Mythology: Part Four

She led the young shepherd, with never a thought of Oenone left forlorn, straight to Sparta, where Menelaus and Helen received him graciously as their guest.

At last the soothsayer, Calchas, declared that the gods had spoken to him: Artemis was angry.

His reputation with the Army was at stake, and his ambition to conquer Troy and exalt Greece.

Hera kept silence then, but her thoughts were busy as to how she might help the Greeks and circumvent Zeus.

Patroclus, Achilles’ beloved friend, saw the rout with horror.

But Achilles answered, “Madman. There are no covenants between sheep and wolves, nor between you and me.”

Up in Olympus there was dissension.

“The other Trojans upbraid me,” she said, “but always I had comfort from you through the gentleness of your spirit and your gentle words. You only were my friend.”

The wooden horse had been made, he said, as a votive offering to Athena, and the reason for its immense size was to discourage the Trojans from taking it into the city.

Ajax—not the great Ajax, of course, who was dead, but a lesser chieftain of the same name—tore her from the altar and dragged her out of the sanctuary. Not one Greek protested against the sacrilege.

They were rude, greedy, overbearing men, who spent their days sitting in the great hall of the house devouring Odysseus’ store of provisions, slaughtering his cattle, his sheep, his swine, drinking his wine, burning his wood, giving orders to his servants.

She was exceedingly fond of Telemachus, not only because he was her dear Odysseus’ son, but because he was a sober, discreet young man, steady and prudent and dependable.

Also it would advance him in the opinion of men everywhere if the object of his journey was to seek for some news of his father. They would think him, as indeed, he was, a pious youth with the most admirable filial sentiments.

The attendants also hurried to show the hospitality of the great house, setting food and wine before him and stinting him in nothing.

There a servant hastened to them with water in a golden ewer which she poured over their fingers into a silver bowl.

On the raft Calypso put food and drink in abundance, even a sack of the dainties Odysseus specially liked.

Odysseus saw death before him. “Oh, happy the men who fell gloriously on the plain of Troy!” he thought. “For me to die thus ignobly!”

She pitied him and rising lightly from the water like a sea-gull she told him his one chance was to abandon the raft and swim to shore. She gave him her veil, which would keep him from harm as long as he was in the sea. Then she disappeared beneath the billows.

Her mother filled a box for her with all sorts of good things to eat and drink; she gave her too a golden flask of limpid olive oil to use if she and her maids went bathing.

When Circe had used on Odysseus the magic which had always hitherto been successful and to her amazement saw him stand unchanged before her, she so marveled at the man who could resist her enchantment that she loved him.

She treated them all with such kindness, feasting them sumptuously in her house, that for a whole year they stayed happily with her.

Moldering skeletons of those they had lured to their death lay banked high up around them where they sat singing on the shore.

So rang their song in lovely cadences, and Odysseus’ heart ached with longing.

At last he started home, but a tempest shipwrecked him and only after many and great dangers had he succeeded in reaching the Phaeacian land, a helpless, destitute man.

“You crooked, shifty rogue!” she laughed. “Anyone who would keep pace with your craftiness must be a canny dealer.”

All had their pages bring and present her with most lovely things, robes and jewels and golden chains. Her maids carried them upstairs and demure Penelope retired with great contentment in her heart.

At last only two of that roistering, impudent band were left, the priest of the suitors and their bard.

Both of them cried for mercy, but the priest, clasping Odysseus’ knees in his agony of supplication, met with none.

The minstrel drew sweet sounds from his lyre and waked in all the longing for the dance.

He threw himself upon his knees, but indeed his obvious misery was enough of an appeal, his pallor like that of one half dead from starvation, his clothes held together only by thorns, his face squalid in the extreme with a thick growth of hair.

He said not a word to her, but contented himself with sending a stern reprimand to Aeolus.

He spoke admirably and eloquently, and perhaps Dido would have succumbed to such heroism and such beautiful language even if there had been no god in the case, but as it was, Cupid was there and she had no choice.

Suddenly this elegant gentleman was startled out of his state of indolent contentment.

Then she told him what she thought. How he had come to her cast away, starving, in need of everything, and how she had given herself and her kingdom to him. But before his complete impassivity her passion was helpless.

Indeed, the timid Psyche had gone there all alone to get the beauty charm for Venus from Proserpine and had seen nothing worse than the three-headed dog Cerberus, who had been easily mollified by a bit of cake.

He felt convinced that Aeneas was the son-in-law Faunus had predicted, and he said as much to the envoys.

A formidable army, Latins and Rutulians together, were now opposed to the little band of Trojans.

The King went forth with two great dogs following him, his sole retinue and bodyguard.

The idea of the great enterprise came first to Nisus as he looked over the ramparts at the enemy and observed how few and dim the lights were and how deep a silence reigned as of men fast asleep.

“If by chance something goes amiss—and in such a venture as this there are a thousand chances—you will be here to ransom me or to give me the rites of burial. Remember too that you are young; life is all before you.”