the Trojans after the death\nof Hector.  They buried Machaon and the other chiefs who had fallen, and\nthey remained within their ditch and their wall, for they dared not come\nout into the open plain.  They knew not whether Ulysses and Diomede had\ncome safely to Scyros, or whether their ship had been wrecked or driven\ninto unknown seas.  So they sent a herald to Eurypylus, asking for a\ntruce, that they might gather their dead and burn them, and the Trojans\nand Khita also buried their dead.\n\nMeanwhile the swift ship of Ulysses had swept through the sea to Scyros,\nand to the palace of King Lycomedes.  There they found Neoptolemus, the\nson of Achilles, in the court before the doors.  He was as tall as his\nfather, and very like him in face and shape, and he was practising the\nthrowing of the spear at a mark.  Right glad were Ulysses and Diomede to\nbehold him, and Ulysses told Neoptolemus who they were, and why they\ncame, and implored him to take pity on the Greeks and help them.\n\n\"My friend is Diomede, Prince of Argos,\" said Ulysses, \"and I am Ulysses\nof Ithaca.  Come with us, and we Greeks will give you countless gifts,\nand I myself will present you with the armour of your father, such as it\nis not lawful for any other mortal man to wear, seeing that it is golden,\nand wrought by the hands of a God.  Moreover, when we have taken Troy,\nand gone home, Menelaus will give you his daughter, the beautiful\nHermione, to be your wife, with gold in great plenty.\"\n\nThen Neoptolemus answered: \"It is enough that the Greeks need my sword.\nTo-morrow we shall sail for Troy.\"  He led them into the palace to dine,\nand there they found his mother, beautiful Deidamia, in mourning raiment,\nand she wept when she heard that they had come to take her son away.  But\nNeoptolemus comforted her, promising to return safely with the spoils of\nTroy, \"or, even if I fall,\" he said, \"it will be after doing deeds worthy\nof my father's name.\"  So next day they sailed, leaving Deidamia\nmournful, like a swallow whose nest a serpent has found, and has killed\nher young ones; even so she wailed, and went up and down in the house.\nBut the ship ran swiftly on her way, cleaving the dark waves till Ulysses\nshowed Neoptolemus the far off snowy crest of Mount Ida; and Tenedos, the\nisland near Troy; and they passed the plain where the tomb of Achilles\nstands, but Ulysses did not tell the son that it was his father's tomb.\n\nNow all this time the Greeks, shut up within their wall and fighting from\ntheir towers, were looking back across the sea, eager to spy the ship of\nUlysses, like men wrecked on a desert island, who keep watch every day\nfor a sail afar off, hoping that the seamen will touch at their isle and\nhave pity upon them, and carry them home, so the Greeks kept watch for\nthe ship bearing Neoptolemus.\n\nDiomede, too, had been watching the shore, and when they came in sight of\nthe ships of the Greeks, he saw that they were being besieged by the\nTrojans, and that all the Greek army was penned up within the wall, and\nwas fighting from the towers.  Then he cried aloud to Ulysses and\nNeoptolemus, \"Make haste, friends, let us arm before we land, for some\ngreat evil has fallen upon the Greeks.  The Trojans are attacking our\nwall, and soon they will burn our ships, and for us there will be no\nreturn.\"\n\nThen all the men on the ship of Ulysses armed themselves, and\nNeoptolemus, in the splendid armour of his father, was the first to leap\nashore.  The Greeks could not come from the wall to welcome him, for they\nwere fighting hard and hand-to-hand with Eurypylus and his men.  But they\nglanced back over their shoulders and it seemed to them that they saw\nAchilles himself, spear and sword in hand, rushing to help them.  They\nraised a great battle-cry, and, when Neoptolemus reached the battlements,\nhe and Ulysses, and Diomede leaped down to the plain, the Greeks\nfollowing them, and they all charged at once on the men of Eurypylus,\nwith levelled spears, and drove them from the wall.\n\nThen the Trojans trembled, for they knew the shields of Diomede and\nUlysses, and they thought that the tall chief in the armour of Achilles\nwas Achilles himself, come back from the land of the dead to take\nvengeance for Antilochus.  The Trojans fled, and gathered round\nEurypylus, as in a thunderstorm little children, afraid of the lightning\nand the noise, run and cluster round their father, and hide their faces\non his knees.\n\nBut Neoptolemus was spearing the Trojans, as a man who carries at night a\nbeacon of fire in his boat on the sea spears the fishes that flock\naround, drawn by the blaze of the flame.  Cruelly he avenged his father's\ndeath on many a Trojan, and the men whom Achilles had led followed\nAchilles' son, slaying to right and left, and smiting the Trojans, as\nthey ran, between the shoulders with the spear.  Thus they fought and\nfollowed while daylight lasted, but when night fell, they led Neoptolemus\nto his father's hut, where the women washed him in the bath, and then he\nwas taken to feast with Agamemnon and Menelaus and the princes.  They all\nwelcomed him, and gave him glorious gifts, swords with silver hilts, and\ncups of gold and silver, and they were glad, for they had driven the\nTrojans from their wall, and hoped that to-morrow they would slay\nEurypylus, and take Troy town.\n\nBut their hope was not to be fulfilled, for though next day Eurypylus met\nNeoptolemus in the battle, and was slain by him, when the Greeks chased\nthe Trojans into their city so great a storm of lightning and thunder and\nrain fell upon them that they retreated again to their camp.  They\nbelieved that Zeus, the chief of the Gods, was angry with them, and the\ndays went by, and Troy still stood unconquered.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SLAYING OF PARIS\n\n\nWhen the Greeks were disheartened, as they often were, they consulted\nCalchas the prophet.  He usually found that they must do something, or\nsend for somebody, and in doing so they diverted their minds from their\nmany misfortunes.  Now, as the Trojans were fighting more bravely than\nbefore, under Deiphobus, a brother of Hector, the Greeks went to Calchas\nfor advice, and he told them that they must send Ulysses and Diomede to\nbring Philoctetes the bowman from the isle of Lemnos.  This was an\nunhappy deserted island, in which the married women, some years before,\nhad murdered all their husbands, out of jealousy, in a single night.  The\nGreeks had landed in Lemnos, on their way to Troy, and there Philoctetes\nhad shot an arrow at a great water dragon which lived in a well within a\ncave in the lonely hills.  But when he entered the cave the dragon bit\nhim, and, though he killed it at last, its poisonous teeth wounded his\nfoot.  The wound never healed, but dripped with venom, and Philoctetes,\nin terrible pain, kept all the camp awake at night by his cries.\n\nThe Greeks were sorry for him, but he was not a pleasant companion,\nshrieking as he did, and exuding poison wherever he came.  So they left\nhim on the lonely island, and did not know whether he was alive or dead.\nCalchas ought to have told the Greeks not to desert Philoctetes at the\ntime, if he was so important that Troy, as the prophet now said, could\nnot be taken without him.  But now, as he must give some advice, Calchas\nsaid that Philoctetes must be brought back, so Ulysses and Diomede went\nto bring him.  They sailed to Lemnos, a melancholy place they found it,\nwith no smoke rising from the ruinous houses along the shore.  As they\nwere landing they learned that Philoctetes was not dead, for his dismal\nold cries of pain, _ototototoi, ai, ai; pheu, pheu; ototototoi_, came\nechoing from a cave on the beach.  To this cave the princes went, and\nfound a terrible-looking man, with long, dirty, dry hair and beard; he\nwas worn to a skeleton, with hollow eyes, and lay moaning in a mass of\nthe feathers of sea birds.  His great bow and his arrows lay ready to his\nhand: with these he used to shoot the sea birds, which were all that he\nhad to eat, and their feathers littered all the floor of his cave, and\nthey were none the better for the poison that dripped from his wounded\nfoot.\n\nWhen this horrible creature saw Ulysses and Diomede coming near, he\nseized his bow and fitted a poisonous arrow to the string, for he hated\nthe Greeks, because they had left him in the desert isle.  But the\nprinces held up their hands in sign of peace, and cried out that they had\ncome to do him kindness, so he laid down his bow, and they came in and\nsat on the rocks, and promised that his wound should be healed, for the\nGreeks were very much ashamed of having deserted him.  It was difficult\nto resist Ulysses when he wished to persuade any one, and at last\nPhiloctetes consented to sail with them to Troy.  The oarsmen carried him\ndown to the ship on a litter, and there his dreadful wound was washed\nwith warm water, and oil was poured into it, and it was bound up with\nsoft linen, so that his pain grew less fierce, and they gave him a good\nsupper and wine enough, which he had not tasted for many years.\n\nNext morning they sailed, and had a fair west wind, so that they soon\nlanded among the Greeks and carried Philoctetes on shore.  Here\nPodaleirius, the brother of Machaon, being a physician, did all that\ncould be done to heal the wound, and the pain left Philoctetes.  He was\ntaken to the hut of Agamemnon, who welcomed him, and said that the Greeks\nrepented of their cruelty.  They gave him seven female slaves to take\ncare of him, and twenty swift horses, and twelve great vessels of bronze,\nand told him that he was always to live with the greatest chiefs and feed\nat their table.  So he was bathed, and his hair was cut and combed and\nanointed with oil, and soon he was eager and ready to fight, and to use\nhis great bow and poisoned arrows on the Trojans.  The use of poisoned\narrow-tips was thought unfair, but Philoctetes had no scruples.\n\nNow in the next battle Paris was shooting down the Greeks with his\narrows, when Philoctetes saw him, and cried: \"Dog, you are proud of your\narchery and of the arrow that slew the great Achilles.  But, behold, I am\na better bowman than you, by far, and the bow in my hands was borne by\nthe strong man Heracles!\"  So he cried and drew the bowstring to his\nbreast and the poisoned arrowhead to the bow, and the bowstring rang, and\nthe arrow flew, and did but graze the hand of Paris.  Then the bitter\npain of the poison came upon him, and the Trojans carried him into their\ncity, where the physicians tended him all night.  But he never slept, and\nlay tossing in agony till dawn, when he said: \"There is but one hope.\nTake me to OEnone, the nymph of Mount Ida!\"\n\nThen his friends laid Paris on a litter, and bore him up the steep path\nto Mount Ida.  Often had he climbed it swiftly, when he was young, and\nwent to see the nymph who loved him; but for many a day he had not trod\nthe path where he was now carried in great pain and fear, for the poison\nturned his blood to fire.  Little hope he had, for he knew how cruelly he\nhad deserted OEnone, and he saw that all the birds which were disturbed\nin the wood flew away to the left hand, an omen of evil.\n\nAt last the bearers reached the cave where the nymph OEnone lived, and\nthey smelled the sweet fragrance of the cedar fire that burned on the\nfloor of the cave, and they heard the nymph singing a melancholy song.\nThen Paris called to her in the voice which she had once loved to hear,\nand she grew very pale, and rose up, saying to herself, \"The day has come\nfor which I have prayed.  He is sore hurt, and has come to bid me heal\nhis wound.\"  So she came and stood in the doorway of the dark cave, white\nagainst the darkness, and the bearers laid Paris on the litter at the\nfeet of OEnone, and he stretched forth his hands to touch her knees, as\nwas the manner of suppliants.  But she drew back and gathered her robe\nabout her, that he might not touch it with his hands.\n\nThen he said: \"Lady, despise me not, and hate me not, for my pain is more\nthan I can bear.  Truly it was by no will of mine that I left you lonely\nhere, for the Fates that no man may escape led me to Helen.  Would that I\nhad died in your arms before I saw her face!  But now I beseech you in\nthe name of the Gods, and for the memory of our love, that you will have\npity on me and heal my hurt, and not refuse your grace and let me die\nhere at your feet.\"\n\nThen OEnone answered scornfully: \"Why have you come here to me?  Surely\nfor years you have not come this way, where the path was once worn with\nyour feet.  But long ago you left me lonely and lamenting, for the love\nof Helen of the fair hands.  Surely she is much more beautiful than the\nlove of your youth, and far more able to help you, for men say that she\ncan never know old age and death.  Go home to Helen and let her take away\nyour pain.\"\n\nThus OEnone spoke, and went within the cave, where she threw herself down\namong the ashes of the hearth and sobbed for anger and sorrow.  In a\nlittle while she rose and went to the door of the cave, thinking that\nParis had not been borne away back to Troy, but she found him not; for\nhis bearers had carried him by another path, till he died beneath the\nboughs of the oak trees.  Then his bearers carried him swiftly down to\nTroy, where his mother bewailed him, and Helen sang over him as she had\nsung over Hector, remembering many things, and fearing to think of what\nher own end might be.  But the Trojans hastily built a great pile of dry\nwood, and thereon laid the body of Paris and set fire to it, and the\nflame went up through the darkness, for now night had fallen.\n\nBut OEnone was roaming in the dark woods, crying and calling after Paris,\nlike a lioness whose cubs the hunters have carried away.  The moon rose\nto give her light, and the flame of the funeral fire shone against the\nsky, and then OEnone knew that Paris had died--beautiful Paris--and that\nthe Trojans were burning his body on the plain at the foot of Mount Ida.\nThen she cried that now Paris was all her own, and that Helen had no more\nhold on him: \"And though when he was living he left me, in death we shall\nnot be divided,\" she said, and she sped down the hill, and through the\nthickets where the wood nymphs were wailing for Paris, and she reached\nthe plain, and, covering her head with her veil like a bride, she rushed\nthrough the throng of Trojans.  She leaped upon the burning pile of wood,\nshe clasped the body of Paris in her arms, and the flame of fire consumed\nthe bridegroom and the bride, and their ashes mingled.  No man could\ndivide them any more, and the ashes were placed in a golden cup, within a\nchamber of stone, and the earth was mounded above them.  On that grave\nthe wood nymphs planted two rose trees, and their branches met and\nplaited together.\n\nThis was the end of Paris and OEnone.\n\n\n\n\nHOW ULYSSES INVENTED THE DEVICE OF THE HORSE OF TREE\n\n\nAfter Paris died, Helen was not given back to Menelaus.  We are often\ntold that only fear of the anger of Paris had prevented the Trojans from\nsurrendering Helen and making peace.  Now Paris could not terrify them,\nyet for all that the men of the town would not part with Helen, whether\nbecause she was so beautiful, or because they thought it dishonourable to\nyield her to the Greeks, who might put her to a cruel death.  So Helen\nwas taken by Deiphobus, the brother of Paris, to live in his own house,\nand Deiphobus was at this time the best warrior and the chief captain of\nthe men of Troy.\n\nMeanwhile, the Greeks made an assault against the Trojan walls and fought\nlong and hardily; but, being safe behind the battlements, and shooting\nthrough loopholes, the Trojans drove them back with loss of many of their\nmen.  It was in vain that Philoctetes shot his poisoned arrows, they fell\nback from the stone walls, or stuck in the palisades of wood above the\nwalls, and the Greeks who tried to climb over were speared, or crushed\nwith heavy stones.  When night fell, they retreated to the ships and held\na council, and, as usual, they asked the advice of the prophet Calchas.\nIt was the business of Calchas to go about looking at birds, and taking\nomens from what he saw them doing, a way of prophesying which the Romans\nalso used, and some savages do the same to this day.  Calchas said that\nyesterday he had seen a hawk pursuing a dove, which hid herself in a hole\nin a rocky cliff.  For a long while the hawk tried to find the hole, and\nfollow the dove into it, but he could not reach her.  So he flew away for\na short distance and hid himself; then the dove fluttered out into the\nsunlight, and the hawk swooped on her and killed her.\n\nThe Greeks, said Calchas, ought to learn a lesson from the hawk, and take\nTroy by cunning, as by force they could do nothing.  Then Ulysses stood\nup and described a trick which it is not easy to understand.  The Greeks,\nhe said, ought to make an enormous hollow horse of wood, and place the\nbravest men in the horse.  Then all the rest of the Greeks should embark\nin their ships and sail to the Isle of Tenedos, and lie hidden behind the\nisland.  The Trojans would then come out of the city, like the dove out\nof her hole in the rock, and would wander about the Greek camp, and\nwonder why the great horse of tree had been made, and why it had been\nleft behind.  Lest they should set fire to the horse, when they would\nsoon have found out the warriors hidden in it, a cunning Greek, whom the\nTrojans did not know by sight, should be left in the camp or near it.  He\nwould tell the Trojans that the Greeks had given up all hope and gone\nhome, and he was to say that they feared the Goddess Pallas was angry\nwith them, because they had stolen her image that fell from heaven, and\nwas called the Luck of Troy.  To soothe Pallas and prevent her from\nsending great storms against the ships, the Trojans (so the man was to\nsay) had built this wooden horse as an offering to the Goddess.  The\nTrojans, believing this story, would drag the horse into Troy, and, in\nthe night, the princes would come out, set fire to the city, and open the\ngates to the army, which would return from Tenedos as soon as darkness\ncame on.\n\nThe prophet was much pleased with the plan of Ulysses, and, as two birds\nhappened to fly away on the right hand, he declared that the stratagem\nwould certainly be lucky.  Neoptolemus, on the other hand, voted for\ntaking Troy, without any trick, by sheer hard fighting.  Ulysses replied\nthat if Achilles could not do that, it could not be done at all, and that\nEpeius, a famous carpenter, had better set about making the horse at\nonce.\n\nNext day half the army, with axes in their hands, were sent to cut down\ntrees on Mount Ida, and thousands of planks were cut from the trees by\nEpeius and his workmen, and in three days he had finished the horse.\nUlysses then asked the best of the Greeks to come forward and go inside\nthe machine; while one, whom the Greeks did not know by sight, should\nvolunteer to stay behind in the camp and deceive the Trojans.  Then a\nyoung man called Sinon stood up and said that he would risk himself and\ntake the chance that the Trojans might disbelieve him, and burn him\nalive.  Certainly, none of the Greeks did anything more courageous, yet\nSinon had not been considered brave.\n\nHad he fought in the front ranks, the Trojans would have known him; but\nthere were many brave fighters who would not have dared to do what Sinon\nundertook.\n\nThen old Nestor was the first that volunteered to go into the horse; but\nNeoptolemus said that, brave as he was, he was too old, and that he must\ndepart with the army to Tenedos.  Neoptolemus himself would go into the\nhorse, for he would rather die than turn his back on Troy.  So\nNeoptolemus armed himself and climbed into the horse, as did Menelaus,\nUlysses, Diomede, Thrasymedes (Nestor's son), Idomeneus, Philoctetes,\nMeriones, and all the best men except Agamemnon, while Epeius himself\nentered last of all.  Agamemnon was not allowed by the other Greeks to\nshare their adventure, as he was to command the army when they returned\nfrom Tenedos.  They meanwhile launched their ships and sailed away.\n\nBut first Menelaus had led Ulysses apart, and told him that if they took\nTroy (and now they must either take it or die at the hands of the\nTrojans), he would owe to Ulysses the glory.  When they came back to\nGreece, he wished to give Ulysses one of his own cities, that they might\nalways be near each other.  Ulysses smiled and shook his head; he could\nnot leave Ithaca, his own rough island kingdom.  \"But if we both live\nthrough the night that is coming,\" he said, \"I may ask you for one gift,\nand giving it will make you none the poorer.\"  Then Menelaus swore by the\nsplendour of Zeus that Ulysses could ask him for no gift that he would\nnot gladly give; so they embraced, and both armed themselves and went up\ninto the horse.  With them were all the chiefs except Nestor, whom they\nwould not allow to come, and Agamemnon, who, as chief general, had to\ncommand the army.  They swathed themselves and their arms in soft silks,\nthat they might not ring and clash, when the Trojans, if they were so\nfoolish, dragged the horse up into their town, and there they sat in the\ndark waiting.  Meanwhile, the army burned their huts and launched their\nships, and with oars and sails made their way to the back of the isle of\nTenedos.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END OF TROY AND THE SAVING OF HELEN\n\n\nFrom the walls the Trojans saw the black smoke go up thick into the sky,\nand the whole fleet of the Greeks sailing out to sea.  Never were men so\nglad, and they armed themselves for fear of an ambush, and went\ncautiously, sending forth scouts in front of them, down to the seashore.\nHere they found the huts burned down and the camp deserted, and some of\nthe scouts also caught Sinon, who had hid himself in a place where he was\nlikely to be found.  They rushed on him with fierce cries, and bound his\nhands with a rope, and kicked and dragged him along to the place where\nPriam and the princes were wondering at the great horse of tree.  Sinon\nlooked round upon them, while some were saying that he ought to be\ntortured with fire to make him tell all the truth about the horse.  The\nchiefs in the horse must have trembled for fear lest torture should wring\nthe truth out of Sinon, for then the Trojans would simply burn the\nmachine and them within it.\n\nBut Sinon said: \"Miserable man that I am, whom the Greeks hate and the\nTrojans are eager to slay!\"  When the Trojans heard that the Greeks hated\nhim, they were curious, and asked who he was, and how he came to be\nthere.  \"I will tell you all, oh King!\" he answered Priam.  \"I was a\nfriend and squire of an unhappy chief, Palamedes, whom the wicked Ulysses\nhated and slew secretly one day, when he found him alone, fishing in the\nsea.  I was angry, and in my folly I did not hide my anger, and my words\ncame to the ears of Ulysses.  From that hour he sought occasion to slay\nme.  Then Calchas--\" here he stopped, saying: \"But why tell a long tale?\nIf you hate all Greeks alike, then slay me; this is what Agamemnon and\nUlysses desire; Menelaus would thank you for my head.\"\n\nThe Trojans were now more curious than before.  They bade him go on, and\nhe said that the Greeks had consulted an Oracle, which advised them to\nsacrifice one of their army to appease the anger of the Gods and gain a\nfair wind homewards.  \"But who was to be sacrificed?  They asked Calchas,\nwho for fifteen days refused to speak.  At last, being bribed by Ulysses,\nhe pointed to me, Sinon, and said that I must be the victim.  I was bound\nand kept in prison, while they built their great horse as a present for\nPallas Athene the Goddess.  They made it so large that you Trojans might\nnever be able to drag it into your city; while, if you destroyed it, the\nGoddess might turn her anger against you.  And now they have gone home to\nbring back the image that fell from heaven, which they had sent to\nGreece, and to restore it to the Temple of Pallas Athene, when they have\ntaken your town, for the Goddess is angry with them for that theft of\nUlysses.\"\n\nThe Trojans were foolish enough to believe the story of Sinon, and they\npitied him and unbound his hands.  Then they tied ropes to the wooden\nhorse, and laid rollers in front of it, like men launching a ship, and\nthey all took turns to drag the horse up to the Scaean gate.  Children\nand women put their hands to the ropes and hauled, and with shouts and\ndances, and hymns they toiled, till about nightfall the horse stood in\nthe courtyard of the inmost castle.\n\nThen all the people of Troy began to dance, and drink, and sing.  Such\nsentinels as were set at the gates got as drunk as all the rest, who\ndanced about the city till after midnight, and then they went to their\nhomes and slept heavily.\n\nMeanwhile the Greek ships were returning from behind Tenedos as fast as\nthe oarsmen could row them.\n\nOne Trojan did not drink or sleep; this was Deiphobus, at whose house\nHelen was now living.  He bade her come with them, for he knew that she\nwas able to speak in the very voice of all men and women whom she had\never seen, and he armed a few of his friends and went with them to the\ncitadel.  Then he stood beside the horse, holding Helen's hand, and\nwhispered to her that she must call each of the chiefs in the voice of\nhis wife.  She was obliged to obey, and she called Menelaus in her own\nvoice, and Diomede in the voice of his wife, and Ulysses in the very\nvoice of Penelope.  Then Menelaus and Diomede were eager to answer, but\nUlysses grasped their hands and whispered the word \"Echo!\"  Then they\nremembered that this was a name of Helen, because she could speak in all\nvoices, and they were silent; but Anticlus was still eager to answer,\ntill Ulysses held his strong hand over his mouth.  There was only\nsilence, and Deiphobus led Helen back to his house.  When they had gone\naway Epeius opened the side of the horse, and all the chiefs let\nthemselves down softly to the ground.  Some rushed to the gate, to open\nit, and they killed the sleeping sentinels and let in the Greeks.  Others\nsped with torches to burn the houses of the Trojan princes, and terrible\nwas the slaughter of men, unarmed and half awake, and loud were the cries\nof the women.  But Ulysses had slipped away at the first, none knew\nwhere.  Neoptolemus ran to the palace of Priam, who was sitting at the\naltar in his courtyard, praying vainly to the Gods, for Neoptolemus slew\nthe old man cruelly, and his white hair was dabbled in his blood.  All\nthrough the city was fighting and slaying; but Menelaus went to the house\nof Deiphobus, knowing that Helen was there.\n\nIn the doorway he found Deiphobus lying dead in all his armour, a spear\nstanding in his breast.  There were footprints marked in blood, leading\nthrough the portico and into the hall.  There Menelaus went, and found\nUlysses leaning, wounded, against one of the central pillars of the great\nchamber, the firelight shining on his armour.\n\n\"Why hast thou slain Deiphobus and robbed me of my revenge?\" said\nMenelaus.  \"You swore to give me a gift,\" said Ulysses, \"and will you\nkeep your oath?\"  \"Ask what you will,\" said Menelaus; \"it is yours and my\noath cannot be broken.\"  \"I ask the life of Helen of the fair hands,\"\nsaid Ulysses \"this is my own life-price that I pay back to her, for she\nsaved my life when I took the Luck of Troy, and I swore that hers should\nbe saved.\"\n\nThen Helen stole, glimmering in white robes, from a recess in the dark\nhall, and fell at the feet of Menelaus; her golden hair lay in the dust\nof the hearth, and her hands moved to touch his knees.  His drawn sword\nfell from the hands of Menelaus, and pity and love came into his heart,\nand he raised her from the dust and her white arms were round his neck,\nand they both wept.  That night Menelaus fought no more, but they tended\nthe wound of Ulysses, for the sword of Deiphobus had bitten through his\nhelmet.\n\nWhen dawn came Troy lay in ashes, and the women were being driven with\nspear shafts to the ships, and the men were left unburied, a prey to dogs\nand all manner of birds.  Thus the grey city fell, that had lorded it for\nmany centuries.  All the gold and silver and rich embroideries, and ivory\nand amber, the horses and chariots, were divided among the army; all but\na treasure of silver and gold, hidden in a chest within a hollow of the\nwall, and this treasure was found, not very many years ago, by men\ndigging deep on the hill where Troy once stood.  The women, too, were\ngiven to the princes, and Neoptolemus took Andromache to his home in\nArgos, to draw water from the well and to be the slave of a master, and\nAgamemnon carried beautiful Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, to his\npalace in Mycenae, where they were both slain in one night.  Only Helen\nwas led with honour to the ship of Menelaus.\n\nThe story of all that happened to Ulysses on his way home from Troy is\ntold in another book, \"Tales of the Greek Seas.\"","title":"Tales of Troy: Ulysses, the Sacker of Cities","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":32172}