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Tales of Troy
by Andrew Lang
November, 1999 [Etext #1973]
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This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
from the 1912 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition.
Tales of Troy
by Andrew Lang
TALES OF TROY: ULYSSES THE SACKER OF CITIES
Contents:
The Boyhood and Parents of Ulysses
How People Lived in the Time of Ulysses
The Wooing of Helen of the Fair Hands
The Stealing of Helen
Trojan Victories
Battle at the Ships
The Slaying and Avenging of Patroclus
The Cruelty of Achilles, and the Ransoming of Hector
How Ulysses Stole the Luck of Troy
The Battles with the Amazons and Memnon--the Death of Achilles
Ulysses Sails to seek the Son of Achilles.--The Valour of Eurypylus
The Slaying of Paris
How Ulysses Invented the Device of the Horse of Tree
The End of Troy and the Saving of Helen
THE BOYHOOD AND PARENTS OF ULYSSES
Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of
Greece, there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small
and mountainous. People used to say that Ithaca "lay like a shield
upon the sea," which sounds as if it were a flat country. But in
those times shields were very large, and rose at the middle into
two peaks with a hollow between them, so that Ithaca, seen far off
in the sea, with her two chief mountain peaks, and a cloven valley
between them, looked exactly like a shield. The country was so
rough that men kept no horses, for, at that time, people drove,
standing up in little light chariots with two horses; they never
rode, and there was no cavalry in battle: men fought from
chariots. When Ulysses, the son of Laertes, King of Ithaca grew
up, he never fought from a chariot, for he had none, but always on
foot.
If there were no horses in Ithaca, there was plenty of cattle. The
father of Ulysses had flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, and wild
goats, deer, and hares lived in the hills and in the plains. The
sea was full of fish of many sorts, which men caught with nets, and
with rod and line and hook.
Thus Ithaca was a good island to live in. The summer was long, and
there was hardly any winter; only a few cold weeks, and then the
swallows came back, and the plains were like a garden, all covered
with wild flowers--violets, lilies, narcissus, and roses. With the
blue sky and the blue sea, the island was beautiful. White temples
stood on the shores; and the Nymphs, a sort of fairies, had their
little shrines built of stone, with wild rose-bushes hanging over
them.
Other islands lay within sight, crowned with mountains, stretching
away, one behind the other, into the sunset. Ulysses in the course
of his life saw many rich countries, and great cities of men, but,
wherever he was, his heart was always in the little isle of Ithaca,
where he had learned how to row, and how to sail a boat, and how to
shoot with bow and arrow, and to hunt boars and stags, and manage
his hounds.
The mother of Ulysses was called Anticleia: she was the daughter
of King Autolycus, who lived near Parnassus, a mountain on the
mainland. This King Autolycus was the most cunning of men. He was
a Master Thief, and could steal a man's pillow from under his head,
but he does not seem to have been thought worse of for this. The
Greeks had a God of Thieves, named Hermes, whom Autolycus
worshipped, and people thought more good of his cunning tricks than
harm of his dishonesty. Perhaps these tricks of his were only
practised for amusement; however that may be, Ulysses became as
artful as his grandfather; he was both the bravest and the most
cunning of men, but Ulysses never stole things, except once, as we
shall hear, from the enemy in time of war. He showed his cunning
in stratagems of war, and in many strange escapes from giants and
man-eaters.
Soon after Ulysses was born, his grandfather came to see his mother
and father in Ithaca. He was sitting at supper when the nurse of
Ulysses, whose name was Eurycleia, brought in the baby, and set him
on the knees of Autolycus, saying, "Find a name for your grandson,
for he is a child of many prayers."
"I am very angry with many men and women in the world," said
Autolycus, "so let the child's name be A MAN OF WRATH," which, in
Greek, was Odysseus. So the child was called Odysseus by his own
people, but the name was changed into Ulysses, and we shall call
him Ulysses.
We do not know much about Ulysses when he was a little boy, except
that he used to run about the garden with his father, asking
questions, and begging that he might have fruit trees "for his very
own." He was a great pet, for his parents had no other son, so his
father gave him thirteen pear trees, and forty fig trees, and
promised him fifty rows of vines, all covered with grapes, which he
could eat when he liked, without asking leave of the gardener. So
he was not tempted to steal fruit, like his grandfather.
When Autolycus gave Ulysses his name, he said that he must come to
stay with him, when he was a big boy, and he would get splendid
presents. Ulysses was told about this, so, when he was a tall lad,
he crossed the sea and drove in his chariot to the old man's house
on Mount Parnassus. Everybody welcomed him, and next day his
uncles and cousins and he went out to hunt a fierce wild boar,
early in the morning. Probably Ulysses took his own dog, named
Argos, the best of hounds, of which we shall hear again, long
afterwards, for the dog lived to be very old. Soon the hounds came
on the scent of a wild boar, and after them the men went, with
spears in their hands, and Ulysses ran foremost, for he was already
the swiftest runner in Greece.
He came on a great boar lying in a tangled thicket of boughs and
bracken, a dark place where the sun never shone, nor could the rain
pierce through. Then the noise of the men's shouts and the barking
of the dogs awakened the boar, and up he sprang, bristling all over
his back, and with fire shining from his eyes. In rushed Ulysses
first of all, with his spear raised to strike, but the boar was too
quick for him, and ran in, and drove his sharp tusk sideways,
ripping up the thigh of Ulysses. But the boar's tusk missed the
bone, and Ulysses sent his sharp spear into the beast's right
shoulder, and the spear went clean through, and the boar fell dead,
with a loud cry. The uncles of Ulysses bound up his wound
carefully, and sang a magical song over it, as the French soldiers
wanted to do to Joan of Arc when the arrow pierced her shoulder at
the siege of Orleans. Then the blood ceased to flow, and soon
Ulysses was quite healed of his wound. They thought that he would
be a good warrior, and gave him splendid presents, and when he went
home again he told all that had happened to his father and mother,
and his nurse, Eurycleia. But there was always a long white mark
or scar above his left knee, and about that scar we shall hear
again, many years afterwards.
HOW PEOPLE LIVED IN THE TIME OF ULYSSES
When Ulysses was a young man he wished to marry a princess of his
own rank. Now there were at that time many kings in Greece, and
you must be told how they lived. Each king had his own little
kingdom, with his chief town, walled with huge walls of enormous
stone. Many of these walls are still standing, though the grass
has grown over the ruins of most of them, and in later years, men
believed that those walls must have been built by giants, the
stones are so enormous. Each king had nobles under him, rich men,
and all had their palaces, each with its courtyard, and its long
hall, where the fire burned in the midst, and the King and Queen
sat beside it on high thrones, between the four chief carved
pillars that held up the roof. The thrones were made of cedar wood
and ivory, inlaid with gold, and there were many other chairs and
small tables for guests, and the walls and doors were covered with
bronze plates, and gold and silver, and sheets of blue glass.
Sometimes they were painted with pictures of bull hunts, and a few
of these pictures may still be seen. At night torches were lit,
and placed in the hands of golden figures of boys, but all the
smoke of fire and torches escaped by a hole in the roof, and made
the ceiling black. On the walls hung swords and spears and helmets
and shields, which needed to be often cleaned from the stains of
the smoke. The minstrel or poet sat beside the King and Queen,
and, after supper he struck his harp, and sang stories of old wars.
At night the King and Queen slept in their own place, and the women
in their own rooms; the princesses had their chambers upstairs, and
the young princes had each his room built separate in the
courtyard.
There were bath rooms with polished baths, where guests were taken
when they arrived dirty from a journey. The guests lay at night on
beds in the portico, for the climate was warm. There were plenty
of servants, who were usually slaves taken in war, but they were
very kindly treated, and were friendly with their masters. No
coined money was used; people paid for things in cattle, or in
weighed pieces of gold. Rich men had plenty of gold cups, and
gold-hilted swords, and bracelets, and brooches. The kings were
the leaders in war and judges in peace, and did sacrifices to the
Gods, killing cattle and swine and sheep, on which they afterwards
dined.
They dressed in a simple way, in a long smock of linen or silk,
which fell almost to the feet, but was tucked up into a belt round
the waist, and worn longer or shorter, as they happened to choose.
Where it needed fastening at the throat, golden brooches were used,
beautifully made, with safety pins. This garment was much like the
plaid that the Highlanders used to wear, with its belt and
brooches. Over it the Greeks wore great cloaks of woollen cloth
when the weather was cold, but these they did not use in battle.
They fastened their breastplates, in war, over their smocks, and
had other armour covering the lower parts of the body, and leg
armour called "greaves"; while the great shield which guarded the
whole body from throat to ankles was carried by a broad belt slung
round the neck. The sword was worn in another belt, crossing the
shield belt. They had light shoes in peace, and higher and heavier
boots in war, or for walking across country.
The women wore the smock, with more brooches and jewels than the
men; and had head coverings, with veils, and mantles over all, and
necklaces of gold and amber, earrings, and bracelets of gold or of
bronze. The colours of their dresses were various, chiefly white
and purple; and, when in mourning, they wore very dark blue, not
black. All the armour, and the sword blades and spearheads were
made, not of steel or iron, but of bronze, a mixture of copper and
tin. The shields were made of several thicknesses of leather, with
a plating of bronze above; tools, such as axes and ploughshares,
were either of iron or bronze; and so were the blades of knives and
daggers.
To us the houses and way of living would have seemed very splendid,
and also, in some ways, rather rough. The palace floors, at least
in the house of Ulysses, were littered with bones and feet of the
oxen slain for food, but this happened when Ulysses had been long
from home. The floor of the hall in the house of Ulysses was not
boarded with planks, or paved with stone: it was made of clay; for
he was a poor king of small islands. The cooking was coarse: a
pig or sheep was killed, roasted and eaten immediately. We never
hear of boiling meat, and though people probably ate fish, we do
not hear of their doing so, except when no meat could be procured.
Still some people must have liked them; for in the pictures that
were painted or cut in precious stones in these times we see the
half-naked fisherman walking home, carrying large fish.
The people were wonderful workers of gold and bronze. Hundreds of
their golden jewels have been found in their graves, but probably
these were made and buried two or three centuries before the time
of Ulysses. The dagger blades had pictures of fights with lions,
and of flowers, inlaid on them, in gold of various colours, and in
silver; nothing so beautiful is made now. There are figures of men
hunting bulls on some of the gold cups, and these are wonderfully
life-like. The vases and pots of earthenware were painted in
charming patterns: in short, it was a splendid world to live in.
The people believed in many Gods, male and female, under the chief
God, Zeus. The Gods were thought to be taller than men, and
immortal, and to live in much the same way as men did, eating,
drinking, and sleeping in glorious palaces. Though they were
supposed to reward good men, and to punish people who broke their
oaths and were unkind to strangers, there were many stories told in
which the Gods were fickle, cruel, selfish, and set very bad
examples to men. How far these stories were believed is not sure;
it is certain that "all men felt a need of the Gods," and thought
that they were pleased by good actions and displeased by evil.
Yet, when a man felt that his behaviour had been bad, he often
threw the blame on the Gods, and said that they had misled him,
which really meant no more than that "he could not help it."
There was a curious custom by which the princes bought wives from
the fathers of the princesses, giving cattle and gold, and bronze
and iron, but sometimes a prince got a wife as the reward for some
very brave action. A man would not give his daughter to a wooer
whom she did not love, even if he offered the highest price, at
least this must have been the general rule, for husbands and wives
were very fond of each other, and of their children, and husbands
always allowed their wives to rule the house, and give their advice
on everything. It was thought a very wicked thing for a woman to
like another man better than her husband, and there were few such
wives, but among them was the most beautiful woman who ever lived.
THE WOOING OF HELEN OF THE FAIR HANDS
This was the way in which people lived when Ulysses was young, and
wished to be married. The worst thing in the way of life was that
the greatest and most beautiful princesses might be taken
prisoners, and carried off as slaves to the towns of the men who
had killed their fathers and husbands. Now at that time one lady
was far the fairest in the world: namely, Helen, daughter of King
Tyndarus. Every young prince heard of her and desired to marry
her; so her father invited them all to his palace, and entertained
them, and found out what they would give. Among the rest Ulysses
went, but his father had a little kingdom, a rough island, with
others near it, and Ulysses had not a good chance. He was not
tall; though very strong and active, he was a short man with broad
shoulders, but his face was handsome, and, like all the princes, he
wore long yellow hair, clustering like a hyacinth flower. His
manner was rather hesitating, and he seemed to speak very slowly at
first, though afterwards his words came freely. He was good at
everything a man can do; he could plough, and build houses, and
make ships, and he was the best archer in Greece, except one, and
could bend the great bow of a dead king, Eurytus, which no other
man could string. But he had no horses, and had no great train of
followers; and, in short, neither Helen nor her father thought of
choosing Ulysses for her husband out of so many tall, handsome
young princes, glittering with gold ornaments. Still, Helen was
very kind to Ulysses, and there was great friendship between them,
which was fortunate for her in the end.
Tyndarus first made all the princes take an oath that they would
stand by the prince whom he chose, and would fight for him in all
his quarrels. Then he named for her husband Menelaus, King of
Lacedaemon. He was a very brave man, but not one of the strongest;
he was not such a fighter as the gigantic Aias, the tallest and
strongest of men; or as Diomede, the friend of Ulysses; or as his
own brother, Agamemnon, the King of the rich city of Mycenae, who
was chief over all other princes, and general of the whole army in
war. The great lions carved in stone that seemed to guard his city
are still standing above the gate through which Agamemnon used to
drive his chariot.
The man who proved to be the best fighter of all, Achilles, was not
among the lovers of Helen, for he was still a boy, and his mother,
Thetis of the silver feet, a goddess of the sea, had sent him to be
brought up as a girl, among the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros,
in an island far away. Thetis did this because Achilles was her
only child, and there was a prophecy that, if he went to the wars,
he would win the greatest glory, but die very young, and never see
his mother again. She thought that if war broke out he would not
be found hiding in girl's dress, among girls, far away.
So at last, after thinking over the matter for long, Tyndarus gave
fair Helen to Menelaus, the rich King of Lacedaemon; and her twin
sister Clytaemnestra, who was also very beautiful, was given to
King Agamemnon, the chief over all the princes. They all lived
very happily together at first, but not for long.
In the meantime King Tyndarus spoke to his brother Icarius, who had
a daughter named Penelope. She also was very pretty, but not
nearly so beautiful as her cousin, fair Helen, and we know that
Penelope was not very fond of her cousin. Icarius, admiring the
strength and wisdom of Ulysses, gave him his daughter Penelope to
be his wife, and Ulysses loved her very dearly, no man and wife
were ever dearer to each other. They went away together to rocky
Ithaca, and perhaps Penelope was not sorry that a wide sea lay
between her home and that of Helen; for Helen was not only the
fairest woman that ever lived in the world, but she was so kind and
gracious and charming that no man could see her without loving her.
When she was only a child, the famous prince Theseus, who was
famous in Greek Story, carried her away to his own city of Athens,
meaning to marry her when she grew up, and even at that time, there
was a war for her sake, for her brothers followed Theseus with an
army, and fought him, and brought her home.
She had fairy gifts; for instance, she had a great red jewel,
called "the Star," and when she wore it red drops seemed to fall
from it and vanished before they touched and stained her white
breast--so white that people called her "the Daughter of the Swan."
She could speak in the very voice of any man or woman, so folk also
named her Echo, and it was believed that she could neither grow old
nor die, but would at last pass away to the Elysian plain and the
world's end, where life is easiest for men. No snow comes thither,
nor great storm, nor any rain; but always the river of Ocean that
rings round the whole earth sends forth the west wind to blow cool
on the people of King Rhadamanthus of the fair hair. These were
some of the stories that men told of fair Helen, but Ulysses was
never sorry that he had not the fortune to marry her, so fond he
was of her cousin, his wife, Penelope, who was very wise and good.
When Ulysses brought his wife home they lived, as the custom was,
in the palace of his father, King Laertes, but Ulysses, with his
own hands, built a chamber for Penelope and himself. There grew a
great olive tree in the inner court of the palace, and its stem was
as large as one of the tall carved pillars of the hall. Round
about this tree Ulysses built the chamber, and finished it with
close-set stones, and roofed it over, and made close-fastening
doors. Then he cut off all the branches of the olive tree, and
smoothed the trunk, and shaped it into the bed-post, and made the
bedstead beautiful with inlaid work of gold and silver and ivory.
There was no such bed in Greece, and no man could move it from its
place, and this bed comes again into the story, at the very end.
Now time went by, and Ulysses and Penelope had one son called
Telemachus; and Eurycleia, who had been his father's nurse, took
care of him. They were all very happy, and lived in peace in rocky
Ithaca, and Ulysses looked after his lands, and flocks, and herds,
and went hunting with his dog Argos, the swiftest of hounds.
THE STEALING OF HELEN
This happy time did not last long, and Telemachus was still a baby,
when war arose, so great and mighty and marvellous as had never
been known in the world. Far across the sea that lies on the east
of Greece, there dwelt the rich King Priam. His town was called
Troy, or Ilios, and it stood on a hill near the seashore, where are
the straits of Hellespont, between Europe and Asia; it was a great
city surrounded by strong walls, and its ruins are still standing.
The kings could make merchants who passed through the straits pay
toll to them, and they had allies in Thrace, a part of Europe
opposite Troy, and Priam was chief of all princes on his side of
the sea, as Agamemnon was chief king in Greece. Priam had many
beautiful things; he had a vine made of gold, with golden leaves
and clusters, and he had the swiftest horses, and many strong and
brave sons; the strongest and bravest was named Hector, and the
youngest and most beautiful was named Paris.
There was a prophecy that Priam's wife would give birth to a
burning torch, so, when Paris was born, Priam sent a servant to
carry the baby into a wild wood on Mount Ida, and leave him to die
or be eaten by wolves and wild cats. The servant left the child,
but a shepherd found him, and brought him up as his own son. The
boy became as beautiful, for a boy, as Helen was for a girl, and
was the best runner, and hunter, and archer among the country
people. He was loved by the beautiful OEnone, a nymph--that is, a
kind of fairy--who dwelt in a cave among the woods of Ida. The
Greeks and Trojans believed in these days that such fair nymphs
haunted all beautiful woodland places, and the mountains, and
wells, and had crystal palaces, like mermaids, beneath the waves of
the sea. These fairies were not mischievous, but gentle and kind.
Sometimes they married mortal men, and OEnone was the bride of
Paris, and hoped to keep him for her own all the days of his life.
It was believed that she had the magical power of healing wounded
men, however sorely they were hurt. Paris and OEnone lived most
happily together in the forest; but one day, when the servants of
Priam had driven off a beautiful bull that was in the herd of
Paris, he left the hills to seek it, and came into the town of
Troy. His mother, Hecuba, saw him, and looking at him closely,
perceived that he wore a ring which she had tied round her baby's
neck when he was taken away from her soon after his birth. Then
Hecuba, beholding him so beautiful, and knowing him to be her son,
wept for joy, and they all forgot the prophecy that he would be a
burning torch of fire, and Priam gave him a house like those of his
brothers, the Trojan princes.
The fame of beautiful Helen reached Troy, and Paris quite forgot
unhappy OEnone, and must needs go to see Helen for himself.
Perhaps he meant to try to win her for his wife, before her
marriage. But sailing was little understood in these times, and
the water was wide, and men were often driven for years out of
their course, to Egypt, and Africa, and far away into the unknown
seas, where fairies lived in enchanted islands, and cannibals dwelt
in caves of the hills.
Paris came much too late to have a chance of marrying Helen;
however, he was determined to see her, and he made his way to her
palace beneath the mountain Taygetus, beside the clear swift river
Eurotas. The servants came out of the hall when they heard the
sound of wheels and horses' feet, and some of them took the horses
to the stables, and tilted the chariots against the gateway, while
others led Paris into the hall, which shone like the sun with gold
and silver. Then Paris and his companions were led to the baths,
where they were bathed, and clad in new clothes, mantles of white,
and robes of purple, and next they were brought before King
Menelaus, and he welcomed them kindly, and meat was set before
them, and wine in cups of gold. While they were talking, Helen
came forth from her fragrant chamber, like a Goddess, her maidens
following her, and carrying for her an ivory distaff with violet-
coloured wool, which she span as she sat, and heard Paris tell how
far he had travelled to see her who was so famous for her beauty
even in countries far away.
Then Paris knew that he had never seen, and never could see, a lady
so lovely and gracious as Helen as she sat and span, while the red
drops fell and vanished from the ruby called the Star; and Helen
knew that among all the princes in the world there was none so
beautiful as Paris. Now some say that Paris, by art magic, put on
the appearance of Menelaus, and asked Helen to come sailing with
him, and that she, thinking he was her husband, followed him, and
he carried her across the wide waters of Troy, away from her lord
and her one beautiful little daughter, the child Hermione. And
others say that the Gods carried Helen herself off to Egypt, and
that they made in her likeness a beautiful ghost, out of flowers
and sunset clouds, whom Paris bore to Troy, and this they did to
cause war between Greeks and Trojans. Another story is that Helen
and her bower maiden and her jewels were seized by force, when
Menelaus was out hunting. It is only certain that Paris and Helen
did cross the seas together, and that Menelaus and little Hermione
were left alone in the melancholy palace beside the Eurotas.
Penelope, we know for certain, made no excuses for her beautiful
cousin, but hated her as the cause of her own sorrows and of the
deaths of thousands of men in war, for all the Greek princes were
bound by their oath to fight for Menelaus against any one who
injured him and stole his wife away. But Helen was very unhappy in
Troy, and blamed herself as bitterly as all the other women blamed
her, and most of all OEnone, who had been the love of Paris. The
men were much more kind to Helen, and were determined to fight to
the death rather than lose the sight of her beauty among them.
The news of the dishonour done to Menelaus and to all the princes
of Greece ran through the country like fire through a forest. East
and west and south and north went the news: to kings in their
castles on the hills, and beside the rivers and on cliffs above the
sea. The cry came to ancient Nestor of the white beard at Pylos,
Nestor who had reigned over two generations of men, who had fought
against the wild folk of the hills, and remembered the strong
Heracles, and Eurytus of the black bow that sang before the day of
battle.
The cry came to black-bearded Agamemnon, in his strong town called
"golden Mycenae," because it was so rich; it came to the people in
Thisbe, where the wild doves haunt; and it came to rocky Pytho,
where is the sacred temple of Apollo and the maid who prophesies.
It came to Aias, the tallest and strongest of men, in his little
isle of Salamis; and to Diomede of the loud war-cry, the bravest of
warriors, who held Argos and Tiryns of the black walls of huge,
stones, that are still standing. The summons came to the western
islands and to Ulysses in Ithaca, and even far south to the great
island of Crete of the hundred cities, where Idomeneus ruled in
Cnossos; Idomeneus, whose ruined palace may still be seen with the
throne of the king, and pictures painted on the walls, and the
King's own draught-board of gold and silver, and hundreds of
tablets of clay, on which are written the lists of royal treasures.
Far north went the news to Pelasgian Argos, and Hellas, where the
people of Peleus dwelt, the Myrmidons; but Peleus was too old to
fight, and his boy, Achilles, dwelt far away, in the island of
Scyros, dressed as a girl, among the daughters of King Lycomedes.
To many another town and to a hundred islands went the bitter news
of approaching war, for all princes knew that their honour and
their oaths compelled them to gather their spearmen, and bowmen,
and slingers from the fields and the fishing, and to make ready
their ships, and meet King Agamemnon in the harbour of Aulis, and
cross the wide sea to besiege Troy town.
Now the story is told that Ulysses was very unwilling to leave his
island and his wife Penelope, and little Telemachus; while Penelope
had no wish that he should pass into danger, and into the sight of
Helen of the fair hands. So it is said that when two of the
princes came to summon Ulysses, he pretended to be mad, and went
ploughing the sea sand with oxen, and sowing the sand with salt.
Then the prince Palamedes took the baby Telemachus from the arms of
his nurse, Eurycleia, and laid him in the line of the furrow, where
the ploughshare would strike him and kill him. But Ulysses turned
the plough aside, and they cried that he was not mad, but sane, and
he must keep his oath, and join the fleet at Aulis, a long voyage
for him to sail, round the stormy southern Cape of Maleia.
Whether this tale be true or not, Ulysses did go, leading twelve
black ships, with high beaks painted red at prow and stern. The
ships had oars, and the warriors manned the oars, to row when there
was no wind. There was a small raised deck at each end of the
ships; on these decks men stood to fight with sword and spear when
there was a battle at sea. Each ship had but one mast, with a
broad lugger sail, and for anchors they had only heavy stones
attached to cables. They generally landed at night, and slept on
the shore of one of the many islands, when they could, for they
greatly feared to sail out of sight of land.
The fleet consisted of more than a thousand ships, each with fifty
warriors, so the army was of more than fifty thousand men.
Agamemnon had a hundred ships, Diomede had eighty, Nestor had
ninety, the Cretans with Idomeneus, had eighty, Menelaus had sixty;
but Aias and Ulysses, who lived in small islands, had only twelve
ships apiece. Yet Aias was so brave and strong, and Ulysses so
brave and wise, that they were ranked among the greatest chiefs and
advisers of Agamemnon, with Menelaus, Diomede, Idomeneus, Nestor,
Menestheus of Athens, and two or three others. These chiefs were
called the Council, and gave advice to Agamemnon, who was
commander-in-chief. He was a brave fighter, but so anxious and
fearful of losing the lives of his soldiers that Ulysses and
Diomede were often obliged to speak to him very severely.
Agamemnon was also very insolent and greedy, though, when anybody
stood up to him, he was ready to apologise, for fear the injured
chief should renounce his service and take away his soldiers.
Nestor was much respected because he remained brave, though he was
too old to be very useful in battle. He generally tried to make
peace when the princes quarrelled with Agamemnon. He loved to tell
long stories about his great deeds when he was young, and he wished
the chiefs to fight in old-fashioned ways.
For instance, in his time the Greeks had fought in clan regiments,
and the princely men had never dismounted in battle, but had fought
in squadrons of chariots, but now the owners of chariots fought on
foot, each man for himself, while his squire kept the chariot near
him to escape on if he had to retreat. Nestor wished to go back to
the good old way of chariot charges against the crowds of foot
soldiers of the enemy. In short, he was a fine example of the old-
fashioned soldier.
Aias, though so very tall, strong, and brave, was rather stupid.
He seldom spoke, but he was always ready to fight, and the last to
retreat. Menelaus was weak of body, but as brave as the best, or
more brave, for he had a keen sense of honour, and would attempt
what he had not the strength to do. Diomede and Ulysses were great
friends, and always fought side by side, when they could, and
helped each other in the most dangerous adventures.
These were the chiefs who led the great Greek armada from the
harbour of Aulis. A long time had passed, after the flight of
Helen, before the large fleet could be collected, and more time
went by in the attempt to cross the sea to Troy. There were
tempests that scattered the ships, so they were driven back to
Aulis to refit; and they fought, as they went out again, with the
peoples of unfriendly islands, and besieged their towns. What they
wanted most of all was to have Achilles with them, for he was the
leader of fifty ships and 2,500 men, and he had magical armour
made, men said, for his father, by Hephaestus, the God of armour-
making and smithy work.
At last the fleet came to the Isle of Scyros, where they suspected
that Achilles was concealed. King Lycomedes received the chiefs
kindly, and they saw all his beautiful daughters dancing and
playing at ball, but Achilles was still so young and slim and so
beautiful that they did not know him among the others. There was a
prophecy that they could not take Troy without him, and yet they
could not find him out. Then Ulysses had a plan. He blackened his
eyebrows and beard and put on the dress of a Phoenician merchant.
The Phoenicians were a people who lived near the Jews, and were of
the same race, and spoke much the same language, but, unlike the
Jews, who, at that time were farmers in Palestine, tilling the
ground, and keeping flocks and herds, the Phoenicians were the
greatest of traders and sailors, and stealers of slaves. They
carried cargoes of beautiful cloths, and embroideries, and jewels
of gold, and necklaces of amber, and sold these everywhere about
the shores of Greece and the islands.
Ulysses then dressed himself like a Phoenician pedlar, with his
pack on his back: he only took a stick in his hand, his long hair
was turned up, and hidden under a red sailor's cap, and in this
figure he came, stooping beneath his pack, into the courtyard of
King Lycomedes. The girls heard that a pedlar had come, and out
they all ran, Achilles with the rest to watch the pedlar undo his
pack. Each chose what she liked best: one took a wreath of gold;
another a necklace of gold and amber; another earrings; a fourth a
set of brooches, another a dress of embroidered scarlet cloth;
another a veil; another a pair of bracelets; but at the bottom of
the pack lay a great sword of bronze, the hilt studded with golden
nails. Achilles seized the sword. "This is for me!" he said, and
drew the sword from the gilded sheath, and made it whistle round
his head.
"You are Achilles, Peleus' son!" said Ulysses; "and you are to be
the chief warrior of the Achaeans," for the Greeks then called
themselves Achaeans. Achilles was only too glad to hear these
words, for he was quite tired of living among maidens. Ulysses led
him into the hall where the chiefs were sitting at their wine, and
Achilles was blushing like any girl.
"Here is the Queen of the Amazons," said Ulysses--for the Amazons
were a race of warlike maidens--"or rather here is Achilles,
Peleus' son, with sword in hand." Then they all took his hand, and
welcomed him, and he was clothed in man's dress, with the sword by
his side, and presently they sent him back with ten ships to his
home. There his mother, Thetis, of the silver feet, the goddess of
the sea, wept over him, saying, "My child, thou hast the choice of
a long and happy and peaceful life here with me, or of a brief time
of war and undying renown. Never shall I see thee again in Argos
if thy choice is for war." But Achilles chose to die young, and to
be famous as long as the world stands. So his father gave him
fifty ships, with Patroclus, who was older than he, to be his
friend, and with an old man, Phoenix, to advise him; and his mother
gave him the glorious armour that the God had made for his father,
and the heavy ashen spear that none but he could wield, and he
sailed to join the host of the Achaeans, who all praised and
thanked Ulysses that had found for them such a prince. For
Achilles was the fiercest fighter of them all, and the swiftest-
footed man, and the most courteous prince, and the gentlest with
women and children, but he was proud and high of heart, and when he
was angered his anger was terrible.
The Trojans would have had no chance against the Greeks if only the
men of the city of Troy had fought to keep Helen of the fair hands.
But they had allies, who spoke different languages, and came to
fight for them both from Europe and from Asia. On the Trojan as
well as on the Greek side were people called Pelasgians, who seem
to have lived on both shores of the sea. There were Thracians,
too, who dwelt much further north than Achilles, in Europe and
beside the strait of Hellespont, where the narrow sea runs like a
river. There were warriors of Lycia, led by Sarpedon and Glaucus;
there were Carians, who spoke in a strange tongue; there were
Mysians and men from Alybe, which was called "the birthplace of
silver," and many other peoples sent their armies, so that the war
was between Eastern Europe, on one side, and Western Asia Minor on
the other. The people of Egypt took no part in the war: the
Greeks and Islesmen used to come down in their ships and attack the
Egyptians as the Danes used to invade England. You may see the
warriors from the islands, with their horned helmets, in old
Egyptian pictures.
The commander-in-chief, as we say now, of the Trojans was Hector,
the son of Priam. He was thought a match for any one of the
Greeks, and was brave and good. His brothers also were leaders,
but Paris preferred to fight from a distance with bow and arrows.
He and Pandarus, who dwelt on the slopes of Mount Ida, were the
best archers in the Trojan army. The princes usually fought with
heavy spears, which they threw at each other, and with swords,
leaving archery to the common soldiers who had no armour of bronze.
But Teucer, Meriones, and Ulysses were the best archers of the
Achaeans. People called Dardanians were led by Aeneas, who was
said to be the son of the most beautiful of the goddesses. These,
with Sarpedon and Glaucus, were the most famous of the men who
fought for Troy.
Troy was a strong town on a hill. Mount Ida lay behind it, and in
front was a plain sloping to the sea shore. Through this plain ran
two beautiful clear rivers, and there were scattered here and there
what you would have taken for steep knolls, but they were really
mounds piled up over the ashes of warriors who had died long ago.
On these mounds sentinels used to stand and look across the water
to give warning if the Greek fleet drew near, for the Trojans had
heard that it was on its way. At last the fleet came in view, and
the sea was black with ships, the oarsmen pulling with all their
might for the honour of being the first to land. The race was won
by the ship of the prince Protesilaus, who was first of all to leap
on shore, but as he leaped he was struck to the heart by an arrow
from the bow of Paris. This must have seemed a good omen to the
Trojans, and to the Greeks evil, but we do not hear that the
landing was resisted in great force, any more than that of Norman
William was, when he invaded England.
The Greeks drew up all their ships on shore, and the men camped in
huts built in front of the ships. There was thus a long row of
huts with the ships behind them, and in these huts the Greeks lived
all through the ten years that the siege of Troy lasted. In these
days they do not seem to have understood how to conduct a siege.
You would have expected the Greeks to build towers and dig trenches
all round Troy, and from the towers watch the roads, so that
provisions might not be brought in from the country. This is
called "investing" a town, but the Greeks never invested Troy.
Perhaps they had not men enough; at all events the place remained
open, and cattle could always be driven in to feed the warriors and
the women and children.
Moreover, the Greeks for long never seem to have tried to break
down one of the gates, nor to scale the walls, which were very
high, with ladders. On the other hand, the Trojans and allies
never ventured to drive the Greeks into the sea; they commonly
remained within the walls or skirmished just beneath them. The
older men insisted on this way of fighting, in spite of Hector, who
always wished to attack and storm the camp of the Greeks. Neither
side had machines for throwing heavy stones, such as the Romans
used later, and the most that the Greeks did was to follow Achilles
and capture small neighbouring cities, and take the women for
slaves, and drive the cattle. They got provisions and wine from
the Phoenicians, who came in ships, and made much profit out of the
war.
It was not till the tenth year that the war began in real earnest,
and scarcely any of the chief leaders had fallen. Fever came upon
the Greeks, and all day the camp was black with smoke, and all
night shone with fire from the great piles of burning wood, on
which the Greeks burned their dead, whose bones they then buried
under hillocks of earth. Many of these hillocks are still standing
on the plain of Troy. When the plague had raged for ten days,
Achilles called an assembly of the whole army, to try to find out
why the Gods were angry. They thought that the beautiful God
Apollo (who took the Trojan side) was shooting invisible arrows at
them from his silver bow, though fevers in armies are usually
caused by dirt and drinking bad water. The great heat of the sun,
too, may have helped to cause the disease; but we must tell the
story as the Greeks told it themselves. So Achilles spoke in the
assembly, and proposed to ask some prophet why Apollo was angry.
The chief prophet was Calchas. He rose and said that he would
declare the truth if Achilles would promise to protect him from the
anger of any prince whom the truth might offend.
Achilles knew well whom Calchas meant. Ten days before, a priest
of Apollo had come to the camp and offered ransom for his daughter
Chryseis, a beautiful girl, whom Achilles had taken prisoner, with
many others, when he captured a small town. Chryseis had been
given as a slave to Agamemnon, who always got the best of the
plunder because he was chief king, whether he had taken part in the
fighting or not. As a rule he did not. To Achilles had been given
another girl, Briseis, of whom he was very fond. Now when Achilles
had promised to protect Calchas, the prophet spoke out, and boldly
said, what all men knew already, that Apollo caused the plague
because Agamemnon would not return Chryseis, and had insulted her
father, the priest of the God.
On hearing this, Agamemnon was very angry. He said that he would
send Chryseis home, but that he would take Briseis away from
Achilles. Then Achilles was drawing his great sword from the
sheath to kill Agamemnon, but even in his anger he knew that this
was wrong, so he merely called Agamemnon a greedy coward, "with
face of dog and heart of deer," and he swore that he and his men
would fight no more against the Trojans. Old Nestor tried to make
peace, and swords were not drawn, but Briseis was taken away from
Achilles, and Ulysses put Chryseis on board of his ship and sailed
away with her to her father's town, and gave her up to her father.
Then her father prayed to Apollo that the plague might cease, and
it did cease--when the Greeks had cleansed their camp, and purified
themselves and cast their filth into the sea.
We know how fierce and brave Achilles was, and we may wonder that
he did not challenge Agamemnon to fight a duel. But the Greeks
never fought duels, and Agamemnon was believed to be chief king by
right divine. Achilles went alone to the sea shore when his dear
Briseis was led away, and he wept, and called to his mother, the
silver-footed lady of the waters. Then she arose from the grey
sea, like a mist, and sat down beside her son, and stroked his hair
with her hand, and he told her all his sorrows. So she said that
she would go up to the dwelling of the Gods, and pray Zeus, the
chief of them all, to make the Trojans win a great battle, so that
Agamemnon should feel his need of Achilles, and make amends for his
insolence, and do him honour.
Thetis kept her promise, and Zeus gave his word that the Trojans
should defeat the Greeks. That night Zeus sent a deceitful dream
to Agamemnon. The dream took the shape of old Nestor, and said
that Zeus would give him victory that day. While he was still
asleep, Agamemnon was fun of hope that he would instantly take
Troy, but, when he woke, he seems not to have been nearly so
confident, for in place of putting on his armour, and bidding the
Greeks arm themselves, he merely dressed in his robe and mantle,
took his sceptre, and went and told the chiefs about his dream.
They did not feel much encouraged, so he said that he would try the
temper of the army. He would call them together, and propose to
return to Greece; but, if the soldiers took him at his word, the
other chiefs were to stop them. This was a foolish plan, for the
soldiers were wearying for beautiful Greece, and their homes, and
wives and children. Therefore, when Agamemnon did as he had said,
the whole army rose, like the sea under the west wind, and, with a
shout, they rushed to the ships, while the dust blew in clouds from
under their feet. Then they began to launch their ships, and it
seems that the princes were carried away in the rush, and were as
eager as the rest to go home.
But Ulysses only stood in sorrow and anger beside his ship, and
never put hand to it, for he felt how disgraceful it was to run
away. At last he threw down his mantle, which his herald Eurybates
of Ithaca, a round-shouldered, brown, curly-haired man, picked up,
and he ran to find Agamemnon, and took his sceptre, a gold-studded
staff, like a marshal's baton, and he gently told the chiefs whom
he met that they were doing a shameful thing; but he drove the
common soldiers back to the place of meeting with the sceptre.
They all returned, puzzled and chattering, but one lame, bandy-
legged, bald, round-shouldered, impudent fellow, named Thersites,
jumped up and made an insolent speech, insulting the princes, and
advising the army to run away. Then Ulysses took him and beat him
till the blood came, and he sat down, wiping away his tears, and
looking so foolish that the whole army laughed at him, and cheered
Ulysses when he and Nestor bade them arm and fight. Agamemnon
still believed a good deal in his dream, and prayed that he might
take Troy that very day, and kill Hector. Thus Ulysses alone saved
the army from a cowardly retreat; but for him the ships would have
been launched in an hour. But the Greeks armed and advanced in
full force, all except Achilles and his friend Patroclus with their
two or three thousand men. The Trojans also took heart, knowing
that Achilles would not fight, and the armies approached each
other. Paris himself, with two spears and a bow, and without
armour, walked into the space between the hosts, and challenged any
Greek prince to single combat. Menelaus, whose wife Paris had
carried away, was as glad as a hungry lion when he finds a stag or
a goat, and leaped in armour from his chariot, but Paris turned and
slunk away, like a man when he meets a great serpent on a narrow
path in the hills. Then Hector rebuked Paris for his cowardice,
and Paris was ashamed and offered to end the war by fighting
Menelaus. If he himself fell, the Trojans must give up Helen and
all her jewels; if Menelaus fell, the Greeks were to return without
fair Helen. The Greeks accepted this plan, and both sides disarmed
themselves to look on at the fight in comfort, and they meant to
take the most solemn oaths to keep peace till the combat was lost
and won, and the quarrel settled. Hector sent into Troy for two
lambs, which were to be sacrificed when the oaths were taken.
In the meantime Helen of the fair hands was at home working at a
great purple tapestry on which she embroidered the battles of the
Greeks and Trojans. It was just like the tapestry at Bayeux on
which Norman ladies embroidered the battles in the Norman Conquest
of England. Helen was very fond of embroidering, like poor Mary,
Queen of Scots, when a prisoner in Loch Leven Castle. Probably the
work kept both Helen and Mary from thinking of their past lives and
their sorrows.
When Helen heard that her husband was to fight Paris, she wept, and
threw a shining veil over her head, and with her two bower maidens
went to the roof of the gate tower, where king Priam was sitting
with the old Trojan chiefs. They saw her and said that it was
small blame to fight for so beautiful a lady, and Priam called her
"dear child," and said, "I do not blame you, I blame the Gods who
brought about this war." But Helen said that she wished she had
died before she left her little daughter and her husband, and her
home: "Alas! shameless me!" Then she told Priam the names of the
chief Greek warriors, and of Ulysses, who was shorter by a head
than Agamemnon, but broader in chest and shoulders. She wondered
that she could not see her own two brothers, Castor and Polydeuces,
and thought that they kept aloof in shame for her sin; but the
green grass covered their graves, for they had both died in battle,
far away in Lacedaemon, their own country.
Then the lambs were sacrificed, and the oaths were taken, and Paris
put on his brother's armour, helmet, breastplate, shield, and leg-
armour. Lots were drawn to decide whether Paris or Menelaus should
throw his spear first, and, as Paris won, he threw his spear, but
the point was blunted against the shield of Menelaus. But when
Menelaus threw his spear it went clean through the shield of Paris,
and through the side of his breastplate, but only grazed his robe.
Menelaus drew his sword, and rushed in, and smote at the crest of
the helmet of Paris, but his bronze blade broke into four pieces.
Menelaus caught Paris by the horsehair crest of his helmet, and
dragged him towards the Greeks, but the chin-strap broke, and
Menelaus turning round threw the helmet into the ranks of the
Greeks. But when Menelaus looked again for Paris, with a spear in
his hand, he could see him nowhere! The Greeks believed that the
beautiful goddess Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus, hid him
in a thick cloud of darkness and carried him to his own house,
where Helen of the fair hands found him and said to him, "Would
that thou hadst perished, conquered by that great warrior who was
my lord! Go forth again and challenge him to fight thee face to
face." But Paris had no more desire to fight, and the Goddess
threatened Helen, and compelled her to remain with him in Troy,
coward as he had proved himself. Yet on other days Paris fought
well; it seems that he was afraid of Menelaus because, in his
heart, he was ashamed of himself.
Meanwhile Menelaus was seeking for Paris everywhere, and the
Trojans, who hated him, would have shown his hiding place. But
they knew not where he was, and the Greeks claimed the victory, and
thought that, as Paris had the worst of the fight, Helen would be
restored to them, and they would all sail home.
TROJAN VICTORIES
The war might now have ended, but an evil and foolish thought came
to Pandarus, a prince of Ida, who fought for the Trojans. He chose
to shoot an arrow at Menelaus, contrary to the sworn vows of peace,
and the arrow pierced the breastplate of Menelaus through the place
where the clasped plates meet, and drew his blood. Then Agamemnon,
who loved his brother dearly, began to lament, saying that if he
died, the army would all go home and Trojans would dance on the
grave of Menelaus. "Do not alarm all our army," said Menelaus,
"the arrow has done me little harm;" and so it proved, for the
surgeon easily drew the arrow out of the wound.
Then Agamemnon hastened here and there, bidding the Greeks arm and
attack the Trojans, who would certainly be defeated, for they had
broken the oaths of peace. But with his usual insolence he chose
to accuse Ulysses and Diomede of cowardice, though Diomede was as
brave as any man, and Ulysses had just prevented the whole army
from launching their ships and going home. Ulysses answered him
with spirit, but Diomede said nothing at the moment; later he spoke
his mind. He leaped from his chariot, and all the chiefs leaped
down and advanced in line, the chariots following them, while the
spearmen and bowmen followed the chariots. The Trojan army
advanced, all shouting in their different languages, but the Greeks
came on silently. Then the two front lines clashed, shield against
shield, and the noise was like the roaring of many flooded torrents
among the hills. When a man fell he who had slain him tried to
strip off his armour, and his friends fought over his body to save
the dead from this dishonour.
Ulysses fought above a wounded friend, and drove his spear through
head and helmet of a Trojan prince, and everywhere men were falling
beneath spears and arrows and heavy stones which the warriors
threw. Here Menelaus speared the man who built the ships with
which Paris had sailed to Greece; and the dust rose like a cloud,
and a mist went up from the fighting men, while Diomede stormed
across the plain like a river in flood, leaving dead bodies behind
him as the river leaves boughs of trees and grass to mark its
course. Pandarus wounded Diomede with an arrow, but Diomede slew
him, and the Trojans were being driven in flight, when Sarpedon and
Hector turned and hurled themselves on the Greeks; and even Diomede
shuddered when Hector came on, and charged at Ulysses, who was
slaying Trojans as he went, and the battle swayed this way and
that, and the arrows fell like rain.
But Hector was sent into the city to bid the women pray to the
goddess Athene for help, and he went to the house of Paris, whom
Helen was imploring to go and fight like a man, saying: "Would
that the winds had wafted me away, and the tides drowned me,
shameless that I am, before these things came to pass!"
Then Hector went to see his dear wife, Andromache, whose father had
been slain by Achilles early in the siege, and he found her and her
nurse carrying her little boy, Hector's son, and like a star upon
her bosom lay his beautiful and shining golden head. Now, while
Helen urged Paris to go into the fight, Andromache prayed Hector to
stay with her in the town, and fight no more lest he should be
slain and leave her a widow, and the boy an orphan, with none to
protect him. The army she said, should come back within the walls,
where they had so long been safe, not fight in the open plain. But
Hector answered that he would never shrink from battle, "yet I know
this in my heart, the day shall come for holy Troy to be laid low,
and Priam and the people of Priam. But this and my own death do
not trouble me so much as the thought of you, when you shall be
carried as a slave to Greece, to spin at another woman's bidding,
and bear water from a Grecian well. May the heaped up earth of my
tomb cover me ere I hear thy cries and the tale of thy captivity."
Then Hector stretched out his hands to his little boy, but the
child was afraid when he saw the great glittering helmet of his
father and the nodding horsehair crest. So Hector laid his helmet
on the ground and dandled the child in his arms, and tried to
comfort his wife, and said good-bye for the last time, for he never
came back to Troy alive. He went on his way back to the battle,
and Paris went with him, in glorious armour, and soon they were
slaying the princes of the Greeks.
The battle raged till nightfall, and in the night the Greeks and
Trojans burned their dead; and the Greeks made a trench and wall
round their camp, which they needed for safety now that the Trojans
came from their town and fought in the open plain.
Next day the Trojans were so successful that they did not retreat
behind their walls at night, but lit great fires on the plain: a
thousand fires, with fifty men taking supper round each of them,
and drinking their wine to the music of flutes. But the Greeks
were much discouraged, and Agamemnon called the whole army
together, and proposed that they should launch their ships in the
night and sail away home. Then Diomede stood up, and said: "You
called me a coward lately. You are the coward! Sail away if you
are afraid to remain here, but all the rest of us will fight till
we take Troy town."
Then all shouted in praise of Diomede, and Nestor advised them to
send five hundred young men, under his own son, Thrasymedes, to
watch the Trojans, and guard the new wall and the ditch, in case
the Trojans attacked them in the darkness. Next Nestor counselled
Agamemnon to send Ulysses and Aias to Achilles, and promise to give
back Briseis, and rich presents of gold, and beg pardon for his
insolence. If Achilles would be friends again with Agamemnon, and
fight as he used to fight, the Trojans would soon be driven back
into the town.
Agamemnon was very ready to beg pardon, for he feared that the
whole army would be defeated, and cut off from their ships, and
killed or kept as slaves. So Ulysses and Aias and the old tutor of
Achilles, Phoenix, went to Achilles and argued with him, praying
him to accept the rich presents, and help the Greeks. But Achilles
answered that he did not believe a word that Agamemnon said;
Agamemnon had always hated him, and always would hate him. No; he
would not cease to be angry, he would sail away next day with all
his men, and he advised the rest to come with him. "Why be so
fierce?" said tall Aias, who seldom spoke. "Why make so much
trouble about one girl? We offer you seven girls, and plenty of
other gifts."
Then Achilles said that he would not sail away next day, but he
would not fight till the Trojans tried to burn his own ships, and
there he thought that Hector would find work enough to do. This
was the most that Achilles would promise, and all the Greeks were
silent when Ulysses delivered his message. But Diomede arose and
said that, with or without Achilles, fight they must; and all men,
heavy at heart, went to sleep in their huts or in the open air at
their doors.
Agamemnon was much too anxious to sleep. He saw the glow of the
thousand fires of the Trojans in the dark, and heard their merry
flutes, and he groaned and pulled out his long hair by handfuls.
When he was tired of crying and groaning and tearing his hair, he
thought that he would go for advice to old Nestor. He threw a lion
skin, the coverlet of his bed, over his shoulder, took his spear,
went out and met Menelaus--for he, too, could not sleep--and
Menelaus proposed to send a spy among the Trojans, if any man were
brave enough to go, for the Trojan camp was all alight with fires,
and the adventure was dangerous. Therefore the two wakened Nestor
and the other chiefs, who came just as they were, wrapped in the
fur coverlets of their beds, without any armour. First they
visited the five hundred young men set to watch the wall, and then
they crossed the ditch and sat down outside and considered what
might be done. "Will nobody go as a spy among the Trojans?" said
Nestor; he meant would none of the young men go. Diomede said that
he would take the risk if any other man would share it with him,
and, if he might choose a companion, he would take Ulysses.
"Come, then, let us be going," said Ulysses, "for the night is
late, and the dawn is near." As these two chiefs had no armour on,
they borrowed shields and leather caps from the young men of the
guard, for leather would not shine as bronze helmets shine in the
firelight. The cap lent to Ulysses was strengthened outside with
rows of boars' tusks. Many of these tusks, shaped for this
purpose, have been found, with swords and armour, in a tomb in
Mycenae, the town of Agamemnon. This cap which was lent to Ulysses
had once been stolen by his grandfather, Autolycus, who was a
Master Thief, and he gave it as a present to a friend, and so,
through several hands, it had come to young Meriones of Crete, one
of the five hundred guards, who now lent it to Ulysses. So the two
princes set forth in the dark, so dark it was that though they
heard a heron cry, they could not see it as it flew away.
While Ulysses and Diomede stole through the night silently, like
two wolves among the bodies of dead men, the Trojan leaders met and
considered what they ought to do. They did not know whether the
Greeks had set sentinels and outposts, as usual, to give warning if
the enemy were approaching; or whether they were too weary to keep
a good watch; or whether perhaps they were getting ready their
ships to sail homewards in the dawn. So Hector offered a reward to
any man who would creep through the night and spy on the Greeks; he
said he would give the spy the two best horses in the Greek camp.
Now among the Trojans there was a young man named Dolon, the son of
a rich father, and he was the only boy in a family of five sisters.
He was ugly, but a very swift runner, and he cared for horses more
than for anything else in the world. Dolon arose and said, "If you
will swear to give me the horses and chariot of Achilles, son of
Peleus, I will steal to the hut of Agamemnon and listen and find
out whether the Greeks mean to fight or flee." Hector swore to
give these horses, which were the best in the world, to Dolon, so
he took his bow and threw a grey wolf's hide over his shoulders,
and ran towards the ships of the Greeks.
Now Ulysses saw Dolon as he came, and said to Diomede, "Let us
suffer him to pass us, and then do you keep driving him with your
spear towards the ships, and away from Troy." So Ulysses and
Diomede lay down among the dead men who had fallen in the battle,
and Dolon ran on past them towards the Greeks. Then they rose and
chased him as two greyhounds course a hare, and, when Dolon was
near the sentinels, Diomede cried "Stand, or I will slay you with
my spear!" and he threw his spear just over Dolon's shoulder. So
Dolon stood still, green with fear, and with his teeth chattering.
When the two came up, he cried, and said that his father was a rich
man, who would pay much gold, and bronze, and iron for his ransom.
Ulysses said, "Take heart, and put death out of your mind, and tell
us what you are doing here." Dolon said that Hector had promised
him the horses of Achilles if he would go and spy on the Greeks.
"You set your hopes high," said Ulysses, "for the horses of
Achilles are not earthly steeds, but divine; a gift of the Gods,
and Achilles alone can drive them. But, tell me, do the Trojans
keep good watch, and where is Hector with his horses?" for Ulysses
thought that it would be a great adventure to drive away the horses
of Hector.
"Hector is with the chiefs, holding council at the tomb of Ilus,"
said Dolon; "but no regular guard is set. The people of Troy,
indeed, are round their watch fires, for they have to think of the
safety of their wives and children; but the allies from far lands
keep no watch, for their wives and children are safe at home."
Then he told where all the different peoples who fought for Priam
had their stations; but, said he, "if you want to steal horses, the
best are those of Rhesus, King of the Thracians, who has only
joined us to-night. He and his men are asleep at the furthest end
of the line, and his horses are the best and greatest that ever I
saw: tall, white as snow, and swift as the wind, and his chariot
is adorned with gold and silver, and golden is his armour. Now
take me prisoner to the ships, or bind me and leave me here while
you go and try whether I have told you truth or lies."
"No," said Diomede, "if I spare your life you may come spying
again," and he drew his sword and smote off the head of Dolon.
They hid his cap and bow and spear where they could find them
easily, and marked the spot, and went through the night to the dark
camp of King Rhesus, who had no watch-fire and no guards. Then
Diomede silently stabbed each sleeping man to the heart, and
Ulysses seized the dead by the feet and threw them aside lest they
should frighten the horses, which had never been in battle, and
would shy if they were led over the bodies of dead men. Last of
all Diomede killed King Rhesus, and Ulysses led forth his horses,
beating them with his bow, for he had forgotten to take the whip
from the chariot. Then Ulysses and Diomede leaped on the backs of
the horses, as they had not time to bring away the chariot, and
they galloped to the ships, stopping to pick up the spear, and bow,
and cap of Dolon. They rode to the princes, who welcomed them, and
all laughed for glee when they saw the white horses and heard that
King Rhesus was dead, for they guessed that all his army would now
go home to Thrace. This they must have done, for we never hear of
them in the battles that followed, so Ulysses and Diomede deprived
the Trojans of thousands of men. The other princes went to bed in
good spirits, but Ulysses and Diomede took a swim in the sea, and
then went into hot baths, and so to breakfast, for rosy-fingered
Dawn was coming up the sky.
BATTLE AT THE SHIPS
With dawn Agamemnon awoke, and fear had gone out of his heart. He
put on his armour, and arrayed the chiefs on foot in front of their
chariots, and behind them came the spearmen, with the bowmen and
slingers on the wings of the army. Then a great black cloud spread
over the sky, and red was the rain that fell from it. The Trojans
gathered on a height in the plain, and Hector, shining in armour,
went here and there, in front and rear, like a star that now gleams
forth and now is hidden in a cloud.
The armies rushed on each other and hewed each other down, as
reapers cut their way through a field of tall corn. Neither side
gave ground, though the helmets of the bravest Trojans might be
seen deep in the ranks of the Greeks; and the swords of the bravest
Greeks rose and fell in the ranks of the Trojans, and all the while
the arrows showered like rain. But at noon-day, when the weary
woodman rests from cutting trees, and takes his dinner in the quiet
hills, the Greeks of the first line made a charge, Agamemnon
running in front of them, and he speared two Trojans, and took
their breastplates, which he laid in his chariot, and then he
speared one brother of Hector and struck another down with his
sword, and killed two more who vainly asked to be made prisoners of
war. Footmen slew footmen, and chariot men slew chariot men, and
they broke into the Trojan line as fire falls on a forest in a
windy day, leaping and roaring and racing through the trees. Many
an empty chariot did the horses hurry madly through the field, for
the charioteers were lying dead, with the greedy vultures hovering
above them, flapping their wide wings. Still Agamemnon followed
and slew the hindmost Trojans, but the rest fled till they came to
the gates, and the oak tree that grew outside the gates, and there
they stopped.
But Hector held his hands from fighting, for in the meantime he was
making his men face the enemy and form up in line and take breath,
and was encouraging them, for they had retreated from the wall of
the Greeks across the whole plain, past the hill that was the tomb
of Ilus, a king of old, and past the place of the wild fig-tree.
Much ado had Hector to rally the Trojans, but he knew that when men
do turn again they are hard to beat. So it proved, for when the
Trojans had rallied and formed in line, Agamemnon slew a Thracian
chief who had come to fight for Troy before King Rhesus came. But
the eldest brother of the slain man smote Agamemnon through the arm
with his spear, and, though Agamemnon slew him in turn, his wound
bled much and he was in great pain, so he leaped into his chariot
and was driven back to the ships.
Then Hector gave the word to charge, as a huntsman cries on his
hounds against a lion, and he rushed forward at the head of the
Trojan line, slaying as he went. Nine chiefs of the Greeks he
slew, and fell upon the spearmen and scattered them, as the spray
of the waves is scattered by the wandering wind.
Now the ranks of the Greeks were broken, and they would have been
driven among their ships and killed without mercy, had not Ulysses
and Diomede stood firm in the centre, and slain four Trojan
leaders. The Greeks began to come back and face their enemies in
line of battle again, though Hector, who had been fighting on the
Trojan right, rushed against them. But Diomede took good aim with
his spear at the helmet of Hector, and struck it fairly. The
spear-point did not go through the helmet, but Hector was stunned
and fell; and, when he came to himself, he leaped into his chariot,
and his squire drove him against the Pylians and Cretans, under
Nestor and Idomeneus, who were on the left wing of the Greek army.
Then Diomede fought on till Paris, who stood beside the pillar on
the hillock that was the tomb of old King Ilus, sent an arrow clean
through his foot. Ulysses went and stood in front of Diomede, who
sat down, and Ulysses drew the arrow from his foot, and Diomede
stepped into his chariot and was driven back to the ships.
Ulysses was now the only Greek chief that still fought in the
centre. The Greeks all fled, and he was alone in the crowd of
Trojans, who rushed on him as hounds and hunters press round a wild
boar that stands at bay in a wood. "They are cowards that flee
from the fight," said Ulysses to himself; "but I will stand here,
one man against a multitude." He covered the front of his body
with his great shield, that hung by a belt round his neck, and he
smote four Trojans and wounded a fifth. But the brother of the
wounded man drove a spear through the shield and breastplate of
Ulysses, and tore clean through his side. Then Ulysses turned on
this Trojan, and he fled, and Ulysses sent a spear through his
shoulder and out at his breast, and he died. Ulysses dragged from
his own side the spear that had wounded him, and called thrice with
a great voice to the other Greeks, and Menelaus and Aias rushed to
rescue him, for many Trojans were round him, like jackals round a
wounded stag that a man has struck with an arrow. But Aias ran and
covered the wounded Ulysses with his huge shield till he could
climb into the chariot of Menelaus, who drove him back to the
ships.
Meanwhile, Hector was slaying the Greeks on the left of their
battle, and Paris struck the Greek surgeon, Machaon, with an arrow;
and Idomeneus bade Nestor put Machaon in his chariot and drive him
to Nestor's hut, where his wound might be tended. Meanwhile,
Hector sped to the centre of the line, where Aias was slaying the
Trojans; but Eurypylus, a Greek chief, was wounded by an arrow from
the bow of Paris, and his friends guarded him with their shields
and spears.
Thus the best of the Greeks were wounded and out of the battle,
save Aias, and the spearmen were in flight. Meanwhile Achilles was
standing by the stern of his ship watching the defeat of the
Greeks, but when he saw Machaon being carried past, sorely wounded,
in the chariot of Nestor, he bade his friend Patroclus, whom he
loved better than all the rest, to go and ask how Machaon did. He
was sitting drinking wine with Nestor when Patroclus came, and
Nestor told Patroclus how many of the chiefs were wounded, and
though Patroclus was in a hurry Nestor began a very long story
about his own great deeds of war, done when he was a young man. At
last he bade Patroclus tell Achilles that, if he would not fight
himself, he should at least send out his men under Patroclus, who
should wear the splendid armour of Achilles. Then the Trojans
would think that Achilles himself had returned to the battle, and
they would be afraid, for none of them dared to meet Achilles hand
to hand.
So Patroclus ran off to Achilles; but, on his way, he met the
wounded Eurypylus, and he took him to his hut and cut the arrow out
of his thigh with a knife, and washed the wound with warm water,
and rubbed over it a bitter root to take the pain away. Thus he
waited for some time with Eurypylus, but the advice of Nestor was
in the end to cause the death of Patroclus. The battle now raged
more fiercely, while Agamemnon and Diomede and Ulysses could only
limp about leaning on their spears; and again Agamemnon wished to
moor the ships near shore, and embark in the night and run away.
But Ulysses was very angry with him, and said: "You should lead
some other inglorious army, not us, who will fight on till every
soul of us perish, rather than flee like cowards! Be silent, lest
the soldiers hear you speaking of flight, such words as no man
should utter. I wholly scorn your counsel, for the Greeks will
lose heart if, in the midst of battle, you bid them launch the
ships."
Agamemnon was ashamed, and, by Diomede's advice, the wounded kings
went down to the verge of the war to encourage the others, though
they were themselves unable to fight. They rallied the Greeks, and
Aias led them and struck Hector full in the breast with a great
rock, so that his friends carried him out of the battle to the
river side, where they poured water over him, but he lay fainting
on the ground, the black blood gushing up from his mouth. While
Hector lay there, and all men thought that he would die, Aias and
Idomeneus were driving back the Trojans, and it seemed that, even
without Achilles and his men, the Greeks were able to hold their
own against the Trojans. But the battle was never lost while
Hector lived. People in those days believed in "omens:" they
thought that the appearance of birds on the right or left hand
meant good or bad luck. Once during the battle a Trojan showed
Hector an unlucky bird, and wanted him to retreat into the town.
But Hector said, "One omen is the best: to fight for our own
country." While Hector lay between death and life the Greeks were
winning, for the Trojans had no other great chief to lead them.
But Hector awoke from his faint, and leaped to his feet and ran
here and there, encouraging the men of Troy. Then the most of the
Greeks fled when they saw him; but Aias and Idomeneus, and the rest
of the bravest, formed in a square between the Trojans and the
ships, and down on them came Hector and Aeneas and Paris, throwing
their spears, and slaying on every hand. The Greeks turned and
ran, and the Trojans would have stopped to strip the armour from
the slain men, but Hector cried: "Haste to the ships and leave the
spoils of war. I will slay any man who lags behind!"
On this, all the Trojans drove their chariots down into the ditch
that guarded the ships of the Greeks, as when a great wave sweeps
at sea over the side of a vessel; and the Greeks were on the ship
decks, thrusting with very long spears, used in sea fights, and the
Trojans were boarding the ships, and striking with swords and axes.
Hector had a lighted torch and tried to set fire to the ship of
Aias; but Aias kept him back with the long spear, and slew a
Trojan, whose lighted torch fell from his hand. And Aias kept
shouting: "Come on, and drive away Hector; it is not to a dance
that he is calling his men, but to battle."
The dead fell in heaps, and the living ran over them to mount the
heaps of slain and climb the ships. Hector rushed forward like a
sea wave against a great steep rock, but like the rock stood the
Greeks; still the Trojans charged past the beaks of the foremost
ships, while Aias, thrusting with a spear more than twenty feet
long, leaped from deck to deck like a man that drives four horses
abreast, and leaps from the back of one to the back of another.
Hector seized with his hand the stern of the ship of Protesilaus,
the prince whom Paris shot when he leaped ashore on the day when
the Greeks first landed; and Hector kept calling: "Bring fire!"
and even Aias, in this strange sea fight on land, left the decks
and went below, thrusting with his spear through the portholes.
Twelve men lay dead who had brought fire against the ship which
Aias guarded.
THE SLAYING AND AVENGING OF PATROCLUS
At this moment, when torches were blazing round the ships, and all
seemed lost, Patroclus came out of the hut of Eurypylus, whose
wound he had been tending, and he saw that the Greeks were in great
danger, and ran weeping to Achilles. "Why do you weep," said
Achilles, "like a little girl that runs by her mother's side, and
plucks at her gown and looks at her with tears in her eyes, till
her mother takes her up in her arms? Is there bad news from home
that your father is dead, or mine; or are you sorry that the Greeks
are getting what they deserve for their folly?" Then Patroclus
told Achilles how Ulysses and many other princes were wounded and
could not fight, and begged to be allowed to put on Achilles'
armour and lead his men, who were all fresh and unwearied, into the
battle, for a charge of two thousand fresh warriors might turn the
fortune of the day.
Then Achilles was sorry that he had sworn not to fight himself till
Hector brought fire to his own ships. He would lend Patroclus his
armour, and his horses, and his men; but Patroclus must only drive
the Trojans from the ships, and not pursue them. At this moment
Aias was weary, so many spears smote his armour, and he could
hardly hold up his great shield, and Hector cut off his spear-head
with the sword; the bronze head fell ringing on the ground, and
Aias brandished only the pointless shaft. So he shrank back and
fire blazed all over his ship; and Achilles saw it, and smote his
thigh, and bade Patroclus make haste. Patroclus armed himself in
the shining armour of Achilles, which all Trojans feared, and
leaped into the chariot where Automedon, the squire, had harnessed
Xanthus and Balius, two horses that were the children, men said, of
the West Wind, and a led horse was harnessed beside them in the
side traces. Meanwhile the two thousand men of Achilles, who were
called Myrmidons, had met in armour, five companies of four hundred
apiece, under five chiefs of noble names. Forth they came, as
eager as a pack of wolves that have eaten a great red deer and run
to slake their thirst with the dark water of a well in the hills.
So all in close array, helmet touching helmet and shield touching
shield, like a moving wall of shining bronze, the men of Achilles
charged, and Patroclus, in the chariot led the way. Down they came
at full speed on the flank of the Trojans, who saw the leader, and
knew the bright armour and the horses of the terrible Achilles, and
thought that he had returned to the war. Then each Trojan looked
round to see by what way he could escape, and when men do that in
battle they soon run by the way they have chosen. Patroclus rushed
to the ship of Protesilaus, and slew the leader of the Trojans
there, and drove them out, and quenched the fire; while they of
Troy drew back from the ships, and Aias and the other unwounded
Greek princes leaped among them, smiting with sword and spear.
Well did Hector know that the break in the battle had come again;
but even so he stood, and did what he might, while the Trojans were
driven back in disorder across the ditch, where the poles of many
chariots were broken and the horses fled loose across the plain.
The horses of Achilles cleared the ditch, and Patroclus drove them
between the Trojans and the wall of their own town, slaying many
men, and, chief of all, Sarpedon, king of the Lycians; and round
the body of Sarpedon the Trojans rallied under Hector, and the
fight swayed this way and that, and there was such a noise of
spears and swords smiting shields and helmets as when many
woodcutters fell trees in a glen of the hills. At last the Trojans
gave way, and the Greeks stripped the armour from the body of brave
Sarpedon; but men say that Sleep and Death, like two winged angels,
bore his body away to his own country. Now Patroclus forgot how
Achilles had told him not to pursue the Trojans across the plain,
but to return when he had driven them from the ships. On he raced,
slaying as he went, even till he reached the foot of the wall of
Troy. Thrice he tried to climb it, but thrice he fell back.
Hector was in his chariot in the gateway, and he bade his squire
lash his horses into the war, and struck at no other man, great or
small, but drove straight against Patroclus, who stood and threw a
heavy stone at Hector; which missed him, but killed his charioteer.
Then Patroclus leaped on the charioteer to strip his armour, but
Hector stood over the body, grasping it by the head, while
Patroclus dragged at the feet, and spears and arrows flew in clouds
around the fallen man. At last, towards sunset, the Greeks drew
him out of the war, and Patroclus thrice charged into the thick of
the Trojans. But the helmet of Achilles was loosened in the fight,
and fell from the head of Patroclus, and he was wounded from
behind, and Hector, in front, drove his spear clean through his
body. With his last breath Patroclus prophesied: "Death stands
near thee, Hector, at the hands of noble Achilles." But Automedon
was driving back the swift horses, carrying to Achilles the news
that his dearest friend was slain.
After Ulysses was wounded, early in this great battle, he was not
able to fight for several days, and, as the story is about Ulysses,
we must tell quite shortly how Achilles returned to the war to take
vengeance for Patroclus, and how he slew Hector. When Patroclus
fell, Hector seized the armour which the Gods had given to Peleus,
and Peleus to his son Achilles, while Achilles had lent it to
Patroclus that he might terrify the Trojans. Retiring out of reach
of spears, Hector took off his own armour and put on that of
Achilles, and Greeks and Trojans fought for the dead body of
Patroclus. Then Zeus, the chief of the Gods, looked down and said
that Hector should never come home out of the battle to his wife,
Andromache. But Hector returned into the fight around the dead
Patroclus, and here all the best men fought, and even Automedon,
who had been driving the chariot of Patroclus. Now when the
Trojans seemed to have the better of the fight, the Greeks sent
Antilochus, a son of old Nestor, to tell Achilles that his friend
was slain, and Antilochus ran, and Aias and his brother protected
the Greeks who were trying to carry the body of Patroclus back to
the ships.
Swiftly Antilochus came running to Achilles, saying: "Fallen is
Patroclus, and they are fighting round his naked body, for Hector
has his armour." Then Achilles said never a word, but fell on the
floor of his hut, and threw black ashes on his yellow hair, till
Antilochus seized his hands, fearing that he would cut his own
throat with his dagger, for very sorrow. His mother, Thetis, arose
from the sea to comfort him, but he said that he desired to die if
he could not slay Hector, who had slain his friend. Then Thetis
told him that he could not fight without armour, and now he had
none; but she would go to the God of armour-making and bring from
him such a shield and helmet and breastplate as had never been seen
by men.
Meanwhile the fight raged round the dead body of Patroclus, which
was defiled with blood and dust, near the ships, and was being
dragged this way and that, and torn and wounded. Achilles could
not bear this sight, yet his mother had warned him not to enter
without armour the battle where stones and arrows and spears were
flying like hail; and he was so tall and broad that he could put on
the arms of no other man. So he went down to the ditch as he was,
unarmed, and as he stood high above it, against the red sunset,
fire seemed to flow from his golden hair like the beacon blaze that
soars into the dark sky when an island town is attacked at night,
and men light beacons that their neighbours may see them and come
to their help from other isles. There Achilles stood in a
splendour of fire, and he shouted aloud, as clear as a clarion
rings when men fall on to attack a besieged city wall. Thrice
Achilles shouted mightily, and thrice the horses of the Trojans
shuddered for fear and turned back from the onslaught,--and thrice
the men of Troy were confounded and shaken with terror. Then the
Greeks drew the body of Patroclus out of the dust and the arrows,
and laid him on a bier, and Achilles followed, weeping, for he had
sent his friend with chariot and horses to the war; but home again
he welcomed him never more. Then the sun set and it was night.
Now one of the Trojans wished Hector to retire within the walls of
Troy, for certainly Achilles would to-morrow be foremost in the
war. But Hector said, "Have ye not had your fill of being shut up
behind walls? Let Achilles fight; I will meet him in the open
field." The Trojans cheered, and they camped in the plain, while
in the hut of Achilles women washed the dead body of Patroclus, and
Achilles swore that he would slay Hector.
In the dawn came Thetis, bearing to Achilles the new splendid
armour that the God had made for him. Then Achilles put on that
armour, and roused his men; but Ulysses, who knew all the rules of
honour, would not let him fight till peace had been made, with a
sacrifice and other ceremonies, between him and Agamemnon, and till
Agamemnon had given him all the presents which Achilles had before
refused. Achilles did not want them; he wanted only to fight, but
Ulysses made him obey, and do what was usual. Then the gifts were
brought, and Agamemnon stood up, and said that he was sorry for his
insolence, and the men took breakfast, but Achilles would neither
eat nor drink. He mounted his chariot, but the horse Xanthus bowed
his head till his long mane touched the ground, and, being a fairy
horse, the child of the West Wind, he spoke (or so men said), and
these were his words: "We shall bear thee swiftly and speedily,
but thou shalt be slain in fight, and thy dying day is near at
hand." "Well I know it," said Achilles, "but I will not cease from
fighting till I have given the Trojans their fill of war."
So all that day he chased and slew the Trojans. He drove them into
the river, and, though the river came down in a red flood, he
crossed, and slew them on the plain. The plain caught fire, the
bushes and long dry grass blazed round him, but he fought his way
through the fire, and drove the Trojans to their walls. The gates
were thrown open, and the Trojans rushed through like frightened
fawns, and then they climbed to the battlements, and looked down in
safety, while the whole Greek army advanced in line under their
shields.
But Hector stood still, alone, in front of the gate, and old Priam,
who saw Achilles rushing on, shining like a star in his new armour,
called with tears to Hector, "Come within the gate! This man has
slain many of my sons, and if he slays thee whom have I to help me
in my old age?" His mother also called to Hector, but he stood
firm, waiting for Achilles. Now the story says that he was afraid,
and ran thrice in full armour round Troy, with Achilles in pursuit.
But this cannot be true, for no mortal men could run thrice, in
heavy armour, with great shields that clanked against their ankles,
round the town of Troy: moreover Hector was the bravest of men,
and all the Trojan women were looking down at him from the walls.
We cannot believe that he ran away, and the story goes on to tell
that he asked Achilles to make an agreement with him. The
conqueror in the fight should give back the body of the fallen to
be buried by his friends, but should keep his armour. But Achilles
said that he could make no agreement with Hector, and threw his
spear, which flew over Hector's shoulder. Then Hector threw his
spear, but it could not pierce the shield which the God had made
for Achilles. Hector had no other spear, and Achilles had one, so
Hector cried, "Let me not die without honour!" and drew his sword,
and rushed at Achilles, who sprang to meet him, but before Hector
could come within a sword-stroke Achilles had sent his spear clean
through the neck of Hector. He fell in the dust and Achilles said,
"Dogs and birds shall tear your flesh unburied." With his dying
breath Hector prayed him to take gold from Priam, and give back his
body to be burned in Troy. But Achilles said, "Hound! would that I
could bring myself to carve and eat thy raw flesh, but dogs shall
devour it, even if thy father offered me thy weight in gold." With
his last words Hector prophesied and said, "Remember me in the day
when Paris shall slay thee in the Scaean gate." Then his brave
soul went to the land of the Dead, which the Greeks called Hades.
To that land Ulysses sailed while he was still a living man, as the
story tells later.
Then Achilles did a dreadful deed; he slit the feet of dead Hector
from heel to ankle, and thrust thongs through, and bound him by the
thongs to his chariot and trailed the body in the dust. All the
women of Troy who were on the walls raised a shriek, and Hector's
wife, Andromache, heard the sound. She had been in an inner room
of her house, weaving a purple web, and embroidering flowers on it,
and she was calling her bower maidens to make ready a bath for
Hector when he should come back tired from battle. But when she
heard the cry from the wall she trembled, and the shuttle with
which she was weaving fell from her hands. "Surely I heard the cry
of my husband's mother," she said, and she bade two of her maidens
come with her to see why the people lamented.
She ran swiftly, and reached the battlements, and thence she saw
her dear husband's body being whirled through the dust towards the
ships, behind the chariot of Achilles. Then night came over her
eyes and she fainted. But when she returned to herself she cried
out that now none would defend her little boy, and other children
would push him away from feasts, saying, "Out with you; no father
of thine is at our table," and his father, Hector, would lie naked
at the ships, unclad, unburned, unlamented. To be unburned and
unburied was thought the greatest of misfortunes, because the dead
man unburned could not go into the House of Hades, God of the Dead,
but must always wander, alone and comfortless, in the dark
borderland between the dead and the living.
THE CRUELTY OF ACHILLES, AND THE RANSOMING OF HECTOR
When Achilles was asleep that night the ghost of Patroclus came,
saying, "Why dost thou not burn and bury me? for the other shadows
of dead men suffer me not to come near them, and lonely I wander
along the dark dwelling of Hades." Then Achilles awoke, and he
sent men to cut down trees, and make a huge pile of fagots and
logs. On this they laid Patroclus, covered with white linen, and
then they slew many cattle, and Achilles cut the throats of twelve
Trojan prisoners of war, meaning to burn them with Patroclus to do
him honour. This was a deed of shame, for Achilles was mad with
sorrow and anger for the death of his friend. Then they drenched
with wine the great pile of wood, which was thirty yards long and
broad, and set fire to it, and the fire blazed all through the
night and died down in the morning. They put the white bones of
Patroclus in a golden casket, and laid it in the hut of Achilles,
who said that, when he died, they must burn his body, and mix the
ashes with the ashes of his friend, and build over it a chamber of
stone, and cover the chamber with a great hill of earth, and set a
pillar of stone above it. This is one of the hills on the plain of
Troy, but the pillar has fallen from the tomb, long ago.
Then, as the custom was, Achilles held games--chariot races, foot
races, boxing, wrestling, and archery--in honour of Patroclus.
Ulysses won the prize for the foot race, and for the wrestling, so
now his wound must have been healed.
But Achilles still kept trailing Hector's dead body each day round
the hill that had been raised for the tomb of Patroclus, till the
Gods in heaven were angry, and bade Thetis tell her son that he
must give back the dead body to Priam, and take ransom for it, and
they sent a messenger to Priam to bid him redeem the body of his
son. It was terrible for Priam to have to go and humble himself
before Achilles, whose hands had been red with the blood of his
sons, but he did not disobey the Gods. He opened his chests, and
took out twenty-four beautiful embroidered changes of raiment; and
he weighed out ten heavy bars, or talents, of gold, and chose a
beautiful golden cup, and he called nine of his sons, Paris, and
Helenus, and Deiphobus, and the rest, saying, "Go, ye bad sons, my
shame; would that Hector lived and all of you were dead!" for
sorrow made him angry; "go, and get ready for me a wain, and lay on
it these treasures." So they harnessed mules to the wain, and
placed in it the treasures, and, after praying, Priam drove through
the night to the hut of Achilles. In he went, when no man looked
for him, and kneeled to Achilles, and kissed his terrible death-
dealing hands. "Have pity on me, and fear the Gods, and give me
back my dead son," he said, "and remember thine own father. Have
pity on me, who have endured to do what no man born has ever done
before, to kiss the hands that slew my sons."
Then Achilles remembered his own father, far away, who now was old
and weak: and he wept, and Priam wept with him, and then Achilles
raised Priam from his knees and spoke kindly to him, admiring how
beautiful he still was in his old age, and Priam himself wondered
at the beauty of Achilles. And Achilles thought how Priam had long
been rich and happy, like his own father, Peleus, and now old age
and weakness and sorrow were laid upon both of them, for Achilles
knew that his own day of death was at hand, even at the doors. So
Achilles bade the women make ready the body of Hector for burial,
and they clothed him in a white mantle that Priam had brought, and
laid him in the wain; and supper was made ready, and Priam and
Achilles ate and drank together, and the women spread a bed for
Priam, who would not stay long, but stole away back to Troy while
Achilles was asleep.
All the women came out to meet him, and to lament for Hector. They
carried the body into the house of Andromache and laid it on a bed,
and the women gathered around, and each in turn sang her song over
the great dead warrior. His mother bewailed him, and his wife, and
Helen of the fair hands, clad in dark mourning raiment, lifted up
her white arms, and said: "Hector, of all my brethren in Troy thou
wert the dearest, since Paris brought me hither. Would that ere
that day I had died! For this is now the twentieth year since I
came, and in all these twenty years never heard I a word from thee
that was bitter and unkind; others might upbraid me, thy sisters or
thy mother, for thy father was good to me as if he had been my own;
but then thou wouldst restrain them that spoke evil by the courtesy
of thy heart and thy gentle words. Ah! woe for thee, and woe for
me, whom all men shudder at, for there is now none in wide Troyland
to be my friend like thee, my brother and my friend!"
So Helen lamented, but now was done all that men might do; a great
pile of wood was raised, and Hector was burned, and his ashes were
placed in a golden urn, in a dark chamber of stone, within a hollow
hill.
HOW ULYSSES STOLE THE LUCK OF TROY
After Hector was buried, the siege went on slowly, as it had done
during the first nine years of the war. The Greeks did not know at
that time how to besiege a city, as we saw, by way of digging
trenches and building towers, and battering the walls with machines
that threw heavy stones. The Trojans had lost courage, and dared
not go into the open plain, and they were waiting for the coming up
of new armies of allies--the Amazons, who were girl warriors from
far away, and an Eastern people called the Khita, whose king was
Memnon, the son of the Bright Dawn.
Now everyone knew that, in the temple of the Goddess Pallas Athene,
in Troy, was a sacred image, which fell from heaven, called the
Palladium, and this very ancient image was the Luck of Troy. While
it remained safe in the temple people believed that Troy could
never be taken, but as it was in a guarded temple in the middle of
the town, and was watched by priestesses day and night, it seemed
impossible that the Greeks should ever enter the city secretly and
steal the Luck away.
As Ulysses was the grandson of Autolycus, the Master Thief, he
often wished that the old man was with the Greeks, for if there was
a thing to steal Autolycus could steal it. But by this time
Autolycus was dead, and so Ulysses could only puzzle over the way
to steal the Luck of Troy, and wonder how his grandfather would
have set about it. He prayed for help secretly to Hermes, the God
of Thieves, when he sacrificed goats to him, and at last he had a
plan.
There was a story that Anius, the King of the Isle of Delos, had
three daughters, named OEno, Spermo, and Elais, and that OEno could
turn water into wine, while Spermo could turn stones into bread,
and Elais could change mud into olive oil. Those fairy gifts,
people said, were given to the maidens by the Wine God, Dionysus,
and by the Goddess of Corn, Demeter. Now corn, and wine, and oil
were sorely needed by the Greeks, who were tired of paying much
gold and bronze to the Phoenician merchants for their supplies.
Ulysses therefore went to Agamemnon one day, and asked leave to
take his ship and voyage to Delos, to bring, if he could, the three
maidens to the camp, if indeed they could do these miracles. As no
fighting was going on, Agamemnon gave Ulysses leave to depart, so
he went on board his ship, with a crew of fifty men of Ithaca, and
away they sailed, promising to return in a month.
Two or three days after that, a dirty old beggar man began to be
seen in the Greek camp. He had crawled in late one evening,
dressed in a dirty smock and a very dirty old cloak, full of holes,
and stained with smoke. Over everything he wore the skin of a
stag, with half the hair worn off, and he carried a staff, and a
filthy tattered wallet, to put food in, which swung from his neck
by a cord. He came crouching and smiling up to the door of the hut
of Diomede, and sat down just within the doorway, where beggars
still sit in the East. Diomede saw him, and sent him a loaf and
two handfuls of flesh, which the beggar laid on his wallet, between
his feet, and he made his supper greedily, gnawing a bone like a
dog.
After supper Diomede asked him who he was and whence he came, and
he told a long story about how he had been a Cretan pirate, and had
been taken prisoner by the Egyptians when he was robbing there, and
how he had worked for many years in their stone quarries, where the
sun had burned him brown, and had escaped by hiding among the great
stones, carried down the Nile in a raft, for building a temple on
the seashore. The raft arrived at night, and the beggar said that
he stole out from it in the dark and found a Phoenician ship in the
harbour, and the Phoenicians took him on board, meaning to sell him
somewhere as a slave. But a tempest came on and wrecked the ship
off the Isle of Tenedos, which is near Troy, and the beggar alone
escaped to the island on a plank of the ship. From Tenedos he had
come to Troy in a fisher's boat, hoping to make himself useful in
the camp, and earn enough to keep body and soul together till he
could find a ship sailing to Crete.
He made his story rather amusing, describing the strange ways of
the Egyptians; how they worshipped cats and bulls, and did
everything in just the opposite of the Greek way of doing things.
So Diomede let him have a rug and blankets to sleep on in the
portico of the hut, and next day the old wretch went begging about
the camp and talking with the soldiers. Now he was a most impudent
and annoying old vagabond, and was always in quarrels. If there
was a disagreeable story about the father or grandfather of any of
the princes, he knew it and told it, so that he got a blow from the
baton of Agamemnon, and Aias gave him a kick, and Idomeneus drubbed
him with the butt of his spear for a tale about his grandmother,
and everybody hated him and called him a nuisance. He was for ever
jeering at Ulysses, who was far away, and telling tales about
Autolycus, and at last he stole a gold cup, a very large cup, with
two handles, and a dove sitting on each handle, from the hut of
Nestor. The old chief was fond of this cup, which he had brought
from home, and, when it was found in the beggar's dirty wallet,
everybody cried that he must be driven out of the camp and well
whipped. So Nestor's son, young Thrasymedes, with other young men,
laughing and shouting, pushed and dragged the beggar close up to
the Scaean gate of Troy, where Thrasymedes called with a loud
voice, "O Trojans, we are sick of this shameless beggar. First we
shall whip him well, and if he comes back we shall put out his eyes
and cut off his hands and feet, and give him to the dogs to eat.
He may go to you, if he likes; if not, he must wander till he dies
of hunger."
The young men of Troy heard this and laughed, and a crowd gathered
on the wall to see the beggar punished. So Thrasymedes whipped him
with his bowstring till he was tired, and they did not leave off
beating the beggar till he ceased howling and fell, all bleeding,
and lay still. Then Thrasymedes gave him a parting kick, and went
away with his friends. The beggar lay quiet for some time, then he
began to stir, and sat up, wiping the tears from his eyes, and
shouting curses and bad words after the Greeks, praying that they
might be speared in the back, and eaten by dogs.
At last he tried to stand up, but fell down again, and began to
crawl on hands and knees towards the Scaean gate. There he sat
down, within the two side walls of the gate, where he cried and
lamented. Now Helen of the fair hands came down from the gate
tower, being sorry to see any man treated so much worse than a
beast, and she spoke to the beggar and asked him why he had been
used in this cruel way?
At first he only moaned, and rubbed his sore sides, but at last he
said that he was an unhappy man, who had been shipwrecked, and was
begging his way home, and that the Greeks suspected him of being a
spy sent out by the Trojans. But he had been in Lacedaemon, her
own country, he said, and could tell her about her father, if she
were, as he supposed, the beautiful Helen, and about her brothers,
Castor and Polydeuces, and her little daughter, Hermione.
"But perhaps," he said, "you are no mortal woman, but some goddess
who favours the Trojans, and if indeed you are a goddess then I
liken you to Aphrodite, for beauty, and stature, and shapeliness."
Then Helen wept; for many a year had passed since she had heard any
word of her father, and daughter, and her brothers, who were dead,
though she knew it not. So she stretched out her white hand, and
raised the beggar, who was kneeling at her feet, and bade him
follow her to her own house, within the palace garden of King
Priam.
Helen walked forward, with a bower maiden at either side, and the
beggar crawling after her. When she had entered her house, Paris
was not there, so she ordered the bath to be filled with warm
water, and new clothes to be brought, and she herself washed the
old beggar and anointed him with oil. This appears very strange to
us, for though Saint Elizabeth of Hungary used to wash and clothe
beggars, we are surprised that Helen should do so, who was not a
saint. But long afterwards she herself told the son of Ulysses,
Telemachus, that she had washed his father when he came into Troy
disguised as a beggar who had been sorely beaten.
You must have guessed that the beggar was Ulysses, who had not gone
to Delos in his ship, but stolen back in a boat, and appeared
disguised among the Greeks. He did all this to make sure that
nobody could recognise him, and he behaved so as to deserve a
whipping that he might not be suspected as a Greek spy by the
Trojans, but rather be pitied by them. Certainly he deserved his
name of "the much-enduring Ulysses."
Meanwhile he sat in his bath and Helen washed his feet. But when
she had done, and had anointed his wounds with olive oil, and when
she had clothed him in a white tunic and a purple mantle, then she
opened her lips to cry out with amazement, for she knew Ulysses;
but he laid his finger on her lips, saying "Hush!" Then she
remembered how great danger he was in, for the Trojans, if they
found him, would put him to some cruel death, and she sat down,
trembling and weeping, while he watched her.
"Oh thou strange one," she said, "how enduring is thy heart and how
cunning beyond measure! How hast thou borne to be thus beaten and
disgraced, and to come within the walls of Troy? Well it is for
thee that Paris, my lord, is far from home, having gone to guide
Penthesilea, the Queen of the warrior maids whom men call Amazons,
who is on her way to help the Trojans."
Then Ulysses smiled, and Helen saw that she had said a word which
she ought not to have spoken, and had revealed the secret hope of
the Trojans. Then she wept, and said, "Oh cruel and cunning! You
have made me betray the people with whom I live, though woe is me
that ever I left my own people, and my husband dear, and my child!
And now if you escape alive out of Troy, you will tell the Greeks,
and they will lie in ambush by night for the Amazons on the way to
Troy and will slay them all. If you and I were not friends long
ago, I would tell the Trojans that you are here, and they would
give your body to the dogs to eat, and fix your head on the
palisade above the wall. Woe is me that ever I was born."
Ulysses answered, "Lady, as you have said, we two are friends from
of old, and your friend I will be till the last, when the Greeks
break into Troy, and slay the men, and carry the women captives.
If I live till that hour no man shall harm you, but safely and in
honour you shall come to your pal