Ulysses was now safe at home, after twenty years of warfare and adventure, and at first greatly enjoyed the quiet and peace of his home life; but after a while these tame joys grew wearisome, and he decided to renew his wanderings. He therefore prepared a fleet, and sailed “out into the West,” whence he never returned. The Greeks, however, averred that he had gone in search of the Isles of the Blest, where he dwelt in perfect peace, and enjoyed the constant society of heroes as brave and renowned as himself.
“‘Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides: and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’”
Tennyson.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ADVENTURES OF ÆNEAS.
You have already heard how the Greeks entered the city of Troy in the dead of night, massacred the inhabitants, and set fire to the beautiful buildings which had been the king’s pride and delight. Now you shall hear how Virgil relates the escape of some of the Trojans from general destruction.
Unconscious of coming danger, Æneas, son of Venus and Anchises, lay fast asleep in his palace; but the gods had not doomed him to perish, and sent the shade of Hector to warn him in a dream to arise, leave the city, and fly to some distant land.
“‘Ah, goddess-born,’ he warns me, ‘fly!
Escape these flames: Greece holds the walls;
Proud Ilium from her summit falls.
Think not of king’s or country’s claims:
Country and king, alas! are names:
Could Troy be saved by hands of men,
This hand had saved her then, e’en then.
The gods of her domestic shrines
That country to your care consigns:
Receive them now, to share your fate:
Provide them mansions strong and great,
The city’s walls, which Heaven has willed
Beyond the seas you yet shall build.’”
Virgil (Conington’s tr.).
Æneas goes to save Priam.
Awakened at last by the ever-increasing tumult without, Æneas seized his arms and hastened forth, attended by many of his fellow-citizens, to ascertain the cause of the great uproar. A few minutes later he discovered that the Greek army had entered the town, and was even now killing, plundering, and burning without mercy. The men were all slain, but the fairest women were dragged away to be sold as slaves in Greece; and among them Æneas beheld in the hands of Agamemnon’s soldiers the unfortunate daughter of Priam, Cassandra, whom the gods had endowed with prophetic powers (p. [310]), but whom no one would heed.
Æneas, seeing ere long that there was no hope of saving the doomed city, quickly disguised himself in a Greek armor which he tore from the corpse of one of his foes, and rushed on to the palace, hoping to save the aged king, who, at the first alarm, had seized his weapons, determined to fight to the very last.