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."
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.