Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History

by Charlotte M. Yonge

he overthrow of the temples at Troy was heavily visited on the Greeks by the gods, and the disasters that befel Ulysses are the subject of another grand Greek poem called the Odyssey, from his right Greek name Odysseus. He was the special favourite of Pallas Athene, but she could not save him from many dangers. He had twelve ships, with which he set out to return to Ithaca; but as he was doubling Cape Malea, one of the rugged points of the Peloponnesus, a great storm caught him, and drove him nine days westward, till he came to an island, where he sent three men to explore, but they did not return, and he found that this was the land of the lotus-eaters, a people who always lie about in a dreamy state of repose, and that to taste the food drives away all remembrance of home and friends. He was obliged to drag his men away by force, and bind them to the benches. The lotus bean, or jujube, is really eaten in Africa, but not with these effects.

Next they came to another island, where there was a bay with rocks around, with goats leaping on them.

Here Ulysses left eleven ships, and sailed with one to explore the little islet opposite. Landing with his men, he entered an enormous cavern, well stored with bowls of milk and cream, and with rows of cheeses standing on the ledges of rock. While the Greeks were regaling themselves, a noise was heard, and great flocks of sheep and goats came bleating in. Behind them came a giant, with a fir tree for a staff, and only one eye in the middle of his forehead. He was Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, sons of Neptune, and workmen of Vulcan. He asked fiercely who the strangers were, and Ulysses told him that they were shipwrecked sailors, imploring him for hospitality in the name of the gods. Polyphemus laughed at this, saying he was stronger than the gods, and did not care for them; and, dashing two unhappy Greeks on the floor, he ate them up at once; after which he closed up the front of the cave with a monstrous rock, penned up the kids and lambs, and began to milk his goats, drank up a great quantity of milk, and fell asleep on the ground. Ulysses thought of killing him at once, but recollected that the stone at the mouth of the cave would keep him captive if the giant’s strength did not move it, and abstained. In the morning the Cyclops let out his flocks, and then shut the Greeks in with the stone; but he left his staff behind, and Ulysses hardened the top of this in the fire. A skin of wine had been brought from the ships, and when Polyphemus came home in the evening, and had devoured two more Greeks, Ulysses offered it to him.

It was the first wine he had tasted, and he was in raptures with it, asking his guest’s name as he pledged him. “No-man,” replied Ulysses, begging again for mercy. “This will I grant,” said the Cyclops, “in return for thy gift. No-man shall be the last whom I devour.” He drank up the whole skin of wine, and went to sleep. Then Ulysses and four of his companions seized the staff, and forced its sharpened top into the Cyclops’ single eye, so that he awoke blind, and roaring with pain so loud that all the other Cyclops awoke, and came calling to know who had hurt him. “No-man,” shouted back Polyphemus; and they, thinking it was only some sudden illness, went back to their caves. Meanwhile, Ulysses was fastening the remaining Greeks under the bellies of the sheep and goats, the wool and hair hanging over them. He himself clung on under the largest goat, the master of the herd. When morning came, bleatings of the herds caused the blind giant to rouse himself to roll back the stone from the entrance. He laid his hand on each beast’s back, that his guests might not ride out on them, but he did not feel beneath, though he kept back Ulysses’ goat for a moment caressing it, and saying, “My pretty goat, thou seest me, but I cannot see thee.”

As soon as Ulysses was safe on board ship, and had thrust out from land, he called back his real name to the giant, whom he saw sitting on the stone outside his cave. Polyphemus and the other Cyclops returned by hurling rocks at the ship, but none touched it, and

Ulysses reached his fleet safely. This adventure, however, had made Neptune his bitter foe, and how could he sail on Neptune’s realm?

However, he next came to the Isle of the Winds, which floated about in the ocean, and was surrounded by a brazen wall. Here dwelt Æolus, with his wife and sons and daughters, and Ulysses stayed with him a whole month. At the end of it, Æolus gave Ulysses enough of each wind, tied up in separate bags, to take him safely home; but his crew fancied there was treasure in them, and while he was asleep opened all the bags at once, and the winds bursting out tossed all the ships, and then carried them back to the island, where Æolus declared that Ulysses must be a wretch forsaken of the gods, and would give him no more.

Six days later the fleet came to another cannibal island, that of the Læstrygonians, where the crews of all the ships, except that of the king himself, were caught and eaten up, and he alone escaped, and, still proceeding westward, came to another isle, belonging to Circe, the witch goddess, daughter to Helios. The comrades of Ulysses, whom he had sent to explore, did not return, and he was himself landing in search of them, when Mercury appeared to him, and warned him that, if he tasted of the bowl she would offer him, he would, like his friends, be changed by her into a hog, unless he fortified himself with the plant named moly—a white-flowered, starry sort of garlic, which Mercury gave him. Ulysses then made his way through a wood

to the hall where Circe sat, waited on by four nymphs. She received him courteously, offered him her cup, and so soon as he had drunk of it she struck him with her wand, and bade him go grunt with his fellows; but as, thanks to the moly, he stood unchanged before her, he drew his sword and made her swear to do him no hurt, and to restore his companions to their proper form. They then made friends, and he stayed with her a whole year. She told him that he was fated not to return home till he had first visited the borders of the world of Pluto, and consulted Tiresias, the blind prophet. She told him what to do, and he went on beyond the Mediterranean into the outer ocean, to the land of gloom, where Helios, the sun, does not shine. Here Ulysses dug a pit, into which he poured water, wine, and the blood of a great black ram, and there flocked up to him crowds of shades, eager to drink of it, and to converse with him. All his own friends were there—Achilles, Ajax, and, to his surprise, Agamemnon—all very melancholy, and mourning for the realms of day. His mother, who had died of grief for his absence, came and blessed him; and Tiresias warned him of Neptune’s anger, and of his other dangers, ere he should return to Ithaca. Terror at the ghastly troop overcame him at last, and he fled and embarked again, saw Circe once more, and found himself in the sea by which the Argo had returned. The Sirens’ Isle was near, and, to prevent the perils of their song, Ulysses stopped the ears of all his crew with wax, and though he left his