shoulders; and even as a butterfly bursts from its dull cocoon, so the
human Psyche blossomed into immortality.
Love took her by the hand, and they were never parted any more.
STORIES OF THE TROJAN WAR.
I. THE APPLE OF DISCORD.
There was once a war so great that the sound of it has come ringing
down the centuries from singer to singer, and will never die.
The rivalries of men and gods brought about many calamities, but none
so heavy as this; and it would never have come to pass, they say, if it
had not been for jealousy among the immortals,--all because of a golden
apple! But Destiny has nurtured ominous plants from little seeds; and
this is how one evil grew great enough to overshadow heaven and earth.
The sea-nymph Thetis (whom Zeus himself had once desired for his wife)
was given in marriage to a mortal, Peleus, and there was a great
wedding-feast in heaven. Thither all the immortals were bidden, save
one, Eris, the goddess of Discord, ever an unwelcome guest. But she
came unbidden. While the wedding-guests sat at feast, she broke in upon
their mirth, flung among them a golden apple, and departed with looks
that boded ill. Some one picked up the strange missile and read its
inscription: _For the Fairest_; and at once discussion arose among the
goddesses. They were all eager to claim the prize, but only three
persisted.
Venus, the very goddess of beauty, said that it was hers by right; but
Juno could not endure to own herself less fair than another, and even
Athena coveted the palm of beauty as well as of wisdom, and would not
give it up! Discord had indeed come to the wedding-feast. Not one of
the gods dared to decide so dangerous a question,--not Zeus
himself,--and the three rivals were forced to choose a judge among
mortals.
Now there lived on Mount Ida, near the city of Troy, a certain young
shepherd by the name of Paris. He was as comely as Ganymede
himself,--that Trojan youth whom Zeus, in the shape of an eagle, seized
and bore away to Olympus, to be a cup-bearer to the gods. Paris, too,
was a Trojan of royal birth, but like Oedipus he had been left on the
mountain in his infancy, because the Oracle had foretold that he would
be the death of his kindred and the ruin of his country. Destiny saved
and nurtured him to fulfil that prophecy. He grew up as a shepherd and
tended his flocks on the mountain, but his beauty held the favor of all
the wood-folk there and won the heart of the nymph Oenone.
To him, at last, the three goddesses entrusted the judgment and the
golden apple. Juno first stood before him in all her glory as Queen of
gods and men, and attended by her favorite peacocks as gorgeous to see
as royal fan-bearers.
"Use but the judgment of a prince, Paris," she said, "and I will give
thee wealth and kingly power."
Such majesty and such promises would have moved the heart of any man;
but the eager Paris had at least to hear the claims of the other
rivals. Athena rose before him, a vision welcome as daylight, with her
sea-gray eyes and golden hair beneath a golden helmet.
"Be wise in honoring me, Paris," she said, "and I will give thee wisdom
that shall last forever, great glory among men, and renown in war."
Last of all, Venus shone upon him, beautiful as none can ever hope to
be. If she had come, unnamed, as any country maid, her loveliness would
have dazzled him like sea-foam in the sun; but she was girt with her
magical Cestus, a spell of beauty that no one can resist.
Without a bribe she might have conquered, and she smiled upon his dumb
amazement, saying, "Paris, thou shalt yet have for wife the fairest
woman in the world."
At these words, the happy shepherd fell on his knees and offered her
the golden apple. He took no heed of the slighted goddesses, who
vanished in a cloud that boded storm.
From that hour he sought only the counsel of Venus, and only cared to
find the highway to his new fortunes. From her he learned that he was
the son of King Priam of Troy, and with her assistance he deserted the
nymph Oenone, whom he had married, and went in search of his royal
kindred.
For it chanced at that time that Priam proclaimed a contest of strength
between his sons and certain other princes, and promised as prize the
most splendid bull that could be found among the herds of Mount Ida.
Thither came the herdsmen to choose, and when they led away the pride
of Paris's heart, he followed to Troy, thinking that he would try his
fortune and perhaps win back his own.
The games took place before Priam and Hecuba and all their children,
including those noble princes Hector and Helenus, and the young
Cassandra, their sister. This poor maiden had a sad story, in spite of
her royalty; for, because she had once disdained Apollo, she was fated
to foresee all things, and ever to have her prophecies disbelieved. On
this fateful day, she alone was oppressed with strange forebodings.
But if he who was to be the ruin of his country had returned, he had
come victoriously. Paris won the contest. At the very moment of his
honor, poor Cassandra saw him with her prophetic eyes; and seeing as
well all the guilt and misery that he was to bring upon them, she broke
into bitter lamentations, and would have warned her kindred against the
evil to come. But the Trojans gave little heed; they were wont to look
upon her visions as spells of madness. Paris had come back to them a
glorious youth and a victor; and when he made known the secret of his
birth, they cast the words of the Oracle to the winds, and received the
shepherd as a long-lost prince.
Thus far all went happily. But Venus, whose promise had not yet been
fulfilled, bade Paris procure a ship and go in search of his destined
bride. The prince said nothing of this quest, but urged his kindred to
let him go; and giving out a rumor that he was to find his father's
lost sister Hesione, he set sail for Greece, and finally landed at
Sparta.
There he was kindly received by Menelaus, the king, and his wife, Fair
Helen.
This queen had been reared as the daughter of Tyndarus and Queen Leda,
but some say that she was the child of an enchanted swan, and there was
indeed a strange spell about her. All the greatest heroes of Greece had
wooed her before she left her father's palace to be the wife of King
Menelaus; and Tyndarus, fearing for her peace, had bound her many
suitors by an oath. According to this pledge, they were to respect her
choice, and to go to the aid of her husband if ever she should be
stolen away from him. For in all Greece there was nothing so beautiful
as the beauty of Helen. She was the fairest woman in the world.
Now thus did Venus fulfil her promise and the shepherd win his reward
with dishonor. Paris dwelt at the court of Menelaus for a long time,
treated with a royal courtesy which he ill repaid. For at length while
the king was absent on a journey to Crete, his guest won the heart of
Fair Helen, and persuaded her to forsake her husband and sail away to
Troy.
King Menelaus returned to find the nest empty of the swan. Paris and
the fairest woman in the world were well across the sea.
II. THE ROUSING OF THE HEROES.
When this treachery came to light, all Greece took fire with
indignation. The heroes remembered their pledge, and wrath came upon
them at the wrong done to Menelaus. But they were less angered with
Fair Helen than with Paris, for they felt assured that the queen had
been lured from her country and out of her own senses by some spell of
enchantment. So they took counsel how they might bring back Fair Helen
to her home and husband.
Years had come and gone since that wedding-feast when Eris had flung
the apple of discord, like a firebrand, among the guests. But the spark
of dissension that had smouldered so long burst into flame now, and,
fanned by the enmities of men and the rivalries of the gods, it seemed
like to fire heaven and earth.
A few of the heroes answered the call to arms unwillingly. Time had
reconciled them to the loss of Fair Helen, and they were loath to leave
home and happiness for war, even in her cause.
One of these was Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who had married Penelope,
and was quite content with his kingdom and his little son Telemachus.
Indeed, he was so unwilling to leave them that he feigned madness in
order to escape service, appeared to forget his own kindred, and went
ploughing the seashore and sowing salt in the furrows. But a messenger,
Palamedes, who came with the summons to war, suspected that this sudden
madness might be a stratagem, for the king was far famed as a man of
many devices. He therefore stood by, one day (while Odysseus,
pretending to take no heed of him, went ploughing the sand), and he
laid the baby Telemachus directly in the way of the ploughshare. For
once the wise man's craft deserted him. Odysseus turned the plough
sharply, caught up the little prince, and there his fatherly wits were
manifest! After this he could no longer play madman. He had to take
leave of his beloved wife Penelope and set out to join the heroes,
little dreaming that he was not to return for twenty years. Once
embarked, however, he set himself to work in the common cause of the
heroes, and was soon as ingenious as Palamedes in rousing laggard
warriors.
There remained one who was destined to be the greatest warrior of all.
This was Achilles, the son of Thetis,--foretold in the day of
Prometheus as a man who should far outstrip his own father in glory and
greatness. Years had passed since the marriage of Thetis to King
Peleus, and their son Achilles was now grown to manhood, a wonder of
strength indeed, and, moreover, invulnerable. For his mother,
forewarned of his death in the Trojan War, had dipped him in the sacred
river Styx when he was a baby, so that he could take no hurt from any
weapon. From head to foot she had plunged him in, only forgetting the
little heel that she held him by, and this alone could be wounded by
any chance. But even with such precautions Thetis was not content.
Fearful at the rumors of war to be, she had her son brought up, in
woman's dress, among the daughters of King Lycomedes of Scyros, that he
might escape the notice of men and cheat his destiny.
To this very palace, however, came Odysseus in the guise of a merchant,
and he spread his wares before the royal household,--jewels and ivory,
fine fabrics, and curiously wrought weapons. The king's daughters chose
girdles and veils and such things as women delight in; but Achilles,
heedless of the like, sought out the weapons, and handled them with
such manly pleasure that his nature stood revealed. So he, too, yielded
to his destiny and set out to join the heroes.
Everywhere men were banded together, building the ships and gathering
supplies. The allied forces of Greece (the Achaeans, as they called
themselves) chose Agamemnon for their commander-in-chief. He was a
mighty man, king of Mycenae and Argos, and the brother of the wronged
Menelaus. Second to Achilles in strength was the giant Ajax; after him
Diomedes, then wise Odysseus, and Nestor, held in great reverence
because of his experienced age and fame. These were the chief heroes.
After two years of busy preparation, they reached the port of Aulis,
whence they were to sail for Troy.
But here delay held them. Agamemnon had chanced to kill a stag which
was sacred to Diana, and the army was visited by pestilence, while a
great calm kept the ships imprisoned. At length the Oracle made known
the reason of this misfortune and demanded for atonement the maiden
Iphigenia, Agamemnon's own daughter. In helpless grief the king
consented to offer her up as a victim, and the maiden was brought ready
for sacrifice. But at the last moment Diana caught her away in a cloud,
leaving a white hind in her place, and carried her to Tauris in
Scythia, there to serve as a priestess in the temple. In the mean time,
her kinsfolk, who were at a loss to understand how she had disappeared,
mourned her as dead. But Diana had accepted their child as an offering,
and healing came to the army, and the winds blew again. So the ships
set sail.
Meanwhile, in Troy across the sea, the aged Priam and Hecuba gave
shelter to their son Paris and his stolen bride. They were not without
misgivings as to these guests, but they made ready to defend their
kindred and the citadel.
There were many heroes among the Trojans and their allies, brave and
upright men, who little deserved that such reproach should be brought
upon them by the guilt of Prince Paris. There were Aeneas and
Deiphobus, Glaucus and Sarpedon, and Priam's most noble son Hector,
chief of all the forces, and the very bulwark of Troy. These and many
more were bitterly to regret the day that had brought Paris back to his
home. But he had taken refuge with his own people, and the Trojans had
to take up his cause against the hostile fleet that was coming across
the sea.
Even the gods took sides. Juno and Athena, who had never forgiven the
judgment of Paris, condemned all Troy with, him and favored the Greeks,
as did also Poseidon, god of the sea. But Venus, true to her favorite,
furthered the interests of the Trojans with all her power, and
persuaded the warlike Mars to do likewise. Zeus and Apollo strove to be
impartial, but they were yet to aid now one side, now another,
according to the fortunes of the heroes whom they loved.
Over the sea came the great embassy of ships, sped hither safely by the
god Poseidon; and the heroes made their camp on the plain before Troy.
First of all Odysseus and King Menelaus himself went into the city and
demanded that Fair Helen should be given back to her rightful husband.
This the Trojans refused; and so began the siege of Troy.
III. THE WOODEN HORSE.
Nine years the Greeks laid siege to Troy, and Troy held out against
every device. On both sides the lives of many heroes were spent, and
they were forced to acknowledge each other enemies of great valor.
Sometimes the chief warriors fought in single combat, while the armies
looked on, and the old men of Troy, with the women, came out to watch
far off from the city walls. King Priam and Queen Hecuba would come,
and Cassandra, sad with foreknowledge of their doom, and Andromache,
the lovely young wife of Hector, with her little son whom the people
called _The City King_. Sometimes Fair Helen came to look across the
plain to the fellow-countrymen whom she had forsaken; and although she
was the cause of all this war, the Trojans half forgave her when she
passed by, because her beauty was like a spell, and warmed hard hearts
as the sunshine mellows apples. So for nine years the Greeks plundered
the neighboring towns, but the city Troy stood fast, and the Grecian
ships waited with folded wings.
The half of that story cannot be told here, but in the tenth year of
the war many things came to pass, and the end drew near. Of this tenth
year alone, there are a score of tales. For the Greeks fell to
quarrelling among themselves over the spoils of war, and the great
Achilles left the camp in anger and refused to fight. Nothing would
induce him to return, till his friend Patroclus was slain by Prince
Hector. At that news, indeed, Achilles rose in great might and returned
to the Greeks; and he went forth clad in armor that had been wrought
for him by Vulcan, at the prayer of Thetis. By the river Scamander,
near to Troy, he met and slew Hector, and afterwards dragged the hero's
body after his chariot across the plain. How the aged Priam went alone
by night to the tent of Achilles to ransom his son's body, and how
Achilles relented, and moreover granted a truce for the funeral honors
of his enemy,--all these things have been so nobly sung that they can
never be fitly spoken.
Hector, the bulwark of Troy, had fallen, and the ruin of the city was
at hand. Achilles himself did not long survive his triumph, and,
ruthless as he was, he ill-deserved the manner of his death. He was
treacherously slain by that Paris who would never have dared to meet
him in the open field. Paris, though he had brought all this disaster
upon Troy, had left the danger to his countrymen. But he lay in wait
for Achilles in a temple sacred to Apollo, and from his hiding-place he
sped a poisoned arrow at the hero. It pierced his ankle where the water
of the Styx had not charmed him against wounds, and of that venom the
great Achilles died. Paris himself died soon after by another poisoned
arrow, but that was no long grief to anybody!
Still Troy held out, and the Greeks, who could not take it by force,
pondered how they might take it by craft. At length, with the aid of
Odysseus, they devised a plan.
A portion of the Grecian host broke up camp and set sail as if they
were homeward bound; but, once out of sight, they anchored their ships
behind a neighboring island. The rest of the army then fell to work
upon a great image of a horse. They built it of wood, fitted and
carved, and with a door so cunningly concealed that none might notice
it. When it was finished, the horse looked like a prodigious idol; but
it was hollow, skilfully pierced here and there, and so spacious that a
band of men could lie hidden within and take no harm. Into this
hiding-place went Odysseus, Menelaus, and the other chiefs, fully
armed, and when the door was shut upon them, the rest of the Grecian
army broke camp and went away.
Meanwhile, in Troy, the people had seen the departure of the ships, and
the news had spread like wildfire. The great enemy had lost
heart,--after ten years of war! Part of the army had gone,--the rest
were going. Already the last of the ships had set sail, and the camp
was deserted. The tents that had whitened the plain were gone like a
frost before the sun. The war was over!
The whole city went wild with joy. Like one who has been a prisoner for
many years, it flung off all restraint, and the people rose as a single
man to test the truth of new liberty. The gates were thrown wide, and
the Trojans--men, women, and children--thronged over the plain and
into the empty camp of the enemy. There stood the Wooden Horse.
No one knew what it could be. Fearful at first, they gathered around
it, as children gather around a live horse; they marvelled at its
wondrous height and girth, and were for moving it into the city as a
trophy of war.
At this, one man interposed,--Laocoön, a priest of Poseidon. "Take
heed, citizens," said he. "Beware of all that comes from the Greeks.
Have you fought them for ten years without learning their devices? This
is some piece of treachery."
But there was another outcry in the crowd, and at that moment certain
of the Trojans dragged forward a wretched man who wore the garments of
a Greek. He seemed the sole remnant of the Grecian army, and as such
they consented to spare his life, if he would tell them the truth.
Sinon, for this was the spy's name, said that he had been left behind
by the malice of Odysseus, and he told them that the Greeks had built
the Wooden Horse as an offering to Athena, and that they had made it so
huge in order to keep it from being moved out of the camp, since it was
destined to bring triumph to its possessors.
At this, the joy of the Trojans was redoubled, and they set their wits
to find out how they might soonest drag the great horse across the
plain and into the city to ensure victory. While they stood talking,
two immense serpents rose out of the sea and made towards the camp.
Some of the people took flight, others were transfixed with terror; but
all, near and far, watched this new omen. Rearing their crests, the
sea-serpents crossed the shore, swift, shining, terrible as a risen
water-flood that descends upon a helpless little town. Straight through
the crowd they swept, and seized the priest Laocoön where he stood,
with his two sons, and wrapped them all round and round in fearful
coils. There was no chance of escape. Father and sons perished
together; and when the monsters had devoured the three men, into the
sea they slipped again, leaving no trace of the horror.
The terrified Trojans saw an omen in this. To their minds, punishment
had come upon Laocoön for his words against the Wooden Horse. Surely,
it was sacred to the gods; he had spoken blasphemy, and had perished
before their eyes. They flung his warning to the winds. They wreathed
the horse with garlands, amid great acclaim; and then, all lending a
hand, they dragged it, little by little, out of the camp and into the
city of Troy. With the close of that victorious day, they gave up every
memory of danger and made merry after ten years of privation.
That very night Sinon the spy opened the hidden door of the Wooden
Horse, and in the darkness, Odysseus, Menelaus, and the other chiefs
who had lain hidden there crept out and gave the signal to the Grecian
army. For, under cover of night, those ships that had been moored
behind the island had sailed back again, and the Greeks were come upon
Troy.
Not a Trojan was on guard. The whole city was at feast when the enemy
rose in its midst, and the warning of Laocoön was fulfilled.
Priam and his warriors fell by the sword, and their kingdom was
plundered of all its fair possessions, women and children and treasure.
Last of all, the city itself was burned to its very foundations.
Homeward sailed the Greeks, taking as royal captives poor Cassandra and
Andromache and many another Trojan. And home at last went Fair Helen,
the cause of all this sorrow, eager to be forgiven by her husband, King
Menelaus. For she had awakened from the enchantment of Venus, and even
before the death of Paris she had secretly longed for her home and
kindred. Home to Sparta she came with the king after a long and stormy
voyage, and there she lived and died the fairest of women.
But the kingdom of Troy was fallen. Nothing remained of all its glory
but the glory of its dead heroes and fair women, and the ruins of its
citadel by the river Scamander. There even now, beneath the foundations
of later homes that were built and burned, built and burned, in the
wars of a thousand years after, the ruins of ancient Troy lie hidden,
like mouldered leaves deep under the new grass. And there, to this very
day, men who love the story are delving after the dead city as you
might search for a buried treasure.
THE HOUSE OF AGAMEMNON.
The Greeks had won back Fair Helen, and had burned the city of Troy
behind them, but theirs was no triumphant voyage home. Many were driven
far and wide before they saw their land again, and one who escaped such
hardships came home to find a bitter welcome. This was the chief of all
the hosts, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and Argos. He it was who had
offered his own daughter Iphigenia to appease the wrath of Diana before
the ships could sail for Troy. An ominous leave-taking was his, and
calamity was there to greet him home again.
He had entrusted the cares of the state to his cousin Aegisthus,
commending also to his protection Queen Clytemnestra with her two
remaining children, Electra and Orestes.
Now Clytemnestra was a sister of Helen of Troy, and a beautiful woman
to see; but her heart was as evil as her face was fair. No sooner had
her husband gone to the wars than she set up Aegisthus in his place, as
if there were no other king of Argos. For years this faithless pair
lived arrogantly in the face of the people, and controlled the affairs
of the kingdom. But as time went by and the child Orestes grew to be a
youth, Aegisthus feared lest the Argives should stand by their own
prince, and drive him away as an usurper. He therefore planned the
death of Orestes, and even won the consent of the queen, who was no
gentle mother! But the princess Electra, suspecting their plot,
secretly hurried her brother away to the court of King Strophius in
Phocis, and so saved his life. She was not, however, to save a second
victim.
The ten years of war went by, and the chief, Agamemnon, came home in
triumph, heralded by all the Argives, who were as exultant over the
return of their lawful king as over the fall of Troy. Into the city
came the remnant of his own men, bearing the spoils of war, and, in the
midst of a jubilant multitude, King Agamemnon sharing his chariot with
the captive princess, Cassandra.
Queen Clytemnestra went out to greet him with every show of joy and
triumph. She had a cloth of purple spread before the palace, that her
husband might come with state into his home once more; and before all
beholders she protested that the ten years of his absence had bereaved
her of all happiness.