His fair wife Penelope had been for four years past pestered with suitors, who declared that Ulysses must be dead. She put them all off, by saying that first she must finish a wonderful cloth she was weaving; and on this she undid each night what she had done in the day. Meanwhile they stayed in the palace, haughty and insolent, terrifying everybody, in defiance of the protests of Ulysses' infant son, now grown to be almost a man.
The wanderer, coming alone and finding how things were, feared they would slay him; so, disguised as an old beggar man, he went to the palace. The suitors mocked him, and then in sport it was proposed to see who could bend the great Ulysses's bow. It was brought out, but none could bend it. The beggar asked leave to try, and they hesitated, but gave him leave. Right easily he bent it, and sent then a broad arrow through the leader of the suitors. Ulysses's son ranged himself by his side. Some old servants, recognizing him, did the same; and soon all those parasites were slain. Then was there a royal welcome from wife and son, and afterward from kinsmen and friends and servants, for the royal wanderer, whom the gods had spared, and who at last was returned home.[Back to Contents]
ÆNEAS
By Charlotte M. Yonge
Among the Trojans at the fall of Troy there was a prince called Æneas, whose father was Anchises, a cousin of Priam, and whose mother was said to be the goddess Venus. When he saw that the city was lost he rushed back to his house and took his old father Anchises on his back, giving him his penates, or little images of household gods, to take care of, and led by the hand his little son Iulus, or Ascanius, while his wife Creusa followed close behind, and all the Trojans who could get their arms together joined him, so that they escaped in a body to Mount Ida; but just as they were outside the city he missed poor Creusa, and though he rushed back and searched for her everywhere, he never could find her. Because of his care for his gods, and for his old father, he is always known as the pious Æneas.
In the forests of Mount Ida he built ships enough to set forth with all his followers in quest of the new home which his mother, the goddess Venus, gave him hopes of. He had adventures rather like those of Ulysses as he sailed about the Mediterranean. Once in the Strophades, some clusters belonging to the Ionian Islands, where he and his troops had landed to get food, and were eating the flesh of the numerous goats which they found climbing about the rocks, down on them came the harpies, horrible birds with women's faces and hooked hands, with which they snatched away the food and spoiled what they could not eat. The Trojans shot at them, but the arrows glanced off their feathers and did not hurt them. However, they all flew off except one, who sat on a high rock, and croaked out that the Trojans would be punished for thus molesting the harpies, by being tossed about till they should reach Italy, but there they should not build their city till they should have been so hungry as to eat their very trenchers.
They sailed away from this dismal prophetess, and touched on the coast of Epirus, where Æneas found his cousin Helenus, son to old Priam, reigning over a little new Troy, and married to Andromache, Hector's wife, whom he had gained after Pyrrhus had been killed. Helenus was a prophet, and he gave Æneas much advice. In especial he said that when the Trojans should come to Italy they would find, under the holly-trees by the river-side, a large, white, old sow lying on the ground, with a litter of thirty little pigs round her, and this should be a sign to them where they were to build their city.
By his advice the Trojans coasted round the south of Sicily, instead of trying to pass the strait between the dreadful Scylla and Charybdis, and just below Mount Etna an unfortunate man came running down to the beach begging to be taken in. He was a Greek, who had been left behind when Ulysses escaped from Polyphemus's cave, and had made his way to the forests, where he had lived ever since. They had just taken him in when they saw the Cyclop coming down, with a pine-tree for a staff, to wash the burning hollow of his lost eye in the sea, and they rowed off in great terror.
Poor old Anchises died shortly after, and while his son was still sorrowing for him, Juno, who hated every Trojan, stirred up a terrible tempest, which drove the ships to the south, until, just as the sea began to calm down, they came into a beautiful bay, enclosed by tall cliffs with woods overhanging them. Here the tired wanderers landed, and, lighting a fire, Æneas went in quest of food. Coming out of the forest they looked down from a hill, and beheld a multitude of people building a city, raising walls, houses, towers, and temples. Into one of these temples Æneas entered, and to his amazement he found the walls sculptured with all the story of the siege of Troy, and all his friends so perfectly represented, that he burst into tears at the sight.