Chapter 24

Now Dardan* swains before the king With clamorous demonstration bring, His hands fast bound, a youth unknown, Across their casual pathway thrown By cunning purpose of his own, If so his simulated speech For Greece the walls of Troy might breach, Nerved by strong courage to defy The worst, and gain his end or die. The curious Trojans round him flock, With rival zeal a foe to mock. Now listen while my tongue declares The tale you ask of Danaan snares, And gather from a single charge Their catalogue of crimes at large. There as he stands, confused, unarmed, Like helpless innocence alarmed, His wistful eyes on all sides throws, And sees that all around are foes, "What land," he cries, "what sea is left, To hold a wretch of country reft, Driven out from Greece while savage Troy Demands my blood with clamorous joy?" That anguish put our rage to flight, And stayed each hand in act to smite: We bid him name and race declare, And say why Troy her prize should spare. Then by degrees he laid aside His fear, and presently replied:

*[Footnote: The Trojans were called _Dardans_, from Dardanus, the founder of Troy.]

"Truth, gracious king, is all I speak, And first I own my nation Greek: No; Sinon may be Fortune's slave; She shall not make him liar or knave, If haply to your ears e'er came Belidan Palamedes'* name, Borne by the tearful voice of Fame, Whom erst, by false impeachment sped, Maligned because for peace he pled, Greece gave to death, now mourns him dead,-- His kinsman I, while yet a boy, Sent by a needy sire to Troy. While he yet stood in kingly state, 'Mid brother kings in council great, I too had power: but when he died, By false Ulysses' spite belied (The tale is known), from that proud height I sank to wretchedness and night, And brooded in my dolorous gloom On that my guiltless kinsman's doom. Not all in silence; no, I swore, Should Fortune bring me home once more, My vengeance should redress his fate, And speech engendered cankerous hate. Thence dates my fall: Ulysses thence Still scared me with some fresh pretence, With chance-dropt words the people fired, Sought means of hurt, intrigued, conspired. Nor did the glow of hatred cool, Till, wielding Calchas* as his tool-- But why a tedious tale repeat, To stay you from your morsel sweet? If all are equal, Greek and Greek, Enough: your tardy vengeance wreak. My death will Ithacus* delights, And Atreus'* sons the boon requite."

*[Footnote: It was Palamedes who induced Ulysses to join in the expedition against Troy. Preferring to remain at home with his wife Penelope and his infant son Telemachus, Ulysses pretended madness, and Palamedes, when he came to beg for his aid, found him plowing up the seashore and sowing it with salt. Palamedes was quite certain that the madness was feigned, and to test it, set Telemachus in front of the plow. By turning aside his plow, Ulysses showed that he was really sane. Later Palamedes lost favor with Grecian leaders because he urged them to give up the struggle and return home.] *[Footnote: Calchas was the most famous of the Grecian sooth-sayers or prophets. They never began any important operations until Calchas had first been consulted and had told them what the gods willed.] *[Footnote: _Ithacus_ is a name given to Ulysses, who was from Ithaca.] *[Footnote: The sons of Atreus were Agamemnon, leader of the Grecians, and Menelaus, King of Sparta, the theft of whose wife, Helen, was cause of the Trojan War.]

We press, we yearn the truth to know, Nor dream how doubly base our foe: He, faltering still and overawed, Takes up the unfinished web of fraud. "Oft had we planned to leave your shore, Nor tempt the weary conflict more. O, had we done it! sea and sky Scared us as oft, in act to fly: But chiefly when completed stood This horse, compact of maple wood, Fierce thunders, pealing in our ears, Proclaimed the turmoil of the spheres. Perplexed, Eurypylus we send To question what the fates portend, And he from Phoebus'* awful shrine Brings back the words of doom divine: 'With blood ye pacified the gales, E'en with a virgin slain,* When first ye Danaans spread your sails, The shores of Troy to gain: With blood ye your return must buy: A Greek must at the altar die.' That sentence reached the public ear, And bred the dull amaze of fear: Through every heart a shudder ran, 'Apollo's victim--who the man?' Ulysses, turbulent and loud, Drags Calchas forth before the crowd. And questions what the immortals mean, Which way these dubious beckonings lean: E'en then were some discerned my foe, And silent watch the coming blow. Ten days the seer, with bated breath, Restrained the utterance big with death: O'erborne at last, the word agreed He speaks, and destines me to bleed. All gave a sigh, as men set free, And hailed the doom, content to see The bolt that threatened each alike One solitary victim strike. The death-day came: the priests prepare Salt cakes, and fillets for my hair; I fled, I own it, from the knife, I broke my bands and ran for life, And in a marish lay that night, While they should sail, if sail they might. No longer have I hope, ah me! My ancient fatherland to see, Or look on those my eyes desire, My darling sons, my gray-haired sire: Perhaps my butchers may requite On their dear heads my traitorous flight, And make their wretched lives atone For this, the single crime I own. O, by the gods, who all things view, And know the false man from the true, By sacred Faith, if Faith remain With mortal men preserved from stain, Show grace to innocence forlorn, Show grace to woes unduly borne!"

*[Footnote: Phoebus Apollo, god of the sun and of prophecy.] *[Footnote: When the Greeks set out for Troy, their ships were becalmed at Aulis, in Boeotia. Calchas consulted the signs and declared that the delay was caused by the huntress-goddess Diana, who was angry at Agamemnon for killing one of her sacred stags. Only by the death of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, could the wrathful goddess be placated. The maiden was sent for, but on her arrival at Aulis she was slain by the priest at Diana's altar. According to another version of the story, Iphigenia was not put to death, but was conveyed by Diana to Tauris, where she served as priestess in Diana's temple.]

Moved by his tears, we let him live, And pity crowns the boon we give: King Priam bids unloose his cords, And soothes the wretch with kindly words. "Whoe'er you are, henceforth resign All thought of Greece: be Troy's and mine: Now tell me truth, for what intent This fabric of the horse was meant; An offering to your heavenly liege? An engine for assault or siege?" Then, schooled in all Pelasgian* shifts, His unbound hands to heaven he lifts: "Ye slumberless, inviolate fires, And the dread awe your name inspires! Ye murderous altars, which I fled! Ye fillets that adorned my head! Bear witness, and behold me free To break my Grecian fealty; To hate the Greeks, and bring to light The counsels they would hide in night, Unchecked by all that once could bind, All claims of country or of kind. Thou, Troy, remember ne'er to swerve, Preserved thyself, thy faith preserve, If true the story I relate, If these, my prompt returns, be great.

*[Footnote: _Pelasgian_ means _Grecian_. The name is derived from that of Pelasgus, an early Greek hero. By their neighbors the Greeks were regarded as a deceitful, double-dealing nation.]

"The warlike hopes of Greece were stayed, E'en from the first, on Pallas' aid: But since Tydides,* impious man, And foul Ulysses, born to plan, Dragged with red hands, the sentry slain, Her fateful image* from your fane, Her chaste locks touched, and stained with gore The virgin coronal she wore, Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed, And Greece grew weak, her queen* estranged Nor dubious were the sig'ns of ill That showed the goddess' altered will. The image scarce in camp was set, Out burst big drops of saltest sweat O'er all her limbs: her eyes upraised With minatory lightnings blazed; And thrice untouched from earth she sprang With quivering spear and buckler's clang. 'Back o'er the ocean!' Calchas cries: 'We shall not make Troy's town our prize, Unless at Argos' sacred seat Our former omens we repeat, And bring once more the grace we brought When first these shores our navy sought.' So now for Greece they cross the wave, Fresh blessings on their arms to crave, Thence to return, so Calchas rules, Unlocked for, ere your wonder cools. Premonished first, this frame they planned In your Palladium's stead to stand, An image for an image given To pacify offended Heaven. But Calchas bade them rear it high With timbers mounting to the sky, That none might drag within the gate This new Palladium of your state. For, said he, if your hands profaned The gift for Pallas' self ordained, Dire havoc--grant, ye powers, that first That fate be his!--on Troy should burst: But if, in glad procession haled By those your hands, your walls it scaled, Then Asia should our homes invade, And unborn captives mourn the raid."

*[Footnote: Tydides was Diomedes, son of Tydeus. The termination _-ides_ means _son of_; thus _Pelides_ is Achilles, son of Peleus.] *[Footnote: There was in a temple of Troy an image of Minerva, or Pallas, called the _palladium_, which was supposed to have fallen from the sky. The Greeks learned of a prophecy which declared that Troy could never be taken while the palladium remained within its walls, and Ulysses and Diomedes were entrusted with the task of stealing it. In disguise they entered the city one night, procured the sacred image and bore it off to the Grecian camp.] *[Footnote: Minerva, supposedly angered at the desecration of her statue.]

Such tale of pity, aptly feigned, Our credence for the perjurer gained, And tears, wrung out from fraudful eyes, Made us, e'en us, a villain's prize, 'Gainst whom not valiant Diomede, Nor Peleus' Larissaean* seed, Nor ten years' fighting could prevail, Nor navies of a thousand sail.

*[Footnote: Achilles. Larissa was a town in Thessaly, of which Peleus, the father of Achilles, was king.]

But ghastlier portents lay behind, Our unprophetic souls to bind. Laocoön, named as Neptune's priest, Was offering up the victim beast, When lo! from Tenedos--I quail, E'en now, at telling of the tale-- Two monstrous serpents stem the tide, And shoreward through the stillness glide. Amid the waves they rear their breasts, And toss on high their sanguine crests: The hind part coils along the deep, And undulates with sinuous sweep. The lashed spray echoes: now they reach The inland belted by the beach, And rolling bloodshot eyes of fire, Dart their forked tongues, and hiss for ire. We fly distraught: unswerving they Toward Laocoön hold their way; First round his two young sons they wreathe, And grind their limbs with savage teeth: Then, as with arms he comes to aid, The wretched father they invade And twine in giant folds: twice round His stalwart waist their spires are wound, Twice round his neck, while over all Their heads and crests tower high and tall. He strains his strength their knots to tear,* While gore and slime his fillets smear, And to the unregardful skies Sends up his agonizing cries: A wounded bull such moaning makes, When from his neck the axe he shakes, Ill-aimed, and from the altar breaks. The twin destroyers take their flight To Pallas' temple on the height; There by the goddess' feet concealed They lie, and nestle 'neath her shield. At once through Ilium's hapless sons A shock of feverous horror runs: All in Laocoön's death-pangs read The just requital of his deed, Who dared to harm with impious stroke Those ribs of consecrated oak. "The image to its fane!" they cry: "So soothe the offended deity." Each in the labour claims his share: The walls are breached, the town laid bare: Wheels 'neath its feet are fixed to glide, And round its neck stout ropes are tied: So climbs our wall that shape of doom, With battle quickening in its womb, While youths and maidens sing glad songs, And joy to touch the harness-thongs. It comes, and, glancing terror down, Sweeps through the bosom of the town. O Ilium, city of my love! O warlike home of powers above! Four times 'twas on the threshold stayed: Four times the armour clashed and brayed. Yet on we press with passion blind, All forethought blotted from our mind, Till the dread monster we install Within the temple's tower-built wall. E'en then Cassandra's* prescient voice Forewarned us of our fatal choice-- That prescient voice, which Heaven decreed No son of Troy should hear and heed. We, careless souls, the city through, With festal boughs the fanes bestrew, And in such revelry employ The last, last day should shine on Troy.

*[Footnote: The death of Laocoön and his sons has always been a favorite subject in art and in poetry. (See illustration.)] *[Footnote: Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, king of Troy. She had been loved by Apollo, who bestowed on her the gift of prophecy; but she had angered him by failing to return his love, and he, unable to take back the gift, decreed that her prophecies should never be believed. All through the siege she had uttered her predictions and always they proved true; but no one ever paid heed to her warnings.]

Meantime Heaven shifts from light to gloom, And night ascends from Ocean's womb, Involving in her shadow broad Earth, sky, and Myrmidonian* fraud: And through the city, stretched at will, Sleep the tired Trojans, and are still.

*[Footnote: Here Myrmidonian means simply Grecian.]

And now from Tenedos set free The Greeks are sailing on the sea, Bound for the shore where erst they lay, Beneath the still moon's friendly ray: When in a moment leaps to sight On the king's ship the signal light, And Sinon, screened by partial fate, Unlocks the pine-wood prison's gate. The horse its charge to air restores, And forth the armed invasion pours. Thessander,* Sthenelus, the first, Slide down the rope: Ulysses curst, Thoas and Acamas are there, And great Pelides' youthful heir, Machaon, Menelaus, last Epeus, who the plot forecast. They seize the city, buried deep In floods of revelry and sleep, Cut down the warders of the gates, And introduce their banded mates.*

*[Footnote: These are all Grecian heroes.] *[Footnote: After the Greeks entered the gates the chief Trojan citizens were put to death, and the city was set on fire, Aeneas, with his little son and his aged father, escaped and took ship for Italy, accompanied by a band of followers.]

ULYSSES

_Adapted From_ THE ODYSSEY

NOTE.--The _Odyssey_ is one of the most famous of the old Greek poems, one that is still read and enjoyed by students of the Greek language, and one that in its translations has given pleasure to many English and American readers. Its influence on the works of our best writers has been remarkable, and everybody wishes to know something about it.

It is in twenty-four books or parts, and tells of the wanderings and adventures of the Greek hero, Ulysses, king of Ithaca, after the Trojan War. His wanderings lasted for ten years, but most of the _Odyssey_ is taken up with the events that happened in the last few weeks of this time, during which period, at intervals, Ulysses himself tells the story of his wanderings, winning everywhere the sympathy and admiration of those to whom he tells it.

It is customary to speak of the _Odyssey_ as one of Homer's poems, but the probability is that it was written at different times by different people, and at a date later than that at which the _Iliad_ was written. One of the standard translations of the _Odyssey_ is that of Alexander Pope, which is followed in this story. The tale has of necessity been very much abridged; the details of the journeyings of Ulysses are omitted entirely, and the emphasis is placed on his return home.

* * * * *

When Ulysses departed to join in the Trojan War, he left his wife Penelope and his young son Telemachus at home. He was one of the foremost of the Greek chieftains in the Trojan War, and his deeds are a prominent part of the story in the _Iliad_.

After Ulysses had been many years absent, he was thought by most of his friends to be dead, and many disorders grew up in his kingdom. Most disturbing of all was the fact that many wicked and treacherous men came about Penelope as suitors for her hand, claiming that there was no reason why she should not marry, as her husband had not been heard of since the Trojan War, and had undoubtedly long since died. Both Penelope and Telemachus still clung to the thought that Ulysses might be living, and the mother would by no means consent to taking another husband.

At this time the gods in council decided that Ulysses should be brought back home, and accordingly Telemachus was inspired to travel in search of his father. Hoping that his journey might be successful, Telemachus, guided by Minerva in the shape of the wise old Mentor, set out on his long and trying journey. In time he learned that his father was still living, and had been held for many years in the Island of Calypso. During the absence of Telemachus, the suitors of Penelope planned to destroy him on his voyage home, but failed to accomplish their purpose.

After much persuasion by the gods, Calypso was induced to release Ulysses, and he, building a boat with his own hands, set out on his homeward journey, but in a terrible tempest was shipwrecked and barely escaped with his life, being rescued by a princess to whom he tells the story of his journeyings.

He told how at one time he was in a ship driven by a tempest far from shore, and finally landed upon the flowery coast of the land of Lotus, where he found a hospitable race who lived a lazy, happy life, eating and drinking the things which nature provided them. So divinely sweet were the lotus leaves that whosoever ate them were willing to quit his house, his country and his friends, and wish for no other home than the enchanting land where the lotus plant flourished.

Denying themselves the pleasure of tasting the lotus leaves, Ulysses and his men sailed from the coast to the land of Cyclops, where they were appalled by the sight of a shepherd, enormous in size, unlike any human being, for he had but one eye, and that a huge one in the center of his forehead. Ulysses with a few of his men landed upon the shore and visited the giant's cavern home. While they were inspecting this strange place, the monster returned, bearing on his back half a forest which he cast down at the door, where it thundered as it fell. After building a huge fire, the giant entered the cavern, and in a voice of thunder asked Ulysses who he was, and why he came to this shore. Ulysses explained, and for an answer the huge Cyclops seized two of the followers of Ulysses, dashed them against the stony floor, and like a mountain beast devoured them utterly, draining the blood from their bodies and sucking the marrow from their bones.

After satisfying his hunger, the monster slept upon the ground, and all night long Ulysses and his followers lay in deadly terror. The next day Ulysses gave the giant wine, and when he was sleeping in a drunken stupor, the Greek hero took a green stick, and heating it until it burnt and sparkled a fiery red, thrust its flaming point into the only eye the Cyclops had.

Raging with pain, the monster stumbled about the cave trying without success to find Ulysses and his followers, though he did discover the door, and stationed himself there to prevent their escape. In the cave were the great sheep that made the herd of the Cyclops, and throwing themselves beneath the animals and clinging to their wool, Ulysses and his followers escaped through the door, while the blind giant was touching his sheep one by one to see that nothing but sheep passed out. Soon the hero and his men were safe on board the ship, though they narrowly escaped destruction from a big boulder that the giant threw into the sea when he discovered that his victims had made their escape.

Aeolus, ruler of the winds, anxious to aid Ulysses, gave him prosperous winds and tied the treacherous winds up in a bag, but some of the curious mariners untied the bag, and the conflicting winds escaping, destroyed several of the ships and threw Ulysses and the survivors upon the island of Circe.

This famed enchantress, following her usual custom, turned the followers of Ulysses into swine, but he, aided by Mercury, released them from their enchantment.

After a year's stay on this island, he was urged by Circe to make a descent into the Infernal Regions, where he saw the tortures inflicted upon the wicked who had died before him. On his return he was sent upon another voyage, where he met the Sirens, who lured some of his men to destruction by their charming songs; but Ulysses himself escaped by having himself chained to the mast. He sailed between Scylla and Charybdis safely, though he lost some of his men in the terrible passage.

After Ulysses told in full his story, the kindly princess put him on board a magic ship and sent him to Ithaca, where he was placed on shore with all his treasures, though he did not at first know where he was.

However, he finally learned that he was home again, and visited the house of a favorite servant, who gave him a full account of what had happened during his absence.

In the meantime Telemachus returned home, having learned that his father was still living; and, directed by the gods, he went to the house of the same old servant with whom Ulysses had taken refuge. That night the father and son recognized each other, and after a joyful reunion they lay down to rest, having decided that in the morning Telemachus should repair to the palace and tell Penelope that her husband was still alive, but leave her in ignorance of the fact that he was near at hand.

In the rosy light of the morning the young prince hastened across the dewy lawn on his way to his mother. When he reached the palace he propped his spear against the wall, leaped like a lion over the threshold, hastened with running steps across the hall, and threw himself into the arms of his loving mother. The passionate joy of their meeting was shadowed only by the story that Telemachus had to tell, yet the story was lightened somewhat by the knowledge that Ulysses still lived, though under enchantment, and might in time be able to return to his kingdom.

Penelope, knowing that her husband was still living, became more than ever incensed at the outrageous conduct of the suitors, who had quartered themselves in her palace and were living in luxury and vice. However, even with Telemachus at her side, it was impossible to drive out the powerful men, so that she felt compelled still to endure their unwelcome presence.