HOUSES CONCERNED IN THE TROJAN WAR
=190. Three Families.= Before entering upon the causes of the war
against Troy, we must notice the three Grecian families that were
principally concerned,--those of Peleus, Atreus, and Tyndareus.
=191. Peleus=[277] was the son of Æacus and grandson of Jove. It was
for his father Æacus, king of Phthia in Thessaly, that, as we have
seen, an army of Myrmidons was created by Jupiter. Peleus joined the
expedition of the Argonauts, and on that journey beheld and fell in
love with the sea-nymph Thetis, daughter of Nereus and Doris. Such
was the beauty of the nymph that Jupiter himself had sought her in
marriage; but having learned from Prometheus, the Titan, that Thetis
should bear a son who should be greater than his father, the Olympian
desisted from his suit and decreed that Thetis should be the wife
of a mortal. By the aid of Chiron, the Centaur, Peleus succeeded in
winning the goddess for his bride. In this marriage, to be productive
of momentous results for mortals, the immortals manifested a lively
interest. They thronged with the Thessalians to the wedding in
Pharsalia; they honored the wedding feast with their presence and,
reclining on ivory couches, gave ear while the three Sisters of Fate,
in responsive strain, chanted the fortunes of Achilles,--the future
hero of the Trojan War,--the son that should spring from this union of
a goddess with a mortal. The following is from a translation of the
famous poem, The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis:[278]
... Now, on the day foreset, Aurora forsaking the ocean
Crimsons the orient sky: all Thessaly, seeking the palace,
Fares to the royal seat, in populous muster exultant,
Heavy of hand with gifts, but blithesome of cheer for the joyance.
Scyros behind they leave, they leave Phthiotican Tempe,
Crannon's glittering domes and the battlements Larissæan,
Cumber Pharsalia, throng the abodes and the streets of Pharsalus.
Fields, meanwhile are untilled, grow tender the necks of the oxen,
None with the curving teeth of the harrow cleareth the vineyard,
None upturneth the glebe with bull and the furrowing plowshare,
None with gardener's knife lets light through the branches umbrageous;
Squalid the rust creeps up o'er plows forgotten of plowmen.
Bright is the palace, ay, through far retreating recesses
Blazing for sheen benign of the opulent gold and the silver:
Ivory gleams on the thrones, great goblets glint on the tables,
Glitters the spacious home, made glad with imperial splendor,--
Ay, but most--in the hall midmost--is the couch of the goddess,
Glorious, made of the tusk of the Indian elephant--polished--
Spread with a wonder of quilt empurpled with dye of the sea-shell.
On this coverlet of purple were embroidered various scenes illustrating
the lessons of heroism and justice that the poet would inculcate: to
the good falleth good; to the evil, evil speedily. Therefore, the
story of Theseus and Ariadne, which has already been recounted, was
here displayed in cunning handiwork. For Theseus, the false lover,
bold of hand but bad of heart, gained by retributive justice undying
ruth and misery; whereas Ariadne, the injured and innocent, restored
to happiness, won no less a reward than Bacchus himself. Gorgeously
woven with such antique and heroic figures was the famous quilt upon
the couch of Thetis. For a season the wedding guests feasted their eyes
upon it.
Then when Thessaly's youth, long gazing, had of the wonder
Their content, they gan give place to the lords of Olympus.
As when Zephyr awakes the recumbent billows of ocean,
Roughens the placid deep with eager breath of the morning,
Urges the waves, and impels, to the threshold of journeying
Ph[oe]bus,--
They, at first, blown outward unroughly when Dawn is a-rising,
Limp slow-footed, and loiter with laughter lightsomely plashing,
But, with the freshening gale, creep quicker and thicker together,
Till on horizon they float refulgent of luminous purple,--
So from the portal withdrawing the pomp Thessalian departed
Faring on world-wide ways to the far-off homes of their fathers.
Now when they were aloof, drew nigh from Pelion's summit
Chiron bearing gifts from copses and glades of the woodland--
Gifts that the meadows yield: what flowers on Thessaly's mountains,
Or, by waves of the stream, the prolific breath of the West Wind,
Warming, woos to the day, all such in bunches assorted
Bore he. Flattered with odors the whole house brake into laughter.
Came there next Peneüs, abandoning verdurous Tempe--
Tempe embowered deep mid superimpendent forests.
And after the river-god, who bore with him nodding plane trees and
lofty beeches, straight slim laurels, the lithe poplar, and the airy
cypress to plant about the palace that thick foliage might give it
shade, followed Prometheus, the bold and cunning of heart, wearing
still the marks of his ancient punishment on the rocks of Caucasus.
Finally the father of the gods himself came, with his holy spouse and
his offspring,--all, save Ph[oe]bus and his one sister, who naturally
looked askance upon a union to be productive of untold misfortune to
their favored town of Troy.
[Illustration: FIG. 148. THE GODS BRING WEDDING GIFTS]
... When now the gods had reclined their limbs on the ivory couches,
Viands many and rare were heaped on the banqueting tables,
Whilst the decrepit Sisters of Fate, their tottering bodies
Solemnly swayed, and rehearsed their soothfast vaticination.
--Lo, each tremulous frame was wrapped in robe of a whiteness,
Down to the ankles that fell, with nethermost border of purple,
While on ambrosial brows there rested fillets like snowflakes.
They, at a task eternal their hands religiously plying,
Held in the left on high, with wool enfolded, a distaff,
Delicate fibers wherefrom, drawn down, were shaped by the right hand--
Shaped by fingers upturned,--but the down-turned thumb set a-whirling,
Poised with perfected whorl, the industrious shaft of the spindle.
Still, as they span, as they span, was the tooth kept nipping and
smoothing,
And to the withered lip clung morsels of wool as they smoothed it--
Filaments erstwhile rough that stood from the twist of the surface.
Close at their feet, meantime, were woven baskets of wicker
Guarding the soft white balls of the wool resplendent within them.
Thus then, parting the strands, these Three with resonant voices
Uttered, in chant divine, predestined sooth of the future--
Prophecy neither in time, nor yet in eternity, shaken.
"Thou that exaltest renown of thy name with the name of thy valor,
Bulwark Emathian, blest above sires in the offspring of promise,
Hear with thine ears this day what oracles fall from the Sisters
Chanting the fates for thee;--but you, ye destiny-drawing
Spindles, hasten the threads of the destinies set for the future!
"Rideth the orb upon high that heralds boon unto bridegrooms--
Hesperus,--cometh anon with star propitious the virgin,
Speedeth thy soul to subdue--submerge it with love at the flood tide.
Hasten, ye spindles, and run, yea, gallop, ye thread-running spindles!
"Erstwhile, never a home hath roofed like generous loving,
Never before hath Love conjoinèd lovers so dearly,--
Never with harmony such as endureth for Thetis and Peleus.
Hasten, ye spindles, and run, yea, gallop, ye thread-running spindles!
"Born unto you shall be the undaunted heart of Achilles,
Aye by his brave breast known, unknown by his back to the foeman,--
Victor in onslaught, victor in devious reach of the race-course,
Fleeter of foot than feet of the stag that lighten and vanish,--
Hasten, ye spindles, and run, yea, gallop, ye thread-running spindles!"
=192. Achilles, Son of Peleus.= So the sisters prophesied the future
of the hero, Achilles,--from his father called Pelides; from his
grandfather, Æacides. How by him the Trojans should fall, as fall
the ears of corn when they are yellow before the scythe; how because
of him Scamander should run red, warm with blood, choked with blind
bodies, into the whirling Hellespont; how finally he himself, in
his prime, should fall, and how on his tomb should be sacrificed
the fair Polyxena, daughter of Priam, whom he had loved. "So," says
Catullus, "sang the Fates. For those were the days before piety and
righteous action were spurned by mankind, the days when Jupiter and
his immortals deigned to consort with zealous man, to enjoy the sweet
odor of his burnt-offering, to march beside him to battle, to swell his
shout in victory and his lament in defeat, to smile on his peaceful
harvests, to recline at his banquets, and to bless the weddings of fair
women and goodly heroes. But now, alas," concludes Catullus, "godliness
and chastity, truth, wisdom, and honor have departed from among men":
[Illustration: FIG. 149]
Wherefore the gods no more vouchsafe their presence to mortals,
Suffer themselves no more to be touched by the ray of the morning.
But there were gods in the pure,--in the golden prime of the Ages.
The hero of the Trojan War, here prophesied, =Achilles=, fleet of foot,
the dauntless, the noble, the beloved of Zeus, the breaker of the ranks
of men, is the ideal hero of the Greeks,--the mightiest of the Achæans
far. Of his youth many interesting stories are told: how his mother,
endeavoring to make him invulnerable, plunged him in the river Styx,
and succeeded save with regard to his ankles by which she held him; and
how he was educated in eloquence and the arts of war by his father's
friend Ph[oe]nix, and by his father's other friend Chiron, the centaur,
in riding and hunting and music and the art of healing. One of the most
Greek-minded of our English poets, Matthew Arnold,[279] singing of a
beauteous dell by Etna, tells how
In such a glen, on such a day,
On Pelion, on the grassy ground,
Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay,
The young Achilles standing by.
The Centaur taught him to explore
The mountains; where the glens are dry
And the tired Centaurs come to rest,
And where the soaking springs abound
And the straight ashes grow for spears,
And where the hill goats come to feed
And the sea eagles build their nest.
He showed him Phthia far away.
And said, "O boy, I taught this lore
To Peleus, in long distant years!"
He told him of the gods, the stars,
The tides;--and then of mortal wars,
And of the life which heroes lead
Before they reach the Elysian place
And rest in the immortal mead;
And all the wisdom of his race.
Upon the character of Achilles, outspoken, brave, impulsive; to his
friends passionately devoted, to his foes implacable; lover of war
and lover of home; inordinately ambitious but submissive to divine
decree;--upon this handsome, gleaming, terrible, glooming, princely
warrior of his race, the poet of the Iliad delights to dwell, and the
world has delighted in the portraiture from that day to this.
=193. Atreus= was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia and grandson of
Tantalus, therefore great-grandson of Jove. Both by blood and by
marriage he was connected with Theseus. He took to wife Aërope,
granddaughter of Minos II, king of Crete, and by her had two sons,
Agamemnon, the general of the Grecian army in the Trojan War, and
Menelaüs, at whose solicitation the war was undertaken. Of Atreus it
may be said that with cannibal atrocity like that of his grandsire,
Tantalus, he on one occasion wreaked his vengeance on a brother,
Thyestes, by causing him to eat the flesh of two of his own children.
A son of this Thyestes, Ægisthus by name, revived in due time against
Agamemnon the treacherous feud that had existed between their fathers.
=194. Tyndareus= was king of Lacedæmon (Sparta). His wife was Leda,
daughter of Thestius of Calydon, and sister of Althæa, the mother of
Meleager and Dejanira. To Tyndareus Leda bore Castor and Clytemnestra;
to Jove she bore Pollux and Helen. The two former were mortal; the two
latter, immortal. Clytemnestra was married to Agamemnon of Mycenæ, to
whom she bore Electra, Iphigenia, Chrysothemis, and Orestes. Helen, the
fair immediate cause of the Trojan War, became the wife of Menelaüs,
who with her obtained the kingdom of Sparta.
Of the families of Peleus, Atreus, and Tyndareus, the genealogies will
be found in the Commentary corresponding with these sections of the
story; also the genealogy of Ulysses, one of the leaders of the Greek
army during the war and the hero of the Odyssey, which narrates his
subsequent adventures; and that of the royal family of Troy against
whom the war was undertaken. A slight study of these family trees will
reveal interesting relationships between the principal participants in
the war. For instance: that the passionate Achilles and the intolerant
Ajax, second only to Achilles in military prowess, are first cousins;
and that the family of Ajax is connected by marriage with that of the
Trojan Hector, whom he meets in combat. That Ulysses is a distant
cousin of his wife Penelope and of Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon;
and that he is a kinsman of Patroclus, the bosom friend of Achilles. In
the family of Tyndareus we note most the tragic and romantic careers
of the women,--Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband and married
his cousin Ægisthus; Helen, whose beauty provoked war between her
two husbands and their races; Penelope, whose fidelity to her absent
lord is the marvel of the Odyssey. It will be noticed, too, that the
daughter of Helen, Hermione, is strangely enough married first by
the son of Achilles and, afterwards, by the son of Agamemnon, and so
becomes sister-in-law to her noble cousins, Electra and Iphigenia.
The kinsmen and descendants of Peleus--Telamon, Ajax, Teucer, Achilles,
Neoptolemus--are characterized by their personal valor, their
intolerant and resentful temper. In the family of Atreus, the men are
remarkable for their kingly attributes; the principal women for their
unwavering devotion to religious duty. The members of the royal family
of Troy are of richly varied and most unusual individuality: like
Tithonus and Memnon, Paris, Hesione, Cassandra and Polyxena, poetic
and pathetic; like Laomedon, Priam, Hector and Troilus, patriotic,
persistent in the face of overwhelming odds; but all fated to a
dolorous end. Of those engaged in the Trojan War, Æneas and his aged
father, Anchises, beloved of Venus, are practically the only survivors
to a happier day.
FOOTNOTES:
[277] Ovid, Metam. 11, 221-265; Catullus, LXIV; Hyginus, Fab. 14;
Apollonius Rhodius. Argon. 1, 558; Valerius Flaccus, Argon.; Statius,
Achilleid.
[278] Catullus, LXIV (Charles Mills Gayley's translation).
[279] Empedocles on Etna.
[Illustration: FIG. 150. HELEN PERSUADED]