Heathen mythology, Illustrated by extracts from the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern

by Various

T H E T R O J A N W A R.

The sails were spread, and the vessels destined to the attack of Troy advanced quickly towards its shores. Priam and his brave sons though they received the enemy with vigour, could not prevent them from landing, and the siege commenced by a blockade, which lasted for the space of nine years, and might have lasted much longer, as more than valour was necessary to take the city; for destiny had dictated the conditions to be fulfilled, ere its capture could be accomplished.

An ancient oracle had foretold that among the besiegers must be one of the descendants of Eachus, who had worked on the wall of

of Ilion, and Achilles, son of Thetis, considered Eachus as his ancestor. This young hero had been hidden by his frightened mother in the isle of Cyros. Clothed in female garments, he there lived with the beautiful Deidomia, and enslaved by Love, forgot over the cradle of his offspring, the glory of his country, and the precepts of his tutor, Chiron, the centaur. But it was necessary that he should be discovered; and that he should be animated with higher thoughts and more exalted sentiments.

Ulysses, King of Ithaca, took upon himself the charge of bringing the young Achilles from his inglorious ease to the post which awaited him in the camp. Disguised as a merchant, Ulysses introduced himself into the palace of the future hero, and as he paraded himself before the women with jewels and arms, one of them disdained the gems, and seized a sword!—It was Achilles!—who thus betrayed his manly inclinations.

Thus discovered, the eloquence of Ulysses was exerted, and the youthful hero listened with astonishment to the King of Ithaca, as he told him of the dangers already overcome, and of the future conquests which awaited him. Ulysses departed, but not alone, for the spirit of glory was aroused in Achilles, and one more defender was added to the cause of Menelaus. But the besiegers were also to possess the arrows of Hercules, which this hero in dying had bequeathed to Philoctetes, who, however, would not give up the terrible arms that no mortal dared take from him. Ulysses presented himself to Philoctetes, who, at the command of the manes of Hercules, sought the Grecian camp with his terrible weapons to assist them against their enemies.

But this was not enough. It was necessary to take from the Trojans the talismanic protector of their city, the Palladium.

Ulysses was also charged with this mission, and the intrepid Diomedes assisted him to triumph over the obstacles which would have resisted his single efforts, and they went forth to seek the statue of Pallas, in the very city of their intrepid foes.

It was necessary likewise that Rhesus, King of Thrace, should be prevented from allowing his horses to drink of the waters of the Xanthus, an ancient oracle having declared that if they drank of those waters or fed in the Trojan plain, that Troy would never be taken. In this too they succeeded; for Diomedes and Ulysses intercepted him on his journey to the Trojan camp, entered his tent at night and slew him; they then carried off the horses which had been the innocent causes of his melancholy fate.

All the oracles being now fulfilled, the siege was commenced with vigour, when an unforeseen quarrel stopped the operations of the Greeks. Achilles having been deprived by Agamemnon of his favourite mistress, retired into his tent. Reverses of fortune instantly signalised his absence. A general assault, however, was ordered, but directly the army displayed itself before the walls, Paris challenged Menelaus to single combat, and promised to return Helen if he was vanquished. The King of Sparta, protected by his bravery and the justice of his cause, accepted his challenge, and would have sacrificed the coward Trojan to his vengeance, when he took flight, and escaped by the aid of Venus.

————"Poised in air, the javelin sent,

Through Paris' shield the fearful weapon went,

His corslet pierces, and his garment rends,

And, glancing downward, near his flank descends.

The wary Trojan, bending from the blow,

Eludes the death, and disappoints his foe:

But fierce Atrides waved his sword, and struck

Full on his casque, the crested helmet shook:

The brittle steel, unfaithful to his hand,

Broke short, the fragments glittered on the sand.

The raging warrior to the spacious skies

Raised his upbraiding voice and angry eyes.

'Then is it vain in Jove himself to trust?

And is it thus the Gods assist the just?

When crimes provoke us, Heaven success denies,

The dart falls harmless, and the falchion flies.'

Furious he said, and tow'rd the Grecian crew

Seized by the crest, th' unhappy warrior drew;

Struggling he followed, while th' embroidered throng,

That tied his helmet dragged the chief along.

Then had his ruin crowned Atrides' joy,

But Venus trembled for the Prince of Troy;

Unseen she came, and burst the golden band,

And left an empty helmet in his hand."

Homer.

The Greeks claimed the execution of the promise, and in return a Trojan archer sent an arrow which wounded Agamemnon. A general melée ensued, the formidable Diomedes dashed into the midst of the Trojans, wounded Venus, who protected Paris, and struck Mars himself; and Hector, the brave son of Priam was compelled to retire, exhorting the Trojans to supplicate Pallas to withdraw Diomedes from the combat.

After this bloody action, in which the Gods themselves had taken part, the two armies engaged in several skirmishes without much advantage on either side. The siege still continued, and the anger of Achilles remained, until his revenge was aroused by the death of Patroclus, his friend, who was slain in battle by Hector.

"Thus by an arm divine and mortal spear

Wounded at once, Patroclus yields to fear,

Retires for succour to his social train,

And flies the fate which Heaven decreed, in vain.

Stern Hector as the bleeding chief he views,

Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues:

The lance arrests him with a mortal wound;

He falls, earth shudders, and his arms resound.

With him all Greece was sunk, that moment all

Her yet surviving heroes seemed to fall.

Patroclus thus, so many chiefs o'erthrown,

So many lives effused, expires his own."

Homer.

To avenge the death of his comrade in arms, Achilles conducted the Greeks to the attack. The Gods again mingled in the fight. Hector and Achilles met in fierce combat, and the first fell gloriously. The son of Peleus refused to the Trojans the last and only consolation of thinking that the remains should be given to the aged Priam. He had the cruelty to tie the body to his chariot, and in that way to drag it three times round the city, a sacrifice to the tomb of Patroclus, and the unfortunate Priam was obliged to give a large ransom for the remains of Hector.

"Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred,

Unworthy of himself and of the dead,

The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound

With thongs inserted through the double wound;

These fixed up high behind the rolling wain,

His graceful head was hauled along the plain.

Proud on his car th' insulting victor stood,

And bore aloft his arms distilling blood.

He smites the steeds, the rapid chariot flies;

The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.

Now lost is all that formidable air,

The face divine and long descending hair,

Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;

Deformed, dishonoured, in his native land,

Given to the rage of an insulting throng,

And in his parents sight now dragged along.

The mother first beheld with sad survey,

She rent her tresses venerably gray:

And cast far off the regal veils away.

With piercing shriek his bitter fate she moans,

While the sad father answers groans with groans;

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o'erflow,

And the whole city wears one face of woe."

Homer.

After this barbarous act, Achilles, led by Destiny, obtained sight of Polyxena, the daughter of Priam, in the temple of Apollo.

Availing himself of treachery, Paris basely slew him by shooting him in the heel, the only part not rendered invulnerable, by being washed in the river Styx. When Achilles died, the Greeks erected a superb tomb to his memory upon the shores of the Hellespont, and after the taking of Troy, Polyxena was sacrificed to the manes of Achilles. So glorious had been his arms, that Ajax and Ulysses disputed for them, and they were given to the King of Ithaca

which so enraged Ajax that he slew himself, and the blood which flowed from him was turned into a hyacinth.

Æneas, son of Venus and Anchises, took part in all the battles which preceded the fall of his country, and relates the stratagem by which the Greeks gained possession of the city. Repulsed in many assaults, they constructed an enormous horse of wood, and shut up in it the best and bravest of their soldiers. Then pretending to raise the siege, they left it, and embarked, casting anchor near the isle of Tenedos. The Trojans, happy to see their sails retreating from their shores, left their walls to look at the immense machine which remained behind. Some proposed to destroy it. The most superstitious demanded on the contrary, that it should be conducted to the city, and offered to Minerva. Laocoon, grand priest of Neptune, in the spirit of prophecy, told them to destroy it, and to doubt the gift of an enemy. Vainly he cried, "fear the Greeks and their gifts!" They would not listen to him. At this moment a Greek named Sinon was brought before them. This perfidious man said that his brothers in arms, irritated against him, had abandoned him, and that this horse was an offering made by the Greeks, to moderate the anger of Minerva, and to obtain from her a happy return.

In vain did Laocoon persist in his assertion that danger was near, and in vain was he commissioned by the Trojans to offer a bullock to Neptune, to render him propitious.

During the sacrifice, two enormous serpents issued from the sea, and attacked Laocoon's two sons, who stood next to the altar. The father immediately attempted to defend them, but the serpents coiling round him, squeezed him in their complicated wreaths, so that he died in the greatest torture.

————"By Scamander when Laocoon stood,

Where Troy's proud turrets glittered in the flood,

Raised high his arm and with prophetic call

To shrinking realms announced her fated fall;

Whirled his fierce spear with more than mortal force,

And pierced the thick ribs of the echoing horse;

Two serpent forms incumbent on the main

Lashing the white waves with their redundant train,

Arched their blue necks, and shook their towering crests,

And ploughed their foamy way with speckled breasts;

Then, darting fierce amid the affrighted throngs,

Rolled their red eyes, and shot their forked tongues.—

—Two daring youths to guard the hoary sire,

Thwart their dread progress, and provoke their ire,

Round sire and sons the scaly monsters rolled,

Ring above ring in many a tangled fold,

Close and more close their writhing limbs surround,

And fix with foamy teeth the envenomed wound.

With brow upturned to Heaven the holy sage

In silent agony sustains their rage;

While each fond youth, in vain, with piercing cries

Bends on the tortured Sire his dying eyes."

Darwin.

"Laocoon's torture, dignifying pain—

A father's love and mortal's agony

With an immortal's patience blending:—vain

The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain

And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,

The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain

Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp

Enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp on gasp."

Byron.

The Trojans following the advice of Sinon, beat down part of the wall to make an entrance for the horse into the city; they then celebrated the deliverance of their country with feasts and festivals.

Aided by the darkness of night the Greek ships left Tenedos and set sail with all haste towards Troy. Their soldiers disembarked, and penetrated through the breach which had been made to admit the horse. At the same time the warriors that were hidden within the colossal structure appeared, spreading slaughter and devastation all over the city. Æneas awoke, put on his arms, and ran to the palace of Priam, in time to see, but not to save, the aged monarch, his daughters, and his sons, from falling beneath the edge of the sword.

He then sought to rally the Trojans, and make head against the

enemy, but when he abandoned himself to feelings of grief and rage at not being able, his mother made known to him the uselessness of his efforts.

Æneas followed the council of Venus. He awoke his father Anchises, placed the old man on his shoulders, took the young Ascanius, his son, by the hand, and led him away from the tumult, giving him in charge to Creusa, his wife, telling her to follow closely, and not to leave him. The unfortunate woman, however, lost sight of him, and was put to death by the Greeks.

After a vain search to find Creusa, the hero joined the Trojans that survived, and all retired to mount Ida, where they constructed a fleet of twenty vessels, in which they set sail, endeavouring to find out a new country.

The conquerors razed Troy to the ground, and divided the plunder. The widows and daughters of the Trojan princes who were left behind, were obliged to remain in the country. Several of them, famed for beauty, inspired their masters with passions which manifested themselves in quarrels, finishing by many a bloody catastrophe. Among this number was Andromache, widow of Hector, and mother of Astyanax. She fell to the share of

Neoptolemus, but though she conceived an aversion for him, the widow of Hector promised her hand to him, on condition that he would save the life of her son, which was menaced by the Greeks: and accompanied into Epirus the ambassadors sent to claim from Pyrrhus the last scion of a foeman's race; Orestes, the ambassador, explained to the king the object of his mission, he was met by a stern refusal, which so irritated the warrior, that he stabbed Pyrrhus for attempting that which he designated a base treason.

Following the fortunes of Ulysses—scarcely had he quitted the Phrygian shores, than he and his companions became the sport of Neptune and Juno, and a crowd of miseries beset them. At length, after a thousand reverses on the seas, a tempest precipitated his vessel on a rock, he saved himself on a floating wreck, and was driven by the waves towards the shores of the isle of the Phæacians. He saw on the shores the beautiful Nausica, who took him to King Alcinous, her father, from whom he received every hospitality. At the end of the repast to which he had been invited, he related his wonderful adventures.

He told of his arrival in the country of the Lotophagi, people who lived on lotos, and of the frightful dangers he encountered in the isle of Cyclops.

"The land of Cyclops first, a savage kind,

Nor tamed by manner, nor by laws confined:

Untaught to plant, to turn the glebe and sow;

They all their products to free nature owe.

The soil untill'd a ready harvest yields,

With wheat and barley wave the golden fields,

Spontaneous wines from weighty clusters pour,

And Jove descends in each prolific shower.

By these no statutes and no rights are known,

No council held, no monarch fills the throne.

But high on hills, or airy cliffs, they dwell,

Or deep in caves whose entrance leads to hell.

Each rules his race, his neighbour not his care,

Heedless of others, to his own severe."

Homer.

Polyphemus, whose one eye expressed a savage ferocity, shut up Ulysses and his companions in a cavern, where he kept his sheep. In the morning Polyphemus came, took two sailors and devoured them; at his repast in the evening he took two more. Ulysses, horrified at his danger, thought how he could avoid it. He amused the Cyclop by his recitals; and by giving him intoxicating drink, the monster slept; then, assisted by his companions, he put out his eye. Ulysses had provided for their escape, for fastening himself under the stomach of a sheep when it was going to the fields, and ordering his companions to follow his example, they escaped the rage of the Cyclop, who could only indulge his wrath by throwing at random large pieces of rock after their vessel, which was bearing them quickly away from the scene of their danger.

He arrived in the isle of Æolia, where reigned Æolus, king of the winds. This monarch treated him with much kindness, and to assure him a prosperous voyage, he gave him, enclosed in a leather bottle, all the dangerous winds. The vessels went first to the

borders of Ithaca, when the companions of Ulysses opened the leather bottle, believing that a precious wine was contained in it, all the winds escaped, and a furious tempest convulsed the sea. The vessels were thrown upon the coast of the Lestrigones, who ate human flesh. Two Greeks were devoured by them. In alarm the vessels again put to sea, and they landed in an isle where abode Circe, a famous magician.

When he had anchored, he sent some of his men on shore, to discover what place it was, but Circe gave them drink under pretence of refreshing them, which transformed them into swine. One only tasted not of the enchanted drink, and escaped to acquaint Ulysses with the strange metamorphose. Ulysses was astonished and resolved to seek the witch in person: and, provided with a certain herb, to preserve himself from witchcraft, he went to her with his drawn sword, to compel her to restore his companions to their previous shapes. The fascinations of Circe proved more powerful than the sword of Ulysses, and he staid with her on the island, in the enjoyment of her society, for the space of a year.

After concluding his eventful history, he remained some time with Alcinous, who gave him a ship, which carried him safely to Ithaca.

It was now the twentieth year of the absence of Ulysses from his home, during which time his wife had held him in continual remembrance, and though she had been pressed by her numerous suitors to consider him as dead and make a second choice, yet she retained such faithful love for her husband, with such a full and prophetic assurance that she should once more see him, that all their efforts to influence her were vain.

In order to put them off more effectually, she undertook to make a piece of cloth, promising that when it was finished, she would choose one of her numerous suitors: but the better to deceive them, she undid at night that which she worked in the day, so that when Ulysses arrived, she was no nearer its completion than at first.

Meanwhile Ulysses scarcely knew how to discover himself with safety to his own person, fearing that he might be slain by those who were suitors to his wife. By the advice of Minerva, he disguised himself as a beggar, first making himself known to Telemachus, and one of the old officers of the kingdom.

In the same disguise he introduced himself to Penelope, by whom

he was received with joy; and with the assistance of his friends, who flocked around him, he entered in possession of his throne.

But still his mind was uneasy and disturbed, as Tyresias, the soothsayer, had informed him that he should be killed by one of his sons. To prevent this misery, he determined to forsake the world, and retire into some solitary place, to end his days in peace.

About that time, Telegonus, one of his sons by Circe, came to his city to pay unto him his respects; and, as he was striving to enter the palace, there arose a great tumult, the officers of the place refusing him admission; at this moment Ulysses stepped out, and Telegonus not knowing him, ran him through with his lance, thus fulfilling the prophecy of the soothsayer.

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