Tale and Mythology

‘LET us sail at once,’ said Menelaus, ‘while the breeze holds.’ ‘No, no” replied Agamemnon, ‘let us first sacrifice to Athene.’ ‘We Greeks owe Athene nothing!’ Menelaus told him. ‘She defended the Trojan citadel too long.’ The brothers parted on ill terms and never saw each other again, for whereas Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Nestor enjoyed a prosperous homeward voyage, Menelaus was caught in a storm sent by Athene; and lost all  but five vessels. These were blown to Crete whence he crossed the sea to Egypt, and spent eight years in southern waters, unable to return. He visited Cyprus, Phoenicia, Ethiopia, an Libya, the princes of which received him hospitably and gave him many rich gifts. At last he came to Pharos, where the nymph Eidothea advised him to capture her prophetic father, Proteus the sea-god, who alone could tell him how to break the adverse spell and secure southerly breeze. Menelaus and three companions accordingly disguised themselves in stinking seal-skins and lay waitin

ODYSSEUS, it seems, had promised Hecabe and Helen that all who offered no resistance should be spared. Yet now the Greeks poured silently through the moonlit streets, broke into the unguarded houses, and cut the throats of the Trojans as they slept. Hecabe took refuge with her daughters beneath an ancient laurel-tree at the altar raised to Zeus of the Courtyard, where she restrained Priam from rushing into the thick of the fight. ‘Remain among us, my lord,’ she pleaded, ‘in this safe place. You are too old and feeble for battle.’ Priam, grumbling, did as she asked until their son Polites ran by, closely pursued by the Greeks, and fell transfixed before their eyes. Cursing Neoptolemus, who had delivered the death blow, Priam hurled an ineffectual spear at him; whereupon he was hustled away from the altar steps, now red with Polites’s blood, and butchered at the threshold of his own palace. But Neoptolemus, remembering his filial duty, dragged the body to Achilles’s tomb on the Sigae

SOME say that Theseus took part in Heracles’s successful expedition against the Amazons, and received as his share of the booty their queen Antiope, also called Melanippe; but that this was not so unhappy a fate for her as many thought, because she had betrayed the city of Themiscyra on the river Thermodon to him, in proof of the passion he had already kindled in her heart. b. Others say that Theseus visited their country some years later, in the company of Peirithous and his comrades; and that the Amazons, delighted at the arrival of so many handsome warriors, offered them no violence. Antiope came to greet Theseus with gifts, but she had hardly climbed aboard his ship, before he weighed anchor and abducted her. Others again say that he stayed for some time in Amazonia, and entertained Antiope as his guest. They add that among his companions were three Athenian brothers, Euneus, Thoas, and Soloön, the last of whom fell in love with Antiope but, not daring to approach her dire

Autolycus was the son of the god Hermes and Chione in Greek mythology. He married either Neaera or Amphithea , and had two daughters; Anticlea, who later married Laertes, and her son was the famous Odysseus ; and Polymede , who later became the mother of Jason, leader of the Argonauts. He inherited the arts of theft and trickery from his father, and he could not be caught by anyone while stealing. He also possessed a helmet that rendered him invisible to the human eye. He taught Heracles the art of wrestling, but he later caused trouble to the demigod; after Autolycus stole the cattle of Eurytus, the latter accused Heracles of the theft. The hero went mad listening to these accusations, killed Eurytus and his wife, as well as Autolycus' son, Iphitus. As a result, Heracles had to serve the gods for three years as a punishment.

ATHENE now inspired Prylis, son of Hermes, to suggest that entry should be gained into Troy by means of a wooden horse; and Epeius, son of Panopeus, a Phocian from Parnassus, volunteered to build one under Athene’s supervision. Afterwards, of course, Odysseus claimed all the credit for this stratagem. b. Epeius had brought thirty ships from the Cyclades to Troy. He held the office of water-bearer to the House of Atreus; as appears in the frieze of Apollo’s temple at Carthea, and though a skilled boxer and a consummate craftsman, was born a coward, in divine punishment for his father’s breach of faith-Panopeus had falsely sworn in Athene’s name not to embezzle any part of the Taphian booty won by Amphitryon. Epeius’s cowardice has since become proverbial. c. He built an enormous hollow horse of fir planks, with a trap-door fitted into one flank, and large letters cut on the other which consecrated it to Athene: ‘In thankful anticipation of a safe return to their homes, the

ACHILLES was dead, and the Greeks had begun to despair. Calchas now prophesied that Troy could not be taken except with the help of Heracles’s bow and arrows. Odysseus and Diomedes were therefore deputed to sail for Lemnos and fetch them from Philoctetes, their present owner. b. Some say that King Actor’s shepherd Phimachus, son of Dolophion, had sheltered Philoctetes and dressed his noisome wound for past ten years. Others record that some of Philoctetes’s troops settled beside him in Lemnos, and that the Asclepius cured him, with Lemnian earth, before the deputation arrived; or that Pylius, or Pelius, a son of Hephaestus,  did so. Philoctetes is said then conquered certain small islands off the Trojan coast for the  king Euneus, dispossessing the Carian population-a kindness that Euneus acknowledged by giving him the Lemnian district of Acesa. Thus, it is explained, Odysseus and Diomedes had no need to tempt Philoctetes with offers of medical treatment; he came willingly carry

WHEN Thetis decided to award the arms of Achilles to the most courageous Greek left alive before Troy, only Ajax and Odysseus, who had boldly defended the corpse together, dared come forward to claim them. Some say that Agamemnon, from a dislike of the whole House of Aeacus, rejected Ajax’s pretensions and divided the arms between Menelaus and Odysseus, whose goodwill he valued far more highly; others, that he avoided the odium of a decision by referring the case to the assembled Greek leaders, who settled it by a secret ballot; or that he referred it to the Cretans and other allies; or that he forced his Trojan prisoners to declare which of the two claimants had done them most harm. But the truth is that, while Ajax and Odysseus were still competitively boasting of their achievements, Nestor advised Agamemnon to send spies by night to listen under the Trojan walls for the enemy’s unbiased opinion on the matter. The spies overheard a party of young girls chattering together; and wh