Glaucus, the fisherman, rubbed his eyes to find out if he was not dreaming. He had just drawn in his net to land and had emptied it, ready to sort the fish that lay, a large haul, all over the grass. But a strange thing was happening to them. Of a sudden, the fishes began to revive and move their fins exactly as if they were in the water. Then, as Glaucus looked at them in astonishment, the fishes one and all moved off to the water, plunged in, and swam away.
The spot where Glaucus fished was a beautiful island in the river, but a solitary place, for it was inhabited only by him. It was not used to pasture cattle even, or visited by anyone. No one was there to work sorcery with his haul. Glaucus did not know what to make of the happening.
"Can it be that the river-god is working this marvel?" he wondered to himself. Then it occurred to him that there might be some secret power in the thick green leaves that covered the island among the grasses.
"What may not be the power of this herb?" he asked himself, pulling up a handful of the leaves and tasting one.
Scarcely had the juices of the plant touched Glaucus' tongue than a strange feeling of restlessness filled him, and he was overcome by an unconquerable thirst. He could not keep away from the water but ran to the edge of the river where he had fished for so many years, plunged in and swam away toward the sea.
It was a wonderful, free kind of experience for Glaucus who had never known any life but that of hauling in his nets and then casting them again. As he followed the swiftly flowing currents, the waters of a hundred rivers flowed over him, washing away all that was mortal of the fisherman, and he came at last to the sea. A marvellous sight met him there. The surf that beat against a rocky shore became suddenly smooth, as a chariot drawn by horses shod with brass and having long floating manes of gold rolled toward Glaucus over the surface of the sea. A giant who held a three-pointed spear for crushing rocks and blew loud trumpet blasts from a great curved shell, drove the chariot toward Glaucus and then stopped, inviting him to ride down to the depths of the ocean.
It was Neptune, the god of the sea, and Glaucus discovered that he felt quite at home in the chariot. He was no longer a dweller of the earth, but had become a citizen of that boundless country that lay beneath the waves. The fisherman was completely changed in form. His hair was sea green and trailed behind him through the water. His shoulders broadened, and his limbs took the shape and use of a fish's tail. He had never known such freedom and joy as now when he spent whole days doing nothing but following the ebb and flow of the tides and learning the use of his newly found fins as a bird tries its wings on first leaving the nest.
But Glaucus still retained powers of thinking and of action which are denied the inhabitants of the sea. One day he saw the beautiful maiden, Scylla, one of the water nymphs, come out from a sheltered nook on the shore and seat herself on a rock, dipping her hands in the water and bringing up sea-shells for twining in the water weeds to make a necklace. Glaucus had never seen so fair a creature as Scylla and he moved toward her through the waves, rising at last and stopping at the place where she sat as he murmured his affection for her above the singing of the sea.
But Scylla was very much terrified at the sight of this strange personage, half youth and half fish. She turned to run as soon as she saw him and did not stop until she had gained a cliff that overlooked the sea. Here she waited for a moment and turned around to look in wonder as Glaucus raised himself upon a rock and the sun touched his green hair and scaly covering until he shone in its light. He called to Scylla.
"Do not flee from me, maiden! I am no monster or even a sea-animal, but have been transformed from a poor fisherman to a god of the sea." Then Glaucus told Scylla the whole story of his amazing adventures and tried to describe to her the kingdom of Neptune with its playing dolphins, the castles of rose colored and white coral, and the never ending music of the waters.
"Come with me, and descend to Neptune's realm," he begged, but Scylla would not remain to even listen. She fled and left nothing to console Glaucus but her scattered sea shells lying in bright heaps on the rocks.
Glaucus did not pursue Scylla but he felt that he could not give her up. He remembered the strange charm of the sea that there had been in the herbs on his native island, and he wondered if he might, by chance, find some such power for giving the nymph, Scylla, the desire for the sea that had drawn him to Neptune's kingdom. But Glaucus could not explore his little fishing island, for it was a long way off and he had forgotten its direction even. So he made what proved to be an almost disastrous decision. He set out for the island of Circe, the enchantress, to ask her help in winning Scylla.
Circe was, in the beginning, a daughter of the sun but she had put her light of learning to wicked uses and had made herself into a powerful sorceress. She lived in a palace embowered with trees and those were the only signs of vegetation on her island. But if a shipwrecked crew came up the shores, hoping to find a welcome and timber for building a new bark, they were immediately surrounded by lions, tigers and wolves who had formerly been men but had been changed by Circe's magic to the form of beasts.
The brave hero of Greece, Ulysses, came in his travels to Circe's isle once, and his crew heard the sounds of lovely music coming from the castle in the trees and the tones of a maiden's sweet singing. They had endured the raging of the sea and all its perils for many days and they hastened to the palace where Circe, who had the appearance of a princess, greeted them and ordered a feast for them. As they ate, she touched them one by one with her wand and the men were all changed to swine. They kept the thoughts of men, but they had the head, body, voice and bristles of these despised creatures, and Circe shut them up in sties and fed them with acorns. Ulysses persuaded the sorceress to release his men, but he, the hero, was not able to resist her charms and remained in her palace a year, his work and country forgotten.
Surely Glaucus was setting out on a mad errand when he decided to go to Circe. But he persisted and landed on her island. He told her how Scylla had looked upon him with terror, and he begged to have a charm by means of which he might make Scylla love the sea as the herb had made him a subject of Neptune.
"Sooner shall trees grow at the bottom of the ocean and sea weed on the mountain peaks than I will cease to love Scylla and her alone," Glaucus told Circe.
The enchantress looked on Glaucus and she began to admire him as much as Scylla had been frightened by him. He was really quite a distinguished looking personage, for he had the power to take on human form when he wished, and his trailing robes of green seaweed looked almost kingly.
"I will brew a potion as you wish with my own hands and carry it to Scylla," Circe told Glaucus, but she had decided to work harm on the innocent nymph in order to keep Glaucus forever on her island.
Circe's potion was mixed of the most poisonous plants which grew on her island. She blended them with deadly skill and then took her way to the coast of Sicily where Scylla lived. There was a little bay on the coast where Scylla loved to come in the middle of the day when the sun was high to bathe in the cool waters. Circe poured her poison into the clear blue bay and muttered incantations of mighty power over it. Then she returned to her island.
Scylla came that day as usual when the sun was high and plunged into the waters up to her waist. What was her horror to discover that she was sinking to her shoulders and then to her head. The waters covered her before anyone heard her frightened calls for help and where she had stepped so happily into the waters which she loved, there were only a few ripples on the surface of the bay and soon even they were gone. Circe's charm had taken effect and the lovable Scylla had been carried down to Neptune's kingdom, but not as Glaucus had desired, for she was without motion or sight or speech.
Glaucus, meanwhile, forgot Scylla in the enchantment of Circe's island and remained in the waters near there, taking human form when he wished and enjoying the luxuries of her palace. Perhaps he might never have remembered that he was a subject of Neptune if his attention had not been attracted one day to the wild beasts which prowled about the island. They were speaking to each other with the voices of men and bewailing the fate by which they had been led there from their ships and brought into Circe's power.
Glaucus, hearing them, understood what might be in store for him. He began to hate the powers of the wicked enchantress and the memory came to him of Scylla as she had appeared to him on the rock, her hands full of bright shells. He plunged into the water and was soon a long distance from the fatal island.
Glaucus began then to search for Scylla through the many leagues of the ocean but he could not find her. That was because Scylla, through the design of Circe, had gone down as mortals do and been drowned. The sea was full of such, and as Glaucus wandered about among the gardens of sea anemones and along the shell strewn roads of Neptune's kingdom, he felt a new desire in his heart. He knew how those mortals felt whose loved ones had been taken away from them by the sea, and he began using his power to restore the drowned to life again. For a thousand years Glaucus went up and down through the sea restoring mortals who had loved to each other again. And in all his following of the tides he was searching for Scylla.
After a thousand years had passed and it seemed to the gods that Glaucus had expiated the wrong he had done in appealing to Circe, he found Scylla in the green depths. And the nymphs say that the two lived always happily together in a coral palace with a sea garden of anemones and green water plants all about it.
Jason was having a boat built in which he planned to set sail on a kind of pirate expedition. He was going as far as the eastern shore of the Black Sea to try and capture and bring home the Golden Fleece.
This golden fleece was a prize indeed, for it was a good deal like the magic carpet in a fairy tale. In very ancient times Mercury, the god with the winged shoes, had given the queen of Thessaly a ram whose fleece was of pure gold. There came a time when the queen found it necessary to send her son away from the kingdom for safety as quickly and secretly as possible. So she sent him on the back of this ram, who leaped into the air, crossed the strait that divides Europe and Asia, and landed the boy without accident in Colchis in the Black Sea.
Ever since then its fleece of gold had hung in a sacred grove of Colchis guarded by a dragon who never slept. It was said that the fleece could carry one through the air as far as he wished to go, and its gold was the finest and purest in the world. A great many adventurers had equipped expeditions for getting the golden fleece, but so far none of them had been successful. Jason had a different idea about it, however, than any youth of Greece who had set out for the fleece before. He felt that it was his right, in a way, because he was going to be a king if he could bring it home.
Jason's uncle, Pelias, was the king of a part of Thessaly. Because the golden fleece had belonged in Thessaly in the first place, Pelias had an idea that any king in Thessaly who could get it might keep it, and enjoy its magic powers. But Pelias did not want the trouble of going for it. He was willing to give up his throne to the lad, Jason, if he could bring the golden fleece home. And Jason was quite willing to be the head of such a pirate expedition with the promise of this advantage at the end.
Jason did not even build his ship, but paid a vast sum of money to have it done for him. It was a stupendous task in those days to make a boat that would weather a sea voyage. About the only boats that the Greeks had were small ones shaped like canoes and hollowed out from the trunks of trees. Jason had decided to take fifty of his friends with him, and that meant the building of a larger boat than had ever been launched before from Thessaly. A gigantic tree had to be cut down and gouged and shaped by hand. New looms had to be set working to weave wide enough cloth for the sails. For months the sound of axes and chisels echoed along the beach, until at last this great boat, the Argo, was finished and launched, and Jason brought his friends, whom he called the Argonauts, to board her.
Jason chose his crew well. They were all fine, well born youths of Greece, and everyone of them made a name for himself later on. Hercules was of the Argonauts, and there has never been any such strength as his. There was Theseus, who could move rocks and capture robbers single-handed. There was also Orpheus, the son of Apollo, who could tame, wild beasts with the beautiful music of his lyre. Nestor, who grew up to be a famous warrior of Greece, went with them. They seated themselves with their leader, Jason, in the ship, a whistling breeze filled her sails, and they shot swiftly before the wind toward Colchis.
It was a long voyage, but they reached this foreign shore with no serious mishap, leaped onto the bank, and went at once to the king of Colchis, demanding from him the golden fleece. The Argonauts thought in the pride of their youth that no one could resist them or refuse them anything, but the king looked serious over the matter.
"You must earn the fleece, Jason," he said. "Nothing so valuable can be had for only the asking. Are you brave enough to yoke my bulls to a plough and plant a field full of dragon's teeth?"
Jason gasped. He knew these bulls of Colchis by reputation, although it had never occurred to him that he might be called upon to harness and drive them. They had brazen teeth and breathed fire from their nostrils that consumed whatever it touched. The sound of their breathing was like the roar of a furnace, and the smoke of their breath was suffocating.
In spite of his fear, though, Jason had another thought. The king had said that the fleece must be earned, that nothing so golden could be had for the asking. That was really true, Jason thought, and he began to feel a great courage. He was growing into the hero that he always had been at heart, being a youth of Greece.
"Send out your bulls," he said to the king of Colchis.
Something happened then that is very apt to happen when anyone makes up his mind to dare a seemingly impossible deed. Help came to Jason. Medea, the daughter of the king of Colchis, gave Jason a charm that protected him from fire. The bulls rushed into the field toward Jason, sending forth their burning breath like dragons, but Jason advanced boldly to meet them. His friends, the Argonauts, watched him in terror, but he went straight up to the bulls and his voice seemed to soothe their rage. He stroked their necks fearlessly, slipped on the yoke and harnessed them to the plough.
Dragons' teeth were a strange kind of seed to plant. As Jason ploughed straight furrows and dropped in the teeth, the people of the kingdom and the Argonauts gathered at the edge of the field to watch, and it came to his mind that perhaps the king was making a joke of him. There would have been some sense in having that pair of fiery bulls use their great strength to plough in corn and wheat, Jason thought, as he plodded up and down the field. But suddenly a cry from the crowd startled Jason and he looked back. A strange sight met his eyes.
The clods of earth that covered the teeth of the dragon began to stir, and the bright points of spears thrust their way up through to the surface. Helmets with nodding plumes appeared next, and after them came the shoulders and arms and limbs of men. In a moment the field was alive with armed warriors advancing upon Jason.
He was only one hero against all of this foe, but the sight put the same courage that had come to him into the heart of each one of the Argonauts and they rushed to help their leader. Jason led valiantly against the warriors, but there would have been no hope for him and the Greeks if his courage had not been rewarded a second time. Medea sent a charmed sword to the hero. He threw it into the ranks of the warriors and they suddenly ceased attacking the Greeks, fell to fighting among themselves, and were destroyed.
There was still another danger for Jason to face, the dragon who guarded the fleece with eyes that never closed. His new courage was equal to it. He entered the grove that sheltered the golden fleece, took the glittering blanket from the oak tree where it hung, escaped the dragon and embarked with the Argonauts for the return trip to Greece.
The people proclaimed Jason king when he and the rest of these young heroes of Greece landed in Thessaly. They chose him for his valor, not for his spoils, and it seemed to add to his new glory that he had started out an adventurer and returned a victor in a great fight.
The strangest part of the story is that no one knows what became of the golden fleece after Jason and the Argonauts brought it home with them. No one seems to have ever heard of it again. Perhaps even such a treasure as that was grew dull and lost its value in comparison with the golden prize of courage in achievement that the Argonauts found and kept all the rest of their lives.
If a boy of to-day could have lived in the days of the ancient Greeks, learning by means of self restraint and all the arts of soldiery to be a hero in warfare, it is possible that his captain would have told him a strange story as part of his training. The boy would have wondered why he had to hear such a grim tale, and what it all meant, for it was one of the myths which rivalled almost all the rest in its hidden meaning. It was the story of Medea, the dark sorceress, and how she worked her art on Aeson, the father of Jason.
Jason brought Medea home to Thessaly with him at the same time that he brought the fleece of gold whose capture had been his great adventure. She was the princess who had helped him with her sorcery to brave a fire breathing dragon, but she was ill suited to the court of Greece, never having taken any pleasure in the arts that most maidens delighted in, needlework, weaving and the other crafts needful in making a home. Instead Medea was wont to flee from the feasts and the games of the court and sit by herself on a cliff beside the sea, her long black hair blowing about her pale face and her lips muttering incantations to the wild accompaniment that the waves sang.
She had a fondness for the hero, Jason, though, in her own strange way, and pride in the mighty deeds he had dared. She heard him speak one day of his greatest wish.
"There is only one thing lacking in my triumph and the homage that the nation is paying me," Jason told Medea, "I would that my father were able to take part in the rejoicing but he is growing daily more feeble and helpless. I would willingly give enough years from my life to make him young and strong again."
Medea replied nothing in answer to this wish, but to herself she said,
"My power has been mighty in the aid of this hero and I will try it still farther. If my sorcery avails me anything, the life of Jason's father shall be lengthened without the cost of the sacrifice of any of the youth's own years."
So, when the moon was next in the full, Medea made her way silently and alone out of the palace when it was the dead of night and all creatures slept. She moved swiftly along the fields and groves murmuring strange words as she went, and addressing an incantation to the moon and to the stars. There was a goddess, named Hecate, who was supposed to represent the darkness and terror of the night as Diana represented its beauties. At dusk she began her wandering over the earth, seen only by dogs who howled at her approach. Medea followed Hecate, imploring her help, and she also called to Tellus, that goddess of the earth by whose power those herbs that could be brewed for enchantment were grown. And Medea invoked the aid also of the gods of the woods and caverns, of valleys and mountains, of rivers and lakes, and of the winds and vapors.
As Medea took her enchanted way through the night, the stars shone with an unusual brilliancy and presently a chariot, drawn by flying serpents descended to meet her through the air. Medea ascended in it and made her way to distant regions where the most powerful plants grew and brought them back before the day's first light for her uses. Nine nights Medea rode away in the chariot of the flying serpents, and in all that time she did not go within the doors of her palace or shelter herself under any roof, or speak to a human being.
Hebe was the goddess of youth and one of the cup bearers of the gods. When Medea had gathered the herbs which she needed for her potion, she built a fire in front of a nearby temple to Hebe and over the fire she hung a very wide and deep caldron. In this caldron she mixed the herbs with seeds and flowers that gave out a bitter juice, stones from the far distant east, and sands from the encircling shore of the ocean. There were other ingredients, also, in this brew; a screech owl's head and wings, hoar frost gathered by moonlight, fragments of the shells of tortoises who of all creatures are the most long lived, and the head and beak of a crow, the birds that outlives nine generations of men.
Medea boiled all these ingredients together to get them ready for the deed she proposed to do, stirring them with a dried branch from an olive tree. And, strange to say, the branch did not burn, but when the sorceress lifted it out it instantly turned as green as it had been in the spring, and in a short time it was covered with leaves and a luxuriant growth of olives. The potion in the caldron bubbled and simmered and sometimes rose so high as it boiled that it spilled over the edge and down on the ground. But wherever the drops touched the earth, new green grass shot up and there were flowers as bright and fragrant as the most prized blossoms of the May.
The sorceress wished to further test her brew, though, and she put an old sheep, one of the most ancient of the flock, in the seething potion. Instead of being cooked, the creature was quite unhurt and when Medea removed the cover, a little new lamb, soft and white, jumped out and ran frisking away to the meadow.
So Medea knew that her spell was ready and she commanded that Jason bring his aged father, Aeson, to her.
"I would like to know him," she explained, "and hear from his lips of the deeds you did in your youth."
Then Jason, all unsuspecting, sent for his father and conducted him to the spot near the temple of Hebe where Medea waited. And as soon as she saw Aeson, Medea threw him into a deep sleep by means of a charm and placed him on a bed of herbs where he lay with no apparent breath or life in him.
"Wicked sorceress, you have killed my father whom I so greatly loved," Jason cried.
Then, even as he spoke, Medea advanced toward the old man and wounded him deeply, so that all his blood poured out. After this she dipped into her caldron and poured the charmed brew into Aeson's mouth and bathed his wound with it.
As soon as he had imbibed it and felt its wonderful power, Aeson's hair and beard lost their whiteness and became as black as they had been in his youth. His paleness and emaciation disappeared, for his veins were full of new blood and his limbs were vigorous and robust. Aeson was amazed at himself as he ran toward Jason, for he was as he remembered himself to have been two score years before. The sorceress Medea had made his years drop away from him.
It would be very pleasant to end this story by saying that Medea always used her art for a good purpose as she did in this case, but that was not what happened. She did all manner of things that were wrong, such as riding her serpent-drawn chariot in the pursuit of revenge, sending a poisoned dress to a bride, and setting fire to a palace. What a strange, unusual kind of a story is this one of Medea!
What did it mean to the young Greeks who heard it?
It meant for them just what it means for us to-day. Medea and her caldron signified those times of cruel war and change that come to every nation. They may result in evil. But sometimes, when the world has become old and feeble, it may be made young and strong again through bitter pains, as Aeson was made young through Medea's caldron of such bitter brewing.
No one, as far as could be found out, had invited Eris to the party. Indeed everyone would have desired to keep her away, for it was a very great wedding feast attended by both the immortals and men, and Eris was the goddess of discontent.
There was a beautiful nymph of the sea named Thetis whom even Jupiter had looked upon with favor, and she was given in marriage to a mortal, Peleus. The gathering was being held on Mount Olympus and just when the merrymaking was at its height and Ganymede, that comely Trojan youth whom Jupiter in the guise of an eagle had borne away to be the cupbearer of the gods, was offering his nectar to all, a golden apple fell in their midst.
It was very large and shone and glittered as if it had been made from skin to core of precious gold. Even the gods scrambled to grasp it, and for a moment they did not see who had thrown it. As Jupiter held the apple, though, and read an inscription on its cheek, "For the Fairest," the guests had a flying vision of Discord, riding away in her dark chariot from the feast she had chosen to make bitter. For that apple was to be the beginning of a war so long and so terrible that there had never been any other to equal it through all the centuries.
At once the goddesses began to quarrel among themselves as to which was fair enough to merit the gilded fruit. Juno, being the queen of the gods, demanded the golden apple as only her just due, and Minerva wanted it in addition to her treasure of wisdom. They appealed to the mighty Jupiter, but neither he or any of the other gods dared to decide this question and so a judge had to be found among the mortals upon earth.
Paris and the Golden Apple.
Near the city of Troy, on a high mountain named Ida, there lived a young shepherd, Paris. No one but the gods knew the secret of Paris' royal birth. He had been left on Mount Ida when he was only a child because it had been told to his parents in prophecy that he would be the destruction of the kingdom and the ruin of his family. So Paris, all unknowing that he was a prince, had grown up among his flocks, as good to look upon as a young god and greatly beloved by all the hamadryads and nymphs of the woods and streams. It was at last decided that the shepherd Paris should be the judge as to which of the three goddesses, Juno, Minerva or Venus merited the apple of gold, and they descended in clouds of glory to Mount Ida and stood before him for his judgment.
They seemed to have forgotten their heavenly birth in their jealousy, for each offered the young shepherd a bribe if he would declare her the most fair. Juno offered Paris great wealth and one of the kingdoms of the earth. Minerva said that she would grant Paris as her boon a share of her wisdom and invincible power in war. But Venus, her unmatched beauty dazzling the youth as the bright rays of the noontide sun, and wearing her enchanted girdle, a spell that no one had ever been able to resist, laid her hand that was as light as sea-foam on Paris' fast beating heart.
"I will give you the loveliest woman in the world to be your wife," she said.
At Venus' words, Paris pronounced his judgment, which has never been forgotten through all the ages, ringing from singer to singer and from nation to nation in the great strife which it started. He put the apple of gold into the outstretched hands of Venus, not noticing that the cloud which carried the angry Juno and Minerva back to the sky was as black as when Jupiter was preparing to throw his thunderbolts.
Paris saw little after that except his own desires and ambitions, and Venus began at once feeding his vanity. She told him of his royal birth. He was the son of King Priam of Troy. So Paris set out for his father's kingdom to find his fortune, and his flocks never saw him again.
Just at that time King Priam declared a contest of wrestling among the princes of his court and those of the neighboring kingdoms. On his way to Troy, Paris heard of this, and he also saw the prize being led toward Troy by one of the king's herdsmen. It was the finest bull to be found on all the grazing plains of Mount Ida, and Paris decided to enter the contest and see if he could not win it for himself. So Paris presented himself to the court at Troy and wrestled in the sight of the king and his brothers and his sister, Cassandra, who did not know him. And he threw all his opponents, and was proclaimed the victor.
He was greeted with joy, as King Priam recognized him, and was crowned with laurel. Only Cassandra, that sorrowful princess to whom the gods had given the fatal power of seeing coming events, wept as Paris was welcomed at the throne of his father. For Cassandra saw Paris as the destruction of Troy, and her gift of prophecy was her sadness, because she was doomed never to be believed.
Then Venus told Paris to demand a ship of King Priam and set sail for Sparta, in Greece, that her promise to him might be fulfilled. Paris set out, a wondrous appearing youth and a glorious victor, and he was well received by King Menelaus and his fair wife, Helen.
If Venus' beauty cast a spell among the gods, so did the loveliness of Helen blind the eyes of men to everything save her lovely face. There was a story told that Helen was the child of an enchanted swan and that this was the reason for the enchantment which she wrought in the hearts of the heroes. All the great princes of Greece had sued for Helen's hand, and when she left her home to be the wife of Menelaus, her father made the heroes bind themselves by oath to go to the aid of Menelaus if it should chance that she was ever stolen away from him. Helen's father was fearful for her peace, because of the perilous gift of charm which was hers. In all of Greece, and indeed in the entire world there was nothing so beautiful as Helen's fair face.
For a long time Paris remained at the court of Sparta treated with a courtesy and respect which he did not deserve, because during all that time Venus was enchanting Helen until she was able to think of no one save the comely youth, Paris. After awhile King Menelaus was obliged to take a long journey and in his absence Paris persuaded Helen to forsake Sparta and set sail with him for Troy.
When these two were discovered in their treachery, the heroes were fired with anger and remembered their pledge to go to King Menelaus' aid if any deep wrong was done to him. Their wrath was not so much directed against Helen, whom they believed to be under the dread spell which Venus had cast upon her, as against Paris who had so violated their hospitality. It was decided that preparations for war must be immediately begun and men were pressed into service everywhere gathering supplies and building ships. Agamemnon, who was a brother of King Menelaus and mighty in battle, was appointed to be the leader of the Greek army, and then began the work of finding the best men to help him in carrying on the great enterprise that was to be directed against Troy.
The heroes were as true and of as high courage then as they are to-day, but the adventure of the war was to be directed against a foreign shore and certain of the Greeks found that it tore their hearts to leave their own country, and in the cause of a wilful youth and a fair woman. One among these was Ulysses, the king of Ithaca.
Ulysses was content and happy in his peaceful kingdom and the love of his industrious queen, Penelope, and his baby son, Telemachus. We must not commit Ulysses to the sin of cowardice because he did not want to enlist for the Trojan war. There have been heroes like him in all time, destined to be the greatest warriors of all, when they overcame their fears and took swords in their hands in the cause of right. But at first Ulysses pretended that he had lost his reason. He borrowed a plough from a farmer and drove it up and down the seashore, sowing salt in the furrows that he made. Ulysses was pursuing this mad occupation when a messenger of Agamemnon came to demand his services in the army of the Greeks. The messenger could not believe his eyes, and to test Ulysses he grasped the king's little son and laid him on the sand in the direct path of the plough-share. Ulysses dropped the plough handles and lifted the baby Telemachus to his heart, so his game of madness was over. He bade his kingdom and Penelope farewell, and set out to join the heroes. He was to be one of the bravest of them all, and doomed not to see his own land again for twenty years.
There was also a hero, a wonder of strength, who was detained from the war because of the very great love that his mother had for him. This was Achilles, who was destined to be the noblest hero of Greece in the contest with the Trojans. When he was a baby, Achilles' mother had taken him to the river Styx and, holding him by one little heel, had plunged him in its sacred waters. This made him safe from any harm that might come to him in battle, although she forgot the heel which she had covered with her hand. Then the mother of Achilles sent him to friends in a far kingdom in the dress of a girl and he was brought up there among women so that he could not be called to arms.
At this time, when the Greeks were polishing their shields and fastening on their swords for the advance upon Troy, news of Achilles' cowardly hiding came to Ulysses. He who had overcome his own fear could not bear to have any other hero fall a victim of cowardice. So Ulysses disguised himself as a vendor of fine wares, scents and embroidered silks, carved ivory ornaments and jewels, and he went to the kingdom where Achilles, now a youth, sojourned in the disguise of a maiden. The women of the court seized with the greatest delight the fine fabrics and necklaces from Ulysses' store, but Achilles delved in the packet of goods until his eyes lighted upon some strange and beautifully wrought weapons which Ulysses had brought also. These alone pleased him. So the destiny of Achilles was disclosed and he put on armor and went with Ulysses to join the army.
In the meantime King Priam had welcomed the erring Paris and Helen, so great was the charm that her fair face wrought everywhere, and had given them the shelter of his court. It was a sore trial to the heroes of Troy that this should have happened, for they were as bold and upright men in their way as the Greeks were, and had not deserved this shame that had come upon them. But they, too, were banded together to protect their king and so they made all the needful preparations to meet the forces of the enemy when the Greeks should cross the sea.
Since this great war had begun in the jealousy of the gods, the gods themselves took part in the struggle. Neptune carried the ships of the Greeks safely over to the plains of Troy where Ulysses accompanied King Menelaus into the city to demand the return of Helen. When King Priam refused, Venus endeavored to keep Helen in her power and she enlisted Mars on the side of the Trojans. Juno favored the Greeks, as did also Minerva, the goddess of just warfare, and Apollo and Jupiter watched over the fate of those of the heroes whom they loved, no matter on which side they fought.
So the Trojan war began, but how it ended is a story of a strange horse made all of wood.
Ten years the siege of Troy lasted, that mighty struggle that had been kindled by the flame of jealousy of gods and men, and ten years the Trojans resisted the Greeks. On both sides the brave fell in battle and the plain outside of the city of Troy became a waste place, full of dread and death.
The hero Achilles, while offering up a sacrifice in the temple of Apollo, was treacherously slain by a poisoned arrow from Paris' bow that pierced his heel. The Greeks made use of the arrows of Hercules in their struggle, but even these proved useless against the strong fortifications of the Trojans. There was a statue of Minerva in the city of Troy called the Palladium. It was said to have fallen from heaven and that as long as it remained in the city Troy could not be taken. So the hero, Ulysses, with a few men, entered Troy in disguise and captured this statute at the risk of their lives, carrying it back to the camp of the Greeks, but Troy still held out and the tenth year of the war drew near a close full of wretchedness and famine.
It seemed as if the spell of Helen's beauty, as she leaned from one of the towers of King Priam's castle to cheer the Trojans or descended to pass among their ranks, was their safety. No one, looking on her fair face, remembered hardship or felt fear, although the fated Cassandra wept alone, and was deemed mad because she saw, in her prophetic vision, the fall of the strong battlements of Troy.
At last the Greeks despaired of ever subduing Troy by force and they asked Ulysses if any plan occurred to him by which they could subdue the Trojans through strategy. Ulysses unfolded a plan to the generals, and what it was and how it succeeded is one of the strangest stories of all warfare. Acting upon his advice, the Greeks made preparation to abandon the war. Their ships that had waited with folded sails in the harbor, now drew anchor and sailed swiftly away, taking refuge behind a neighboring island. And the Trojans, seeing the encampment before their walls broken for the first time in so many years, and the plain that the enemy's tents had whitened clear, broke into joy and merrymaking such as they had not known for so long. They forgot caution and opened the gates through which the men and women and children flocked out to the plain to make merry and exult over the defeat of the Greeks.
There they saw an astounding thing. In the centre of the plain stood a great wooden image of a horse, like an idol, more prodigious than any which the Trojans had ever seen. It was so closely fitted and carved from its mammoth hoofs to its head that no one could detect the joining. A hundred men could have ridden the horse with room for more, but they would never have been able to climb up to its back. At first the people of Troy, gathering around the wooden horse, were afraid of it. Then they made up their minds about it.
"This is a trophy of war!" they exclaimed, and they were for moving it into the city to exhibit in the public square as a sign of their victory over the Greeks.
There was among them, though, a man named Laocoon, a priest of Neptune, who objected to this plan.
"Beware, men of Troy!" Laocoon warned them. "You have fought for ten years with the Greeks and know that they do not give up a fight as easily as this. How do you know but that this is a piece of trickery on the part of their dauntless leader, Ulysses? I fear the Greeks, even when they bring us gifts."
As Laocoon uttered these prophetic words, he threw his lance at the side of the wooden horse and it rebounded with a hollow sound. At that, perhaps the Trojans might have taken his advice and destroyed the horse there where it stood, but suddenly a man, who appeared to be a prisoner and a Greek, was dragged out from the crowd.
He said that he was a Greek, Sinon by name, who had brought upon himself the malice of Ulysses and so had been left behind by the Greeks. He feigned terror, and the Trojans, falling into the trap, reassured Sinon, the spy, and told him that his life would be spared if he would disclose to the chiefs of Troy the secret of the wooden horse.
"It is an offering to Minerva," Sinon explained. "The Greeks made it so huge in order that you would never be able to carry it inside the gates of Troy."
Sinon's words turned the tides of the people's feelings. They were just planning how they might best start the work of moving the giant horse when something happened which completely reassured them. Two immense serpents appeared advancing directly toward them over the sea. Side by side they moved toward the shore, their great heads erect, their burning eyes full of blood and fire and licking their hissing mouths with their quivering tongues. And these serpents came directly to the spot where Laocoon stood with his two sons.
They attacked the boys first, winding round their bodies and breathing their poisonous breath into their faces. Laocoon, trying to rescue his sons, was drawn into the serpent's coils and all three were strangled. Then the creatures moved on, threatening to glide into the city of Troy.
"It is an omen of the displeasure of the gods with us for having even doubted the sacred character of the wooden horse," the Trojans said. "Laocoon has been punished for his lack of reverence in despising it."
So they gave themselves up again to wild joy and reckless merrymaking. They wreathed the horse with garlands of flowers and dragged it, all lending a hand, across the plain and close to the gates of the city so that they could widen them in the morning and push it through; and they went home with great shouts like those of a victoriously returning army.
That night a door, cunningly set and concealed in the side of the wooden horse, was opened by Sinon, the spy. Out of the door came the hero Ulysses, King Menelaus, and a band of picked Greek generals, for the Greeks had made the wooden horse hollow so that a hundred men might be hidden inside for a long time with their arms and provisions and come to no harm. These men opened the gates of Troy, a city sunk in darkness and sleep, and through the gates went the Grecian army which had returned in the ships and crossed the plain silently in the cover of the night.
So the prophecy of Laocoon and of the sad Cassandra was proved true, for there was not a Trojan on guard. King Priam and his noblest warriors were killed, Cassandra was taken captive, and the city was set on fire with torches and burned to the ground.
Then the Greeks set sail for their own country which they had not seen for so many years, and they took the beautiful Helen with them, awakened at last from the spell which Venus had cast upon her, and sorrowing for all the suffering she had caused.
But the glory of the old Trojan days was gone forever. Men search to-day the ruins of ancient Troy that lie hidden like bright jewels in the depths of the ancient mountains. There is little left but the memory of the apple of Discord that caused the destruction of the city and the heroes and the citadel of Troy's old power.
The hero Ulysses was about to sail home to Greece, after the great city of Troy had been taken, having wandered farthest and suffered most of all in the long Trojan war.
He was well-nigh the last to sail, for he had tarried many days to do homage to Agamemnon, lord of all the Greeks. Twelve ships he had with him, twelve that he had brought to Troy, and in each there were some fifty men, being scarce half of those that had sailed with them in the old days, so many valiant heroes slept the last sleep on the plain and on the seashore, slain in battle or by the shafts of Apollo.
So first Ulysses sailed to the Thracian coast where he and his men filled their ships with foodstuffs and oxen and jars of fragrant juices of the grape. Scarcely had he set out again when the wind began to blow fiercely, and seeing a smooth sandy beach, they drove the ships to shore, dragged them out of reach of the waves, and waited there until the storm should abate. And the third morning, being fair, they sailed again, and journeyed prosperously. On the tenth day they came to the land where the lotus grows, a wonderful fruit which whoever eats cares not to see country, home, or children again.
Now the Lotus eaters, for so they call the people of the land, were a kindly folk and gave of the fruit to some of the sailors, not meaning any harm, but thinking it to be the best that they had to give. These men, when they had eaten, said that they would not sail any more over the sea. Which when the wise Ulysses heard, he bade their comrades bind them and carry them, sadly complaining, to the ships.
Then, the wind having abated, they took to their oars and rowed for many days until they came to the country where the Cyclops lived. A mile or so from the shore there was an island, very fair and fertile, but no man dwelled there or tilled the soil, and in the island there was a harbor where a ship might be safe from all winds and at the head of the harbor was a stream falling from the rock with whispering alders all about it. Into this the ships passed safely and were hauled upon the beach and the crews slept by them, waiting for morning.
But in the morning Ulysses, who was always fond of adventure and would know of every land to which he came what manner of men it sheltered, took one of his twelve ships and bade the sailors row to land. There was a great hill sloping to the shore, and there rose up, here and there, a smoke from the caves where the Cyclopes lived apart, holding no converse with men. They were a rude and savage folk, each ruling his own household without taking thought of his neighbor.
Very close to the shore was one of these caves, very huge and deep, with a hedge of laurel hiding the opening and a wall of rough stone shaded by tall oaks and pines. Ulysses selected the twelve bravest men from his crew and bade the rest remain behind to guard the ship while he went to see what manner of dwelling it was and who abode there. He had his sword by his side and on his shoulder a mighty skin of the juice of grapes, sweet smelling and strong, with which he might win the heart of some fierce savage, should he chance to meet such.
So they entered the cave, and judged that it was the dwelling of some rich and skilful shepherd, for within there were pens for young sheep and goats, divided according to their age, and there were baskets full of cheeses, and full milk pails ranged along the wall. But the Cyclops, himself, was away in the pastures. Then the companions of Ulysses besought him to depart, but he would not, for he wished to see what manner of host this strange shepherd might be. And truly he saw to his cost!
It was evening when the Cyclops came home, a mighty giant, twenty feet or more tall. He carried a vast bundle of pine logs on his back for his fire, and threw them down outside the cave with a great crash. He drove the flocks inside and closed the entrance with a huge rock which twenty wagons and more could not have borne. Then he milked the ewes and goats, and half of the milk he curdled for cheese and half he set ready for himself when he should be hungry. Last, he kindled a fire with the pine logs and the flame lighted up all the cave, showing him Ulysses and his comrades.
"Who are you?" cried the Cyclops. "Are you traders, or pirates?"
"We are no pirates, mighty sir, but Greeks, sailing back from Troy. And we beg hospitality of you in the name of Jupiter who rewards or punishes the host according as he is hospitable or not."
"Then," said the giant, "it is idle to talk to me of Jupiter and the gods. We Cyclops take no account of gods, holding ourselves to be much better and stronger than they." Without more ado, he caught up two of the men, and devoured them with huge draughts of milk between, leaving not even a morsel or one of their bones. And when the giant had ended his meal, he lay down among his sheep and fell asleep.
Ulysses would have liked to slay the Cyclops where he lay, but he remembered that, were he to do this, his comrades would perish miserably. How could he move away the great rock that lay against the door of the cave? So they waited until morning. And the monster rose, seized two more men and devoured them for his meal. Then he went to the pastures, but put a great rock on the mouth of the cave just as a man puts down the lid on his quiver of arrows.
All that day the wise Ulysses was thinking what he might best do to save himself and his companions, and the end of his thinking was this. There was a mighty pole in the cave, green wood of an olive tree as big as a ship's mast, which the giant proposed to use as a walking staff. Ulysses broke off a fathom's length of this and his companions pointed it and hardened it in the fire. Then they hid it away.
At evening the giant came back, drove his flocks into the cave, fastened the door and made his cruel feast as before. Then Ulysses came forward with the skin of crushed grapes in his hand and said:
"Drink, Cyclops, now that you have feasted. Drink and see what a strange draught we had in our ship."
So the Cyclops drank, and was greatly pleased.
"Give me more," he demanded. "In good truth this is a strange draught. We, too, have vines but they do not yield any juices like this, which indeed must be such as the gods drink."
Then Ulysses gave him the skin again and he drank from it. Three times he gave it to him and three times the giant drank, not knowing how it would work on his brain. At last he fell into a deep slumber. Ulysses told his men to be of good courage for the time of their deliverance was come.
They thrust the olive stick into the fire until, green as it was, it was ready to burst into flame and they thrust it into the monster's eye, for he had but one eye set in the middle of his great forehead, and made him sightless.
Then the Cyclops leaped up and bore away the stake and cried aloud so that all the Cyclopes who lived on the mountain side heard him and came down, crowding about the entrance to his cave. The Cyclops rolled away the great stone from the door of the cave and came out in the midst of the other giants stretching out his hands to try and gather his sheep together. And Ulysses wondered how he and his men would be able to escape.
At last he lighted on a good device. The Cyclops had driven the rams with the other ship into the cave and they were huge and strong. Ulysses fastened his comrades underneath the rams, tying them with osier twigs of which the giant made his bed. There was one mighty ram, far larger than all the others, and to this Ulysses clung, grasping the fleece tight with both hands. So they waited in the recesses of the cave for morning. And when the morning came, the rams rushed out to pasture as the giant sat in the door, feeling the back of each as it went by, but never touching the man who was bound underneath each. With them Ulysses escaped.
When they were out of reach of the giant, Ulysses loosed his hold of the rams and then unbound his comrades. They hastened to their ship, climbed in, and smote the sea with their oars, laying to right lustily that they might the sooner escape from this accursed land. But when they had rowed a hundred yards or so, the Cyclops heard them. He broke off the top of a great hill, a mighty rock, and hurled it where he heard the sound of the oars. It fell right in front of the ship's bow and washed the ship back to the shore again. But Ulysses seized a long pole with both hands and pushed the ship from the land and bade his comrades ply their oars softly, nodding with his head, for he was too wise to speak, lest the Cyclops should know where they were. Then they rowed with all their might and main.
They had gone twice as far as before, when Ulysses' pride became so great that he could no longer contain himself. He stood up in the boat and called out.
"Hear, Cyclops. If any man asks who destroyed your power for evil, say it was the warrior Ulysses, dwelling in Ithaca."
The giant heard and he lifted up his hands and spoke to Neptune, the god of the sea, who was the father of the Cyclopes. "Hear me, Neptune, if I am indeed your son and you are my father. May this Ulysses never reach his home; or, if the Fates have ordered that he shall reach it, may he come alone, with all his comrades lost."
And as the Cyclops ended this wicked prayer, he hurled another mighty rock which almost lighted on the rudder's end, yet missed it as if by a hair's breadth. So Ulysses escaped and all his comrades with him, and they came to the island of the wild goats where they found the rest of their men who had waited long for them in sore fear lest they had perished. And they went home in triumph to Greece.