To-morrow we shall sail for Troy.' He led them into the palace to dine,
and there they found his mother, beautiful Deidamia, in mourning
raiment, and she wept when she heard that they had come to take her son
away. But Neoptolemus comforted her, promising to return safely with the
spoils of Troy, 'or, even if I fall,' he said, 'it will be after doing
deeds worthy of my father's name.' So next day they sailed, leaving
Deidamia mournful, like a swallow whose nest a serpent has found, and
has killed her young ones; even so she wailed, and went up and down in
the house. But the ship ran swiftly on her way, cleaving the dark waves
till Ulysses showed Neoptolemus the far off snowy crest of Mount Ida;
and Tenedos, the island near Troy; and they passed the plain where the
tomb of Achilles stands, but Ulysses did not tell the son that it was
his father's tomb.
Now all this time the Greeks, shut up within their wall and fighting
from their towers, were looking back across the sea, eager to spy the
ship of Ulysses, like men wrecked on a desert island, who keep watch
every day for a sail afar off, hoping that the seamen will touch at
their isle and have pity upon them, and carry them home, so the Greeks
kept watch for the ship bearing Neoptolemus.
Diomede, too, had been watching the shore, and when they came in sight
of the ships of the Greeks, he saw that they were being besieged by the
Trojans, and that all the Greek army was penned up within the wall, and
was fighting from the towers. Then he cried aloud to Ulysses and
Neoptolemus, 'Make haste, friends, let us arm before we land, for some
great evil has fallen upon the Greeks. The Trojans are attacking our
wall, and soon they will burn our ships, and for us there will be no
return.'
Then all the men on the ship of Ulysses armed themselves, and
Neoptolemus, in the splendid armour of his father, was the first to leap
ashore. The Greeks could not come from the wall to welcome him, for they
were fighting hard and hand-to-hand with Eurypylus and his men. But they
glanced back over their shoulders and it seemed to them that they saw
Achilles himself, spear and sword in hand, rushing to help them. They
raised a great battle-cry, and, when Neoptolemus reached the
battlements, he and Ulysses, and Diomede leaped down to the plain, the
Greeks following them, and they all charged at once on the men of
Eurypylus, with levelled spears, and drove them from the wall.
Then the Trojans trembled, for they knew the shields of Diomede and
Ulysses, and they thought that the tall chief in the armour of Achilles
was Achilles himself, come back from the land of the dead to take
vengeance for Antilochus. The Trojans fled, and gathered round
Eurypylus, as in a thunderstorm little children, afraid of the lightning
and the noise, run and cluster round their father, and hide their faces
on his knees.
But Neoptolemus was spearing the Trojans, as a man who carries at night
a beacon of fire in his boat on the sea spears the fishes that flock
around, drawn by the blaze of the flame. Cruelly he avenged his father's
death on many a Trojan, and the men whom Achilles had led followed
Achilles' son, slaying to right and left, and smiting the Trojans, as
they ran, between the shoulders with the spear. Thus they fought and
followed while daylight lasted, but when night fell, they led
Neoptolemus to his father's hut, where the women washed him in the bath,
and then he was taken to feast with Agamemnon and Menelaus and the
princes. They all welcomed him, and gave him glorious gifts, swords with
silver hilts, and cups of gold and silver, and they were glad, for they
had driven the Trojans from their wall, and hoped that to-morrow they
would slay Eurypylus, and take Troy town.
But their hope was not to be fulfilled, for though next day Eurypylus
met Neoptolemus in the battle, and was slain by him, when the Greeks
chased the Trojans into their city so great a storm of lightning and
thunder and rain fell upon them that they retreated again to their camp.
They believed that Zeus, the chief of the Gods, was angry with them, and
the days went by, and Troy still stood unconquered.
XII
THE SLAYING OF PARIS
When the Greeks were disheartened, as they often were, they consulted
Calchas the prophet. He usually found that they must do something, or
send for somebody, and in doing so they diverted their minds from their
many misfortunes. Now, as the Trojans were fighting more bravely than
before, under Deiphobus, a brother of Hector, the Greeks went to Calchas
for advice, and he told them that they must send Ulysses and Diomede to
bring Philoctetes the bowman from the isle of Lemnos. This was an
unhappy deserted island, in which the married women, some years before,
had murdered all their husbands, out of jealousy, in a single night. The
Greeks had landed in Lemnos, on their way to Troy, and there Philoctetes
had shot an arrow at a great water dragon which lived in a well within a
cave in the lonely hills. But when he entered the cave the dragon bit
him, and, though he killed it at last, its poisonous teeth wounded his
foot. The wound never healed, but dripped with venom, and Philoctetes,
in terrible pain, kept all the camp awake at night by his cries.
The Greeks were sorry for him, but he was not a pleasant companion,
shrieking as he did, and exuding poison wherever he came. So they left
him on the lonely island, and did not know whether he was alive or
dead. Calchas ought to have told the Greeks not to desert Philoctetes at
the time, if he was so important that Troy, as the prophet now said,
could not be taken without him. But now, as he must give some advice,
Calchas said that Philoctetes must be brought back, so Ulysses and
Diomede went to bring him. They sailed to Lemnos, a melancholy place
they found it, with no smoke rising from the ruinous houses along the
shore. As they were landing they learned that Philoctetes was not dead,
for his dismal old cries of pain, _ototototoi, ai, ai; pheu, pheu;
ototototoi_, came echoing from a cave on the beach. To this cave the
princes went, and found a terrible-looking man, with long, dirty, dry
hair and beard; he was worn to a skeleton, with hollow eyes, and lay
moaning in a mass of the feathers of sea birds. His great bow and his
arrows lay ready to his hand: with these he used to shoot the sea birds,
which were all that he had to eat, and their feathers littered all the
floor of his cave, and they were none the better for the poison that
dripped from his wounded foot.
When this horrible creature saw Ulysses and Diomede coming near, he
seized his bow and fitted a poisonous arrow to the string, for he hated
the Greeks, because they had left him in the desert isle. But the
princes held up their hands in sign of peace, and cried out that they
had come to do him kindness, so he laid down his bow, and they came in
and sat on the rocks, and promised that his wound should be healed, for
the Greeks were very much ashamed of having deserted him. It was
difficult to resist Ulysses when he wished to persuade any one, and at
last Philoctetes consented to sail with them to Troy. The oarsmen
carried him down to the ship on a litter, and there his dreadful wound
was washed with warm water, and oil was poured into it, and it was
bound up with soft linen, so that his pain grew less fierce, and they
gave him a good supper and wine enough, which he had not tasted for many
years.
Next morning they sailed, and had a fair west wind, so that they soon
landed among the Greeks and carried Philoctetes on shore. Here
Podaleirius, the brother of Machaon, being a physician, did all that
could be done to heal the wound, and the pain left Philoctetes. He was
taken to the hut of Agamemnon, who welcomed him, and said that the
Greeks repented of their cruelty. They gave him seven female slaves to
take care of him, and twenty swift horses, and twelve great vessels of
bronze, and told him that he was always to live with the greatest chiefs
and feed at their table. So he was bathed, and his hair was cut and
combed and anointed with oil, and soon he was eager and ready to fight,
and to use his great bow and poisoned arrows on the Trojans. The use of
poisoned arrow-tips was thought unfair, but Philoctetes had no scruples.
Now in the next battle Paris was shooting down the Greeks with his
arrows, when Philoctetes saw him, and cried: 'Dog, you are proud of your
archery and of the arrow that slew the great Achilles. But, behold, I am
a better bowman than you, by far, and the bow in my hands was borne by
the strong man Heracles!' So he cried and drew the bowstring to his
breast and the poisoned arrowhead to the bow, and the bowstring rang,
and the arrow flew, and did but graze the hand of Paris. Then the bitter
pain of the poison came upon him, and the Trojans carried him into their
city, where the physicians tended him all night. But he never slept, and
lay tossing in agony till dawn, when he said: 'There is but one hope.
Take me to Oenone, the nymph of Mount Ida!'
Then his friends laid Paris on a litter, and bore him up the steep path
to Mount Ida. Often had he climbed it swiftly, when he was young, and
went to see the nymph who loved him; but for many a day he had not trod
the path where he was now carried in great pain and fear, for the poison
turned his blood to fire. Little hope he had, for he knew how cruelly he
had deserted Oenone, and he saw that all the birds which were
disturbed in the wood flew away to the left hand, an omen of evil.
At last the bearers reached the cave where the nymph Oenone lived, and
they smelled the sweet fragrance of the cedar fire that burned on the
floor of the cave, and they heard the nymph singing a melancholy song.
Then Paris called to her in the voice which she had once loved to hear,
and she grew very pale, and rose up, saying to herself, 'The day has
come for which I have prayed. He is sore hurt, and has come to bid me
heal his wound.' So she came and stood in the doorway of the dark cave,
white against the darkness, and the bearers laid Paris on the litter at
the feet of Oenone, and he stretched forth his hands to touch her
knees, as was the manner of suppliants. But she drew back and gathered
her robe about her, that he might not touch it with his hands.
Then he said: 'Lady, despise me not, and hate me not, for my pain is
more than I can bear. Truly it was by no will of mine that I left you
lonely here, for the Fates that no man may escape led me to Helen. Would
that I had died in your arms before I saw her face! But now I beseech
you in the name of the Gods, and for the memory of our love, that you
will have pity on me and heal my hurt, and not refuse your grace and let
me die here at your feet.'
[Illustration: PARIS COMES BACK TO OENONE.]
Then Oenone answered scornfully: 'Why have you come here to me? Surely
for years you have not come this way, where the path was once worn with
your feet. But long ago you left me lonely and lamenting, for the love
of Helen of the fair hands. Surely she is much more beautiful than the
love of your youth, and far more able to help you, for men say that she
can never know old age and death. Go home to Helen and let her take away
your pain.'
Thus Oenone spoke, and went within the cave, where she threw herself
down among the ashes of the hearth and sobbed for anger and sorrow. In a
little while she rose and went to the door of the cave, thinking that
Paris had not been borne away back to Troy, but she found him not; for
his bearers had carried him by another path, till he died beneath the
boughs of the oak trees. Then his bearers carried him swiftly down to
Troy, where his mother bewailed him, and Helen sang over him as she had
sung over Hector, remembering many things, and fearing to think of what
her own end might be. But the Trojans hastily built a great pile of dry
wood, and thereon laid the body of Paris and set fire to it, and the
flame went up through the darkness, for now night had fallen.
But Oenone was roaming in the dark woods, crying and calling after
Paris, like a lioness whose cubs the hunters have carried away. The moon
rose to give her light, and the flame of the funeral fire shone against
the sky, and then Oenone knew that Paris had died--beautiful
Paris--and that the Trojans were burning his body on the plain at the
foot of Mount Ida. Then she cried that now Paris was all her own, and
that Helen had no more hold on him: 'And though when he was living he
left me, in death we shall not be divided,' she said, and she sped down
the hill, and through the thickets where the wood nymphs were wailing
for Paris, and she reached the plain, and, covering her head with her
veil like a bride, she rushed through the throng of Trojans. She leaped
upon the burning pile of wood, she clasped the body of Paris in her
arms, and the flame of fire consumed the bridegroom and the bride, and
their ashes mingled. No man could divide them any more, and the ashes
were placed in a golden cup, within a chamber of stone, and the earth
was mounded above them. On that grave the wood nymphs planted two rose
trees, and their branches met and plaited together.
This was the end of Paris and Oenone.
XIII
HOW ULYSSES INVENTED THE DEVICE OF THE HORSE OF TREE
After Paris died, Helen was not given back to Menelaus. We are often
told that only fear of the anger of Paris had prevented the Trojans from
surrendering Helen and making peace. Now Paris could not terrify them,
yet for all that the men of the town would not part with Helen, whether
because she was so beautiful, or because they thought it dishonourable
to yield her to the Greeks, who might put her to a cruel death. So Helen
was taken by Deiphobus, the brother of Paris, to live in his own house,
and Deiphobus was at this time the best warrior and the chief captain of
the men of Troy.
Meanwhile, the Greeks made an assault against the Trojan walls and
fought long and hardily; but, being safe behind the battlements, and
shooting through loopholes, the Trojans drove them back with loss of
many of their men. It was in vain that Philoctetes shot his poisoned
arrows, they fell back from the stone walls, or stuck in the palisades
of wood above the walls, and the Greeks who tried to climb over were
speared, or crushed with heavy stones. When night fell, they retreated
to the ships and held a council, and, as usual, they asked the advice of
the prophet Calchas. It was the business of Calchas to go about looking
at birds, and taking omens from what he saw them doing, a way of
prophesying which the Romans also used, and some savages do the same to
this day. Calchas said that yesterday he had seen a hawk pursuing a
dove, which hid herself in a hole in a rocky cliff. For a long while the
hawk tried to find the hole, and follow the dove into it, but he could
not reach her. So he flew away for a short distance and hid himself;
then the dove fluttered out into the sunlight, and the hawk swooped on
her and killed her.
The Greeks, said Calchas, ought to learn a lesson from the hawk, and
take Troy by cunning, as by force they could do nothing. Then Ulysses
stood up and described a trick which it is not easy to understand. The
Greeks, he said, ought to make an enormous hollow horse of wood, and
place the bravest men in the horse. Then all the rest of the Greeks
should embark in their ships and sail to the Isle of Tenedos, and lie
hidden behind the island. The Trojans would then come out of the city,
like the dove out of her hole in the rock, and would wander about the
Greek camp, and wonder why the great horse of tree had been made, and
why it had been left behind. Lest they should set fire to the horse,
when they would soon have found out the warriors hidden in it, a cunning
Greek, whom the Trojans did not know by sight, should be left in the
camp or near it. He would tell the Trojans that the Greeks had given up
all hope and gone home, and he was to say that they feared the Goddess
Pallas was angry with them, because they had stolen her image that fell
from heaven, and was called the Luck of Troy. To soothe Pallas and
prevent her from sending great storms against the ships, the Greeks (so
the man was to say) had built this wooden horse as an offering to the
Goddess. The Trojans, believing this story, would drag the horse into
Troy, and, in the night, the princes would come out, set fire to the
city, and open the gates to the army, which would return from Tenedos as
soon as darkness came on.
The prophet was much pleased with the plan of Ulysses, and, as two birds
happened to fly away on the right hand, he declared that the stratagem
would certainly be lucky. Neoptolemus, on the other hand, voted for
taking Troy, without any trick, by sheer hard fighting. Ulysses replied
that if Achilles could not do that, it could not be done at all, and
that Epeius, a famous carpenter, had better set about making the horse
at once.
Next day half the army, with axes in their hands, were sent to cut down
trees on Mount Ida, and thousands of planks were cut from the trees by
Epeius and his workmen, and in three days he had finished the horse.
Ulysses then asked the best of the Greeks to come forward and go inside
the machine; while one, whom the Greeks did not know by sight, should
volunteer to stay behind in the camp and deceive the Trojans. Then a
young man called Sinon stood up and said that he would risk himself and
take the chance that the Trojans might disbelieve him, and burn him
alive. Certainly, none of the Greeks did anything more courageous, yet
Sinon had not been considered brave. Had he fought in the front ranks,
the Trojans would have known him; but there were many brave fighters who
would not have dared to do what Sinon undertook.
Then old Nestor was the first that volunteered to go into the horse; but
Neoptolemus said that, brave as he was, he was too old, and that he must
depart with the army to Tenedos. Neoptolemus himself would go into the
horse, for he would rather die than turn his back on Troy. So
Neoptolemus armed himself and climbed into the horse, as did Menelaus,
Ulysses, Diomede, Thrasymedes (Nestor's son), Idomeneus, Philoctetes,
Meriones, and all the best men except Agamemnon, while Epeius himself
entered last of all. Agamemnon was not allowed by the other Greeks to
share their adventure, as he was to command the army when they returned
from Tenedos. They meanwhile launched their ships and sailed away.
But first Menelaus had led Ulysses apart, and told him that if they took
Troy (and now they must either take it or die at the hands of the
Trojans), he would owe to Ulysses the glory. When they came back to
Greece, he wished to give Ulysses one of his own cities, that they might
always be near each other. Ulysses smiled and shook his head; he could
not leave Ithaca, his own rough island kingdom. 'But if we both live
through the night that is coming,' he said, 'I may ask you for one gift,
and giving it will make you none the poorer.' Then Menelaus swore by the
splendour of Zeus that Ulysses could ask him for no gift that he would
not gladly give; so they embraced, and both armed themselves and went up
into the horse. With them were all the chiefs except Nestor, whom they
would not allow to come, and Agamemnon, who, as chief general, had to
command the army. They swathed themselves and their arms in soft silks,
that they might not ring and clash, when the Trojans, if they were so
foolish, dragged the horse up into their town, and there they sat in the
dark waiting. Meanwhile, the army burned their huts and launched their
ships, and with oars and sails made their way to the back of the isle of
Tenedos.
XIV
THE END OF TROY AND THE SAVING OF HELEN
From the walls the Trojans saw the black smoke go up thick into the sky,
and the whole fleet of the Greeks sailing out to sea. Never were men so
glad, and they armed themselves for fear of an ambush, and went
cautiously, sending forth scouts in front of them, down to the seashore.
Here they found the huts burned down and the camp deserted, and some of
the scouts also caught Sinon, who had hid himself in a place where he
was likely to be found. They rushed on him with fierce cries, and bound
his hands with a rope, and kicked and dragged him along to the place
where Priam and the princes were wondering at the great horse of tree.
Sinon looked round upon them, while some were saying that he ought to be
tortured with fire to make him tell all the truth about the horse. The
chiefs in the horse must have trembled for fear lest torture should
wring the truth out of Sinon, for then the Trojans would simply burn the
machine and them within it.
But Sinon said: 'Miserable man that I am, whom the Greeks hate and the
Trojans are eager to slay!' When the Trojans heard that the Greeks hated
him, they were curious, and asked who he was, and how he came to be
there. 'I will tell you all, oh King!' he answered Priam. 'I was a
friend and squire of an unhappy chief, Palamedes, whom the wicked
Ulysses hated and slew secretly one day, when he found him alone,
fishing in the sea. I was angry, and in my folly I did not hide my
anger, and my words came to the ears of Ulysses. From that hour he
sought occasion to slay me. Then Calchas----' here he stopped, saying:
'But why tell a long tale? If you hate all Greeks alike, then slay me;
this is what Agamemnon and Ulysses desire; Menelaus would thank you for
my head.'
The Trojans were now more curious than before. They bade him go on, and
he said that the Greeks had consulted an Oracle, which advised them to
sacrifice one of their army to appease the anger of the Gods and gain a
fair wind homewards. 'But who was to be sacrificed? They asked Calchas,
who for fifteen days refused to speak. At last, being bribed by Ulysses,
he pointed to me, Sinon, and said that I must be the victim. I was bound
and kept in prison, while they built their great horse as a present for
Pallas Athene the Goddess. They made it so large that you Trojans might
never be able to drag it into your city; while, if you destroyed it, the
Goddess might turn her anger against you. And now they have gone home to
bring back the image that fell from heaven, which they had sent to
Greece, and to restore it to the Temple of Pallas Athene, when they have
taken your town, for the Goddess is angry with them for that theft of
Ulysses.'
The Trojans were foolish enough to believe the story of Sinon, and they
pitied him and unbound his hands. Then they tied ropes to the wooden
horse, and laid rollers in front of it, like men launching a ship, and
they all took turns to drag the horse up to the Scaean gate. Children
and women put their hands to the ropes and hauled, and with shouts and
dances, and hymns they toiled, till about nightfall the horse stood in
the courtyard of the inmost castle.
Then all the people of Troy began to dance, and drink, and sing. Such
sentinels as were set at the gates got as drunk as all the rest, who
danced about the city till after midnight, and then they went to their
homes and slept heavily.
Meanwhile the Greek ships were returning from behind Tenedos as fast as
the oarsmen could row them.
One Trojan did not drink or sleep; this was Deiphobus, at whose house
Helen was now living. He bade her come with them, for he knew that she
was able to speak in the very voice of all men and women whom she had
ever seen, and he armed a few of his friends and went with them to the
citadel. Then he stood beside the horse, holding Helen's hand, and
whispered to her that she must call each of the chiefs in the voice of
his wife. She was obliged to obey, and she called Menelaus in her own
voice, and Diomede in the voice of his wife, and Ulysses in the very
voice of Penelope. Then Menelaus and Diomede were eager to answer, but
Ulysses grasped their hands and whispered the word 'Echo!' Then they
remembered that this was a name of Helen, because she could speak in all
voices, and they were silent; but Anticlus was still eager to answer,
till Ulysses held his strong hand over his mouth. There was only
silence, and Deiphobus led Helen back to his house. When they had gone
away Epeius opened the side of the horse, and all the chiefs let
themselves down softly to the ground. Some rushed to the gate, to open
it, and they killed the sleeping sentinels and let in the Greeks. Others
sped with torches to burn the houses of the Trojan princes, and
terrible was the slaughter of men, unarmed and half awake, and loud were
the cries of the women. But Ulysses had slipped away at the first, none
knew where. Neoptolemus ran to the palace of Priam, who was sitting at
the altar in his courtyard, praying vainly to the Gods, for Neoptolemus
slew the old man cruelly, and his white hair was dabbled in his blood.
All through the city was fighting and slaying; but Menelaus went to the
house of Deiphobus, knowing that Helen was there.