standing in his breast. There were footprints marked in blood, leading
through the portico and into the hall. There Menelaus went, and found
Ulysses leaning, wounded, against one of the central pillars of the
great chamber, the firelight shining on his armour.
'Why hast thou slain Deiphobus and robbed me of my revenge?' said
Menelaus. 'You swore to give me a gift,' said Ulysses, 'and will you
keep your oath?' 'Ask what you will,' said Menelaus; 'it is yours and my
oath cannot be broken.' 'I ask the life of Helen of the fair hands,'
said Ulysses; 'this is my own life-price that I pay back to her, for she
saved my life when I took the Luck of Troy, and I swore that hers should
be saved.'
Then Helen stole, glimmering in white robes, from a recess in the dark
hall, and fell at the feet of Menelaus; her golden hair lay in the dust
of the hearth, and her hands moved to touch his knees. His drawn sword
fell from the hands of Menelaus, and pity and love came into his heart,
and he raised her from the dust and her white arms were round his neck,
and they both wept. That night Menelaus fought no more, but they tended
the wound of Ulysses, for the sword of Deiphobus had bitten through his
helmet.
When dawn came Troy lay in ashes, and the women were being driven with
spear shafts to the ships, and the men were left unburied, a prey to
dogs and all manner of birds. Thus the grey city fell, that had lorded
it for many centuries. All the gold and silver and rich embroideries,
and ivory and amber, the horses and chariots, were divided among the
army; all but a treasure of silver and gold, hidden in a chest within a
hollow of the wall, and this treasure was found, not very many years
ago, by men digging deep on the hill where Troy once stood. The women,
too, were given to the princes, and Neoptolemus took Andromache to his
home in Argos, to draw water from the well and to be the slave of a
master, and Agamemnon carried beautiful Cassandra, the daughter of
Priam, to his palace in Mycenae, where they were both slain in one
night. Only Helen was led with honour to the ship of Menelaus.
[Illustration: MENELAUS REFRAINS FROM KILLING HELEN AT THE INTERCESSION
OF ULYSSES.]
THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES
I
THE SLAYING OF AGAMEMNON AND THE SORROWS OF ULYSSES
The Greeks left Troy a mass of smouldering ashes; the marks of fire are
still to be seen in the ruins on the hill which is now called Hissarlik.
The Greeks had many troubles on their way home, and years passed before
some of the chiefs reached their own cities. As for Agamemnon, while he
was at Troy his wife, Clytaemnestra, the sister of Helen, had fallen in
love with a young man named Aegisthus, who wished to be king, so he
married Clytaemnestra, just as if Agamemnon had been dead. Meanwhile
Agamemnon was sailing home with his share of the wealth of Troy, and
many a storm drove him out of his course. At last he reached the
harbour, about seven miles from his city of Mycenae, and he kissed the
earth when he landed, thinking that all his troubles were over, and that
he would find his son and daughter, Orestes and Electra, grown up, and
his wife happy because of his return.
But Aegisthus had set, a year before, a watchman on a high tower, to
come with the news as soon as Agamemnon landed, and the watchman ran to
Mycenae with the good news. Aegisthus placed twenty armed men in a
hidden place in the great hall, and then he shouted for his chariots
and horses, and drove down to meet Agamemnon, and welcome him, and carry
him to his own palace. Then he gave a great feast, and when men had
drunk much wine, the armed men, who had been hiding behind curtains,
rushed out, with sword and spear, and fell on Agamemnon and his company.
Though taken by surprise they drew their swords, and fought so well for
their lives that none were left alive, not one, neither of the company
of Agamemnon nor of the company of Aegisthus; they were all slain in the
hall except Aegisthus, who had hidden himself when the fray began. The
bodies lay round the great mixing bowl of wine, and about the tables,
and the floor ran with blood. Before Agamemnon died he saw Clytaemnestra
herself stab Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, whom he had brought from
Troy.
In the town of Agamemnon, Mycenae, deep down in the earth, have been
found five graves, with bones of men and women, and these bones were all
covered with beautiful ornaments of gold, hundreds of them, and swords
and daggers inlaid with gold, and golden cups, and a sceptre of gold and
crystal, and two gold breastplates. There were also golden masks that
had been made to cover the faces of the dead kings, and who knows but
that one of these masks may show us the features of the famous
Agamemnon?
Ulysses, of course, knew nothing about these murders at the time, for he
was being borne by the winds into undiscovered seas. But later he heard
all the story from the ghost of a dead prophet, in the Land of the Dead,
and he determined to be very cautious if ever he reached his own island,
for who knew what the young men might do, that had grown up since he
sailed to Troy?
Of the other Greeks Nestor soon and safely arrived at his town of Pylos,
but Menelaus and Helen were borne by the winds to Egypt and other
strange countries, and the ship of the brother of Aias was wrecked on a
rock, and there he was drowned, and Calchas the prophet died on land, on
his way across Greece.
When Ulysses left Troy the wind carried him to the coast of Thrace,
where the people were allies of the Trojans. It was a king of the
Thracians that Diomede killed when he and Ulysses stole into the camp of
the Trojans in the night, and drove away the white horses of the king,
as swift as the winds. Ismarus was the name of the Thracian town where
Ulysses landed, and his men took it and plundered it, yet Ulysses
allowed no one to harm the priest of Apollo, Maron, but protected him
and his wife and child, in their house within the holy grove of the God.
Maron was grateful, and gave Ulysses twelve talents, or little wedges,
of gold, and a great bowl of silver, and twelve large clay jars, as big
as barrels, full of the best and strongest wine. It was so strong that
men put into the mixing bowl but one measure of wine to twenty measures
of water. These presents Ulysses stored up in his ship, and lucky for
him it was that he was kind to Maron.
Meanwhile his men, instead of leaving the town with their plunder, sat
eating and drinking till dawn. By that time the people of the town had
warned their neighbours in the country farms, who all came down in full
armour, and attacked the men of Ulysses. In this fight he lost
seventy-two men, six from each of his twelve ships, and it was only by
hard fighting that the others were able to get on board their ships and
sail away.
A great storm arose and beat upon the ships, and it seems that Ulysses
and his men were driven into Fairyland, where they remained for ten
years. We have heard that King Arthur and Thomas the Rhymer were carried
into Fairyland, but what adventures they met with there we do not know.
About Ulysses we have the stories which are now to be told. For ten days
his ships ran due south, and, on the tenth, they reached the land of the
Lotus Eaters, who eat food of flowers. They went on shore and drew
water, and three men were sent to try to find the people of that
country, who were a quiet, friendly people, and gave the fruit of the
lotus to the strange sailors. Now whoever tastes of that fruit has no
mind ever to go home, but to sit between the setting sun and the rising
moon, dreaming happy dreams, and forgetting the world. The three men ate
the lotus, and sat down to dream, but Ulysses went after them, and drove
them to the ships, and bound their hands and feet, and threw them on
board, and sailed away. Then he with his ships reached the coast of the
land of the Cyclopes, which means the round-eyed men, men with only one
eye apiece, set in the middle of their foreheads. They lived not in
houses, but in caves among the hills, and they had no king and no laws,
and did not plough or sow, but wheat and vines grew wild, and they kept
great flocks of sheep.
There was a beautiful wild desert island lying across the opening of a
bay; the isle was full of wild goats, and made a bar against the waves,
so that ships could lie behind it safely, run up on the beach, for there
was no tide in that sea. There Ulysses ran up his ships, and the men
passed the time in hunting wild goats, and feasting on fresh meat and
the wine of Maron, the priest of Apollo. Next day Ulysses left all the
ships and men there, except his own ship, and his own crew, and went to
see what kind of people lived on the mainland, for as yet none had been
seen. He found a large cave close to the sea, with laurels growing on
the rocky roof, and a wall of rough stones built round a court in front.
Ulysses left all his men but twelve with the ship; filled a goat skin
with the strong wine of Maron, put some corn flour in a sack, and went
up to the cave. Nobody was there, but there were all the things that are
usually in a dairy, baskets full of cheese, pails and bowls full of milk
and whey, and kids and lambs were playing in their folds.
All seemed very quiet and pleasant. The men wanted to take as much
cheese as they could carry back to the ship, but Ulysses wished to see
the owner of the cave. His men, making themselves at home, lit a fire,
and toasted and ate the cheeses, far within the cave. Then a shadow
thrown by the setting sun fell across the opening of the cave, and a
monstrous man entered, and threw down a dry trunk of a tree that he
carried for firewood. Next he drove in the ewes of his flock, leaving
the rams in the yard, and he picked up a huge flat stone, and set it so
as to make a shut door to the cave, for twenty-four yoke of horses could
not have dragged away that stone. Lastly the man milked his ewes, and
put the milk in pails to drink at supper. All this while Ulysses and his
men sat quiet and in great fear, for they were shut up in a cave with a
one-eyed giant, whose cheese they had been eating.
Then the giant, when he had lit the fire, happened to see the men, and
asked them who they were. Ulysses said that they were Greeks, who had
taken Troy, and were wandering lost on the seas, and he asked the man to
be kind to them in the name of their chief God, Zeus.
'We Cyclopes,' said the giant, 'do not care for Zeus or the Gods, for we
think that we are better men than they. Where is your ship?' Ulysses
answered that it had been wrecked on the coast, to which the man made no
answer, but snatched up two of the twelve, knocked out their brains on
the floor, tore the bodies limb from limb, roasted them at his fire, ate
them, and, after drinking many pailfuls of milk, lay down and fell
asleep. Now Ulysses had a mind to drive his sword-point into the giant's
liver, and he felt for the place with his hand. But he remembered that,
even if he killed the giant, he could not move the huge stone that was
the door of the cave, so he and his men would die of hunger, when they
had eaten all the cheeses.
In the morning the giant ate two more men for breakfast, drove out his
ewes, and set the great stone in the doorway again, as lightly as a man
would put a quiverlid on a quiver of arrows. Then away he went, driving
his flock to graze on the green hills.
Ulysses did not give way to despair. The giant had left his stick in the
cave: it was as large as the mast of a great ship. From this Ulysses cut
a portion six feet long, and his men cut and rubbed as if they were
making a spear shaft: Ulysses then sharpened it to a point, and hardened
the point in the fire. It was a thick rounded bar of wood, and the men
cast lots to choose four, who should twist the bar in the giant's eye
when he fell asleep at night. Back he came at sunset, and drove his
flocks into the cave, rams and all. Then he put up his stone door,
milked his ewes, and killed two men and cooked them.
Ulysses meanwhile had filled one of the wooden ivy bowls full of the
strong wine of Maron, without putting a drop of water into it. This
bowl he offered to the giant, who had never heard of wine. He drank one
bowl after another, and when he was merry he said that he would make
Ulysses a present. 'What is your name?' he asked. 'My name is _Nobody_,'
said Ulysses. 'Then I shall eat the others first and Nobody last,' said
the giant. 'That shall be your gift.' Then he fell asleep.
Ulysses took his bar of wood, and made the point red-hot in the fire.
Next his four men rammed it into the giant's one eye, and held it down,
while Ulysses twirled it round, and the eye hissed like red-hot iron
when men dip it into cold water, which is the strength of iron. The
Cyclops roared and leaped to his feet, and shouted for help to the other
giants who lived in the neighbouring caves. 'Who is troubling you,
Polyphemus,' they answered. 'Why do you wake us out of our sleep?' The
giant answered, 'Nobody is killing me by his cunning, not at all in fair
fight.' 'Then if nobody is harming you nobody can help you,' shouted a
giant. 'If you are ill pray to your father, Poseidon, who is the god of
the sea.' So the giants all went back to bed, and Ulysses laughed low to
see how his cunning had deceived them. Then the giant went and took down
his door and sat in the doorway, stretching out his arms, so as to catch
his prisoners as they went out.
But Ulysses had a plan. He fastened sets of three rams together with
twisted withies, and bound a man to each ram in the middle, so that the
blind giant's hands would only feel the two outside rams. The biggest
and strongest ram Ulysses seized, and held on by his hands and feet to
its fleece, under its belly, and then all the sheep, went out through
the doorway, and the giant felt them, but did not know that they were
carrying out the men. 'Dear ram!' he said to the biggest, which carried
Ulysses, 'you do not come out first, as usual, but last, as if you were
slow with sorrow for your master, whose eye Nobody has blinded!'
Then all the rams went out into the open country, and Ulysses unfastened
his men, and drove the sheep down to his ship and so on board. His crew
wept when they heard of the death of six of their friends, but Ulysses
made them row out to sea. When he was just so far away from the cave as
to be within hearing distance he shouted at the Cyclops and mocked him.
Then that giant broke off the rocky peak of a great hill and threw it in
the direction of the sound. The rock fell in front of the ship, and
raised a wave that drove it back to shore, but Ulysses punted it off
with a long pole, and his men rowed out again, far out. Ulysses again
shouted to the giant, 'If any one asks who blinded you, say that it was
Ulysses, Laertes' son, of Ithaca, the stormer of cities.'
Then the giant prayed to the Sea God, his father, that Ulysses might
never come home, or if he did, that he might come late and lonely, with
loss of all his men, and find sorrow in his house. Then the giant heaved
and threw another rock, but it fell at the stern of the ship, and the
wave drove the ship further out to sea, to the shore of the island.
There Ulysses and his men landed, and killed some of the giant's sheep,
and took supper, and drank wine.
But the Sea God heard the prayer of his son the blind giant.
Ulysses and his men sailed on, in what direction and for how long we do
not know, till they saw far off an island that shone in the sea. When
they came nearer they found that it had a steep cuff of bronze, with a
palace on the top. Here lived Aeolus, the King of the Winds, with his
six sons and six daughters. He received Ulysses kindly on his island,
and entertained him for a whole month. Then he gave him a leather bag,
in which he had bound the ways of all the noisy winds. This bag was
fastened with a silver cord, and Aeolus left no wind out except the West
Wind, which would blow Ulysses straight home to Ithaca. Where he was we
cannot guess, except that he was to the west of his own island.
So they sailed for nine days and nights towards the east, and Ulysses
always held the helm and steered, but on the tenth day he fell asleep.
Then his men said to each other, 'What treasure is it that he keeps in
the leather bag, a present from King Aeolus? No doubt the bag is full of
gold and silver, while we have only empty hands.' So they opened the bag
when they were so near Ithaca that they could see people lighting fires
on the shore. Then out rushed all the winds, and carried the ship into
unknown seas, and when Ulysses woke he was so miserable that he had a
mind to drown himself. But he was of an enduring heart, and he lay
still, and the ship came back to the isle of Aeolus, who cried, 'Away
with you! You are the most luckless of living men: you must be hated by
the Gods.'
Thus Aeolus drove them away, and they sailed for seven days and nights,
till they saw land, and came to a harbour with a narrow entrance, and
with tall steep rocks on either side. The other eleven ships sailed into
the haven, but Ulysses did not venture in; he fastened his ship to a
rock at the outer end of the harbour. The place must have been very far
north, for, as it was summer, the sun had hardly set till dawn began
again, as it does in Norway and Iceland, where there are many such
narrow harbours within walls of rock. These places are called _fiords_.
Ulysses sent three men to spy out the country, and at a well outside the
town they met a damsel drawing water; she was the child of the king of
the people, the Laestrygonians. The damsel led them to her father's
house; he was a giant and seized one of the men of Ulysses, meaning to
kill and eat him. The two other men fled to the ships, but the
Laestrygonians ran along the tops of the cliffs and threw down great
rocks, sinking the vessels and killing the sailors. When Ulysses saw
this he drew his sword and cut the cable that fastened his ship to the
rock outside the harbour, and his crew rowed for dear life and so
escaped, weeping for the death of their friends. Thus the prayer of the
blind Cyclops was being fulfilled, for now out of twelve ships Ulysses
had but one left.
II
THE ENCHANTRESS CIRCE, THE LAND OF THE DEAD, THE SIRENS
On they sailed till they came to an island, and there they landed. What
the place was they did not know, but it was called Aeaea, and here lived
Circe, the enchantress, sister of the wizard king Aetes, who was the
Lord of the Fleece of Gold, that Jason won from him by help of the
king's daughter, Medea. For two days Ulysses and his men lay on land
beside their ship, which they anchored in a bay of the island. On the
third morning Ulysses took his sword and spear, and climbed to the top
of a high hill, whence he saw the smoke rising out of the wood where
Circe had her palace. He thought of going to the house, but it seemed
better to return to his men and send some of them to spy out the place.
Since the adventure of the Cyclops Ulysses did not care to risk himself
among unknown people, and for all that he knew there might be man-eating
giants on the island. So he went back, and, as he came to the bank of
the river, he found a great red deer drinking under the shadow of the
green boughs. He speared the stag, and, tying his feet together, slung
the body from his neck, and so, leaning on his spear, he came to his
fellows. Glad they were to see fresh venison, which they cooked, and so
dined with plenty of wine.
Next morning Ulysses divided his men into two companies, Eurylochus led
one company and he himself the other. Then they put two marked pieces of
wood, one for Eurylochus, one for Ulysses, in a helmet, to decide who
should go to the house in the wood. They shook the helmet, and the lot
of Eurylochus leaped out, and, weeping for fear, he led his twenty-two
men away into the forest. Ulysses and the other twenty-two waited, and,
when Eurylochus came back alone, he was weeping, and unable to speak for
sorrow. At last he told his story: they had come to the beautiful house
of Circe, within the wood, and tame wolves and lions were walking about
in front of the house. They wagged their tails, and jumped up, like
friendly dogs, round the men of Ulysses, who stood in the gateway and
heard Circe singing in a sweet voice, as she went up and down before the
loom at which she was weaving. Then one of the men of Ulysses called to
her, and she came out, a beautiful lady in white robes covered with
jewels of gold. She opened the doors and bade them come in, but
Eurylochus hid himself and watched, and saw Circe and her maidens mix
honey and wine for the men, and bid them sit down on chairs at tables,
but, when they had drunk of her cup, she touched them with her wand.
Then they were all changed into swine, and Circe drove them out and shut
them up in the styes.
When Ulysses heard that he slung his sword-belt round his shoulders,
seized his bow, and bade Eurylochus come back with him to the house of
Circe; but Eurylochus was afraid. Alone went Ulysses through the woods,
and in a dell he met a most beautiful young man, who took his hand and
said, 'Unhappy one! how shalt thou free thy friends from so great an
enchantress?' Then the young man plucked a plant from the ground; the
flower was as white as milk, but the root was black: it is a plant that
men may not dig up, but to the Gods all things are easy, and the young
man was the cunning God Hermes, whom Autolycus, the grandfather of
Ulysses, used to worship. 'Take this herb of grace,' he said, 'and when
Circe has made thee drink of the cup of her enchantments the herb will
so work that they shall have no power over thee. Then draw thy sword,
and rush at her, and make her swear that she will not harm thee with her
magic.'
Then Hermes departed, and Ulysses went to the house of Circe, and she
asked him to enter, and seated him on a chair, and gave him the
enchanted cup to drink, and then smote him with her wand and bade him go
to the styes of the swine. But Ulysses drew his sword, and Circe, with a
great cry, fell at his feet, saying, 'Who art thou on whom the cup has
no power? Truly thou art Ulysses of Ithaca, for the God Hermes has told
me that he should come to my island on his way from Troy. Come now, fear
not; let us be friends!'
[Illustration: CIRCE SENDS THE SWINE (THE COMPANIONS OF ULYSSES) TO THE
STYES.]
Then the maidens of Circe came to them, fairy damsels of the wells and
woods and rivers. They threw covers of purple silk over the chairs,
and on the silver tables they placed golden baskets, and mixed wine in a
silver bowl, and heated water, and bathed Ulysses in a polished bath,
and clothed him in new raiment, and led him to the table and bade him
eat and drink. But he sat silent, neither eating nor drinking, in sorrow
for his company, till Circe called them out from the styes and
disenchanted them. Glad they were to see Ulysses, and they embraced him,
and wept for joy.
So they went back to their friends at the ship, and told them how Circe
would have them all to live with her; but Eurylochus tried to frighten
them, saying that she would change them into wolves and lions. Ulysses
drew his sword to cut off the head of Eurylochus for his cowardice, but
the others prayed that he might be left alone to guard the ship. So
Ulysses left him; but Eurylochus had not the courage to be alone, and
slunk behind them to the house of Circe. There she welcomed them all,
and gave them a feast, and there they dwelt for a whole year, and then
they wearied for their wives and children, and longed to return to
Ithaca. They did not guess by what a strange path they must sail.
When Ulysses was alone with Circe at night he told her that his men were
home-sick, and would fain go to Ithaca. Then Circe said, 'There is no
way but this: you must sail to the last shore of the stream of the river
Oceanus, that girdles round the world. There is the Land of the Dead,
and the House of Hades and Persephone, the King and Queen of the ghosts.
There you must call up the ghost of the blind prophet, Tiresias of
Thebes, for he alone has knowledge of your way, and the other spirits
sweep round shadow-like.'