Wonder Stories - Carolyn Sherwin Bailey (sci fi books to read txt) 📗

fall a victim of cowardice. So Ulysses disguised himself as a vendor of fine wares, scents and embroidered silks, carved ivory ornaments and jewels, and he went to the kingdom where Achilles, now a youth, sojourned in the disguise of a maiden. The women of the court seized with the greatest delight the fine fabrics and necklaces from Ulysses' store, but Achilles delved in the packet of goods until his eyes lighted upon some strange and beautifully wrought weapons which Ulysses had brought also. These alone pleased him. So the destiny of Achilles was disclosed and he put on armor and went with Ulysses to join the army.

In the meantime King Priam had welcomed the erring Paris and Helen, so great was the charm that her fair face wrought everywhere, and had given them the shelter of his court. It was a sore trial to the heroes of Troy that this should have happened, for they were as bold and upright men in their way as the Greeks were, and had not deserved this shame that had come upon them. But they, too, were banded together to protect their king and so they made all the needful preparations to meet the forces of the enemy when the Greeks should cross the sea.

Since this great war had begun in the jealousy of the gods, the gods themselves took part in the struggle. Neptune carried the ships of the Greeks safely over to the plains of Troy where Ulysses accompanied King Menelaus into the city to demand the return of Helen. When King Priam refused, Venus endeavored to keep Helen in her power and she enlisted Mars on the side of the Trojans. Juno favored the Greeks, as did also Minerva, the goddess of just warfare, and Apollo and Jupiter watched over the fate of those of the heroes whom they loved, no matter on which side they fought.

So the Trojan war began, but how it ended is a story of a strange horse made all of wood.

HOW A WOODEN HORSE WON A CITY.

Ten years the siege of Troy lasted, that mighty struggle that had been kindled by the flame of jealousy of gods and men, and ten years the Trojans resisted the Greeks. On both sides the brave fell in battle and the plain outside of the city of Troy became a waste place, full of dread and death.

The hero Achilles, while offering up a sacrifice in the temple of Apollo, was treacherously slain by a poisoned arrow from Paris' bow that pierced his heel. The Greeks made use of the arrows of Hercules in their struggle, but even these proved useless against the strong fortifications of the Trojans. There was a statue of Minerva in the city of Troy called the Palladium. It was said to have fallen from heaven and that as long as it remained in the city Troy could not be taken. So the hero, Ulysses, with a few men, entered Troy in disguise and captured this statute at the risk of their lives, carrying it back to the camp of the Greeks, but Troy still held out and the tenth year of the war drew near a close full of wretchedness and famine.

It seemed as if the spell of Helen's beauty, as she leaned from one of the towers of King Priam's castle to cheer the Trojans or descended to pass among their ranks, was their safety. No one, looking on her fair face, remembered hardship or felt fear, although the fated Cassandra wept alone, and was deemed mad because she saw, in her prophetic vision, the fall of the strong battlements of Troy.

At last the Greeks despaired of ever subduing Troy by force and they asked Ulysses if any plan occurred to him by which they could subdue the Trojans through strategy. Ulysses unfolded a plan to the generals, and what it was and how it succeeded is one of the strangest stories of all warfare. Acting upon his advice, the Greeks made preparation to abandon the war. Their ships that had waited with folded sails in the harbor, now drew anchor and sailed swiftly away, taking refuge behind a neighboring island. And the Trojans, seeing the encampment before their walls broken for the first time in so many years, and the plain that the enemy's tents had whitened clear, broke into joy and merrymaking such as they had not known for so long. They forgot caution and opened the gates through which the men and women and children flocked out to the plain to make merry and exult over the defeat of the Greeks.

There they saw an astounding thing. In the centre of the plain stood a great wooden image of a horse, like an idol, more prodigious than any which the Trojans had ever seen. It was so closely fitted and carved from its mammoth hoofs to its head that no one could detect the joining. A hundred men could have ridden the horse with room for more, but they would never have been able to climb up to its back. At first the people of Troy, gathering around the wooden horse, were afraid of it. Then they made up their minds about it.

"This is a trophy of war!" they exclaimed, and they were for moving it into the city to exhibit in the public square as a sign of their victory over the Greeks.

There was among them, though, a man named Laocoon, a priest of Neptune, who objected to this plan.

"Beware, men of Troy!" Laocoon warned them. "You have fought for ten years with the Greeks and know that they do not give up a fight as easily as this. How do you know but that this is a piece of trickery on the part of their dauntless leader, Ulysses? I fear the Greeks, even when they bring us gifts."

As Laocoon uttered these prophetic words, he threw his lance at the side of the wooden horse and it rebounded with a hollow sound. At that, perhaps the Trojans might have taken his advice and destroyed the horse there where it stood, but suddenly a man, who appeared to be a prisoner and a Greek, was dragged out from the crowd.

He said that he was a Greek, Sinon by name, who had brought upon himself the malice of Ulysses and so had been left behind by the Greeks. He feigned terror, and the Trojans, falling into the trap, reassured Sinon, the spy, and told him that his life would be spared if he would disclose to the chiefs of Troy the secret of the wooden horse.

"It is an offering to Minerva," Sinon explained. "The Greeks made it so huge in order that you would never be able to carry it inside the gates of Troy."

Sinon's words turned the tides of the people's feelings. They were just planning how they might best start the work of moving the giant horse when something happened which completely reassured them. Two immense serpents appeared advancing directly toward them over the sea. Side by side they moved toward the shore, their great heads erect, their burning eyes full of blood and fire and licking their hissing mouths with their quivering tongues. And these serpents came directly to the spot where Laocoon stood with his two sons.

They attacked the boys first, winding round their bodies and breathing their poisonous breath into their faces. Laocoon, trying to rescue his sons, was drawn into the serpent's coils and all three were strangled. Then the creatures moved on, threatening to glide into the city of Troy.

"It is an omen of the displeasure of the gods with us for having even doubted the sacred character of the wooden horse," the Trojans said. "Laocoon has been punished for his lack of reverence in despising it."

So they gave themselves up again to wild joy and reckless merrymaking. They wreathed the horse with garlands of flowers and dragged it, all lending a hand, across the plain and close to the gates of the city so that they could widen them in the morning and push it through; and they went home with great shouts like those of a victoriously returning army.

That night a door, cunningly set and concealed in the side of the wooden horse, was opened by Sinon, the spy. Out of the door came the hero Ulysses, King Menelaus, and a band of picked Greek generals, for the Greeks had made the wooden horse hollow so that a hundred men might be hidden inside for a long time with their arms and provisions and come to no harm. These men opened the gates of Troy, a city sunk in darkness and sleep, and through the gates went the Grecian army which had returned in the ships and crossed the plain silently in the cover of the night.

So the prophecy of Laocoon and of the sad Cassandra was proved true, for there was not a Trojan on guard. King Priam and his noblest warriors were killed, Cassandra was taken captive, and the city was set on fire with torches and burned to the ground.

Then the Greeks set sail for their own country which they had not seen for so many years, and they took the beautiful Helen with them, awakened at last from the spell which Venus had cast upon her, and sorrowing for all the suffering she had caused.

But the glory of the old Trojan days was gone forever. Men search to-day the ruins of ancient Troy that lie hidden like bright jewels in the depths of the ancient mountains. There is little left but the memory of the apple of Discord that caused the destruction of the city and the heroes and the citadel of Troy's old power.

[3]THE CYCLOPS.

The hero Ulysses was about to sail home to Greece, after the great city of Troy had been taken, having wandered farthest and suffered most of all in the long Trojan war.

He was well-nigh the last to sail, for he had tarried many days to do homage to Agamemnon, lord of all the Greeks. Twelve ships he had with him, twelve that he had brought to Troy, and in each there were some fifty men, being scarce half of those that had sailed with them in the old days, so many valiant heroes slept the last sleep on the plain and on the seashore, slain in battle or by the shafts of Apollo.

So first Ulysses sailed to the Thracian coast where he and his men filled their ships with foodstuffs and oxen and jars of fragrant juices of the grape. Scarcely had he set out again when the wind began to blow fiercely, and seeing a smooth sandy beach, they drove the ships to shore, dragged them out of reach of the waves, and waited there until the storm should abate. And the third morning, being fair, they sailed again, and journeyed prosperously. On the tenth day they came to the land where the lotus grows, a wonderful fruit which whoever eats cares not to see country, home, or children again.

Now the Lotus eaters, for so they call the people of the land, were a kindly folk and gave of the fruit to some of the sailors, not meaning any harm, but thinking it to be the best that they had to give. These men, when they had eaten, said that they would not sail any more over the sea. Which when the wise Ulysses heard, he bade their comrades bind them and carry them, sadly complaining, to the ships.

Then, the wind having abated, they took to their oars and rowed for many days until they came to the country where the Cyclops lived.