[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]
The overthrow of the temples at Troy was heavily visited on the Greeks by
the gods, and the disasters that befel Ulysses are the subject of another
grand Greek poem called the _Odyssey_, from his right Greek name
Odysseus. He was the special favourite of Pallas Athene, but she could
not save him from many dangers. He had twelve ships, with which he set
out to return to Ithaca; but as he was doubling Cape Malea, one of the
rugged points of the Peloponnesus, a great storm caught him, and drove
him nine days westward, till he came to an island, where he sent three
men to explore, but they did not return, and he found that this was the
land of the lotus-eaters, a people who always lie about in a dreamy state
of repose, and that to taste the food drives away all remembrance of home
and friends. He was obliged to drag his men away by force, and bind them
to the benches. The lotus bean, or jujube, is really eaten in Africa,
but not with these effects.
Next they came to another island, where there was a bay with rocks
around, with goats leaping on them. Here Ulysses left eleven ships, and
sailed with one to explore the little islet opposite. Landing with his
men, he entered an enormous cavern, well stored with bowls of milk and
cream, and with rows of cheeses standing on the ledges of rock. While
the Greeks were regaling themselves, a noise was heard, and great flocks
of sheep and goats came bleating in. Behind them came a giant, with a
fir tree for a staff, and only one eye in the middle of his forehead. He
was Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, sons of Neptune, and workmen of
Vulcan. He asked fiercely who the strangers were, and Ulysses told him
that they were shipwrecked sailors, imploring him for hospitality in the
name of the gods. Polyphemus laughed at this, saying he was stronger
than the gods, and did not care for them; and, dashing two unhappy Greeks
on the floor, he ate them up at once; after which he closed up the front
of the cave with a monstrous rock, penned up the kids and lambs, and
began to milk his goats, drank up a great quantity of milk, and fell
asleep on the ground. Ulysses thought of killing him at once, but
recollected that the stone at the mouth of the cave would keep him
captive if the giant's strength did not move it, and abstained. In the
morning the Cyclops let out his flocks, and then shut the Greeks in with
the stone; but he left his staff behind, and Ulysses hardened the top of
this in the fire. A skin of wine had been brought from the ships, and
when Polyphemus came home in the evening, and had devoured two more
Greeks, Ulysses offered it to him. It was the first wine he had tasted,
and he was in raptures with it, asking his guest's name as he pledged
him. "No-man," replied Ulysses, begging again for mercy. "This will I
grant," said the Cyclops, "in return for thy gift. No-man shall be the
last whom I devour." He drank up the whole skin of wine, and went to
sleep. Then Ulysses and four of his companions seized the staff, and
forced its sharpened top into the Cyclops' single eye, so that he awoke
blind, and roaring with pain so loud that all the other Cyclops awoke,
and came calling to know who had hurt him. "No-man," shouted back
Polyphemus; and they, thinking it was only some sudden illness, went back
to their caves. Meanwhile, Ulysses was fastening the remaining Greeks
under the bellies of the sheep and goats, the wool and hair hanging over
them. He himself clung on under the largest goat, the master of the
herd. When morning came, bleatings of the herds caused the blind giant
to rouse himself to roll back the stone from the entrance. He laid his
hand on each beast's back, that his guests might not ride out on them,
but he did not feel beneath, though he kept back Ulysses' goat for a
moment caressing it, and saying, "My pretty goat, thou seest me, but I
cannot see thee."
As soon as Ulysses was safe on board ship, and had thrust out from land,
he called back his real name to the giant, whom he saw sitting on the
stone outside his cave. Polyphemus and the other Cyclops returned by
hurling rocks at the ship, but none touched it, and Ulysses reached his
fleet safely. This adventure, however, had made Neptune his bitter foe,
and how could he sail on Neptune's realm?
However, he next came to the Isle of the Winds, which floated about in
the ocean, and was surrounded by a brazen wall. Here dwelt AEolus, with
his wife and sons and daughters, and Ulysses stayed with him a whole
month. At the end of it, AEolus gave Ulysses enough of each wind, tied
up in separate bags, to take him safely home; but his crew fancied there
was treasure in them, and while he was asleep opened all the bags at
once, and the winds bursting out tossed all the ships, and then carried
them back to the island, where AEolus declared that Ulysses must be a
wretch forsaken of the gods, and would give him no more.
Six days later the fleet came to another cannibal island, that of the
Laestrygonians, where the crews of all the ships, except that of the king
himself, were caught and eaten up, and he alone escaped, and, still
proceeding westward, came to another isle, belonging to Circe, the witch
goddess, daughter to Helios. The comrades of Ulysses, whom he had sent
to explore, did not return, and he was himself landing in search of them,
when Mercury appeared to him, and warned him that, if he tasted of the
bowl she would offer him, he would, like his friends, be changed by her
into a hog, unless he fortified himself with the plant named moly--a
white-flowered, starry sort of garlic, which Mercury gave him. Ulysses
then made his way through a wood to the hall where Circe sat, waited on
by four nymphs. She received him courteously, offered him her cup, and
so soon as he had drunk of it she struck him with her wand, and bade him
go grunt with his fellows; but as, thanks to the moly, he stood unchanged
before her, he drew his sword and made her swear to do him no hurt, and
to restore his companions to their proper form. They then made friends,
and he stayed with her a whole year. She told him that he was fated not
to return home till he had first visited the borders of the world of
Pluto, and consulted Tiresias, the blind prophet. She told him what to
do, and he went on beyond the Mediterranean into the outer ocean, to the
land of gloom, where Helios, the sun, does not shine. Here Ulysses dug a
pit, into which he poured water, wine, and the blood of a great black
ram, and there flocked up to him crowds of shades, eager to drink of it,
and to converse with him. All his own friends were there--Achilles,
Ajax, and, to his surprise, Agamemnon--all very melancholy, and mourning
for the realms of day. His mother, who had died of grief for his
absence, came and blessed him; and Tiresias warned him of Neptune's
anger, and of his other dangers, ere he should return to Ithaca. Terror
at the ghastly troop overcame him at last, and he fled and embarked
again, saw Circe once more, and found himself in the sea by which the
Argo had returned. The Sirens' Isle was near, and, to prevent the perils
of their song, Ulysses stopped the ears of all his crew with wax, and
though he left his own open, bade them lash him to the mast, and not heed
all his cries and struggles to be loosed. Thus he was the only person
who ever heard the Sirens' song and lived. Scylla and Charybdis came
next, and, being warned by Pallas, he thought it better to lose six than
all, and so went nearest to the monster, whose six mouths at once fell on
six of the crew, and tore them away.
[Picture: Ulysses tied to the mast]
The isle of Trinacria was pasture for the 360 cattle of Helios, and both
Tiresias and Circe had warned Ulysses that they must not be touched. He
would fain have passed it by, but his crew insisted on landing for the
night, making oath not to touch the herds. At dawn such a wind arose
that they could not put to sea for a month, and after eating up the
stores, and living on birds and fish, they took some of the oxen when
Ulysses was asleep, vowing to build a temple to Helios in recompense.
They were dismayed at seeing the hides of the slain beasts creep on the
ground, and at hearing their flesh low as it boiled in the cauldron.
Indeed, Helios had gone to Jupiter, and threatened to stop his chariot
unless he had his revenge; so as soon as the wretched crew embarked again
a storm arose, the ship was struck by lightning, and Ulysses alone was
saved from the wreck, floating on the mast. He came back past Scylla and
Charybdis, and, clinging to the fig tree which hung over the latter,
avoided being sucked into the whirlpool, and by-and-by came to land in
the island of the nymph Calypso, who kept him eight years, but he pined
for home all the time, and at last built a raft on which to return.
Neptune was not weary of persecuting him, and raised another storm, which
shattered the raft, and threw Ulysses on the island of Scheria. Here the
king's fair daughter Nausicaa, going down to the stream with her maidens
to wash their robes, met the shipwrecked stranger, and took him home.
Her father feasted him hospitably, and sent him home in a ship, which
landed him on the coast of Ithaca fast asleep, and left him there. He
had been absent twenty years; and Pallas further disguised his aspect, so
that he looked like a beggar, when, in order to see how matters stood, he
made his way first to the hut of his trusty old swineherd Eumaeus.
[Picture: Port of Ithaca]
Nothing could be worse than things were. More than a hundred powerful
young chiefs of the Ionian isles had taken possession of his palace, and
were daily revelling there, thrusting his son Telemachus aside, and
insisting that Penelope should choose one of them as her husband. She
could only put them off by declaring she could wed no one till she had
finished the winding-sheet she was making for old Laertes, her
father-in-law; while to prevent its coming to an end she undid by night
whatever she wove by day. Telemachus had gone to seek his father, but
came home baffled to Eumaeus' hut, and there was allowed to recognise
Ulysses. But it was as a beggar, broken-down and foot-sore, that Ulysses
sought his palace, and none knew him there but his poor old dog Argus,
who licked his feet, and died for joy. The suitors, in their pride, made
game of the poor stranger, but Penelope sent for him, in case he brought
news of her husband. Even to her he told a feigned story, but she bade
the old nurse Euryclea take care of him, and wash his feet. While doing
so, the old woman knew him by a scar left by the tusk of a wild boar long
ago, and Ulysses could hardly stifle her cry of joy; but she told him
all, and who could be trusted among the slaves. The plans were fixed.
Telemachus, with much difficulty, persuaded his mother to try to get rid
of the suitors by promising to wed him only who could bend Ulysses' bow.
One after another tried in vain, and then, amid their sneers, the beggar
took it up, and bent it easily, hit the mark, and then aimed it against
them! They were all at the banquet-table in the hall. Eumaeus and the
other faithful servants had closed all the doors, and removed all the
arms, and there was a terrible slaughter both of these oppressors and the
servants who had joined with them against their queen and her son.
After this, Ulysses made himself known to his wife, and visited his
father, who had long retired to his beautiful garden. The kindred of the
suitors would have made war on him, but Pallas pacified them, and the
_Odyssey_ leaves him to spend his old age in Ithaca, and die a peaceful
death. He was just what the Greeks thought a thoroughly brave and wise
man; for they had no notion that there was any sin in falsehood and
double-dealing.
[Picture: Greek Pottery]