Meanwhile the Ithacan king, not forgetting the other conditions mentioned by Helenus, set sail for the island of Scyros, where the son of Achilles resided. His name was Pyrʹrhus, or Ne-op-tolʹ-mus, and, as he was a brave youth, he rejoiced at having an opportunity of fighting the Trojans, by whom his father had been killed. Ulysses gave him his father's armor, and by many heroic deeds in the war he proved that he was worthy to wear it.
The Palladium was now to be carried off from Troy, and this was a task by no means easy to perform. But the man of many arts succeeded in accomplishing it. Putting on the garments of a beggar, and scourging his body so as to leave marks, he went to the Scæan Gate, and entreated the guards to admit him. He told them that he was a Greek slave, and that he wished to escape from his master who had cruelly ill-used him. The guards, believing his story, permitted him to enter the city.
"He had given himself
Unseemly stripes, and o'er his shoulders flung
Vile garments like a slave's, and entered thus
The enemy's town, and walked its spacious streets.
Another man he seemed in that disguise.—
A beggar, though when at the Achaian fleet
So different was the semblance that he wore.
He entered Ilium thus transformed, and none
Knew who it was that passed."
Bryant, Odyssey, Book IV.
But Helen, happening to pass by at a place near the king's palace, where the pretended beggar sat down to rest, immediately recognized him. He made a sign to her to keep silent, thinking that Paris being now dead, Helen perhaps was friendly to the Greeks, and wished them to take Troy, so that she might return to her own country. In this Ulysses was right, as very soon appeared, and as Helen declared years afterwards, when telling to his own son, Telemachus, the story of the Ithacan king's adventure within the walls of Troy.
"For I already longed
For my old home, and deeply I deplored
The evil fate that Venus brought on me,
Who led me thither from my own dear land."
Bryant, Odyssey, Book IV.
Helen passed on without uttering a word, but in the evening she sent one of her maids to bring Ulysses secretly to her apartment in the palace. There she expressed her joy at meeting her countryman, and after hospitably entertaining him, she listened with pleasure to his plans. She then told him of the plans of the Trojans, and where and how the Palladium was to be got. Having thus obtained the information he desired, Ulysses contrived to make his way back unobserved to the Greek camp. In a few days he returned, accompanied by Diomede. They got into the city by scaling the walls, and Diomede, climbing on the shoulders of Ulysses, entered the citadel. Here, by following the directions given by Helen, he found the famous statue, and he and his companion carried it off to their friends at the ships, who rejoiced at the success of the undertaking.
Troy was now no longer under the protection of Pallas Minerva. Though that goddess helped the Greeks in their battles, she was obliged to save the city itself while it contained her sacred statue. But the Palladium being no longer within the walls, she was now at liberty to help the Greeks to capture and destroy the city. She therefore put into the mind of Ulysses the idea of the wooden horse, and she instructed the Greek chief E-peʹus how to make it. This horse was of vast size, large enough to contain about a hundred men, for it was hollow within.
By Minerva's aid, a fabric reared,
Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared;
The sides were flanked with pine.