The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (2nd ed.) (1911)

CHAPTER XXI

HOUSES CONCERNED IN THE TROJAN WAR

190. Three Families. Before entering upon the causes of the war against Troy, we must notice the three Grecian families that were principally concerned, – those of Peleus, Atreus, and Tyndareus.

191. Peleus 277 was the son of Æacus and grandson of Jove. It was for his father Æacus, king of Phthia in Thessaly, that, as we have seen, an army of Myrmidons was created by Jupiter. Peleus joined the expedition of the Argonauts, and on that journey beheld and fell in love with the sea-nymph Thetis, daughter of Nereus and Doris. Such was the beauty of the nymph that Jupiter himself had sought her in marriage; but having learned from Prometheus, the Titan, that Thetis should bear a son who should be greater than his father, the Olympian desisted from his suit and decreed that Thetis should be the wife of a mortal. By the aid of Chiron, the Centaur, Peleus succeeded in winning the goddess for his bride. In this marriage, to be productive of momentous results for mortals, the immortals manifested a lively interest. They thronged with the Thessalians to the wedding in Pharsalia; they honored the wedding feast with their presence and, reclining on ivory couches, gave ear while the three Sisters of Fate, in responsive strain, chanted the fortunes of Achilles, – the future hero of the Trojan War, – the son that should spring from this union of a goddess with a mortal. The following is from a translation of the famous poem, The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis:278

… Now, on the day foreset, Aurora forsaking the oceanCrimsons the orient sky: all Thessaly, seeking the palace,Fares to the royal seat, in populous muster exultant,Heavy of hand with gifts, but blithesome of cheer for the joyance.Scyros behind they leave, they leave Phthiotican Tempe,Crannon's glittering domes and the battlements Larissæan,Cumber Pharsalia, throng the abodes and the streets of Pharsalus.Fields, meanwhile are untilled, grow tender the necks of the oxen,None with the curving teeth of the harrow cleareth the vineyard,None upturneth the glebe with bull and the furrowing plowshare,None with gardener's knife lets light through the branches umbrageous;Squalid the rust creeps up o'er plows forgotten of plowmen.Bright is the palace, ay, through far retreating recessesBlazing for sheen benign of the opulent gold and the silver:Ivory gleams on the thrones, great goblets glint on the tables,Glitters the spacious home, made glad with imperial splendor, —Ay, but most – in the hall midmost – is the couch of the goddess,Glorious, made of the tusk of the Indian elephant – polished —Spread with a wonder of quilt empurpled with dye of the sea-shell.

On this coverlet of purple were embroidered various scenes illustrating the lessons of heroism and justice that the poet would inculcate: to the good falleth good; to the evil, evil speedily. Therefore, the story of Theseus and Ariadne, which has already been recounted, was here displayed in cunning handiwork. For Theseus, the false lover, bold of hand but bad of heart, gained by retributive justice undying ruth and misery; whereas Ariadne, the injured and innocent, restored to happiness, won no less a reward than Bacchus himself. Gorgeously woven with such antique and heroic figures was the famous quilt upon the couch of Thetis. For a season the wedding guests feasted their eyes upon it.

Then when Thessaly's youth, long gazing, had of the wonderTheir content, they gan give place to the lords of Olympus.As when Zephyr awakes the recumbent billows of ocean,Roughens the placid deep with eager breath of the morning,Urges the waves, and impels, to the threshold of journeying Phœbus, —They, at first, blown outward unroughly when Dawn is a-rising,Limp slow-footed, and loiter with laughter lightsomely plashing,But, with the freshening gale, creep quicker and thicker together,Till on horizon they float refulgent of luminous purple, —So from the portal withdrawing the pomp Thessalian departedFaring on world-wide ways to the far-off homes of their fathers.Now when they were aloof, drew nigh from Pelion's summitChiron bearing gifts from copses and glades of the woodland —Gifts that the meadows yield: what flowers on Thessaly's mountains,Or, by waves of the stream, the prolific breath of the West Wind,Warming, woos to the day, all such in bunches assortedBore he. Flattered with odors the whole house brake into laughter.Came there next Peneüs, abandoning verdurous Tempe —Tempe embowered deep mid superimpendent forests.

And after the river-god, who bore with him nodding plane trees and lofty beeches, straight slim laurels, the lithe poplar, and the airy cypress to plant about the palace that thick foliage might give it shade, followed Prometheus, the bold and cunning of heart, wearing still the marks of his ancient punishment on the rocks of Caucasus. Finally the father of the gods himself came, with his holy spouse and his offspring, – all, save Phœbus and his one sister, who naturally looked askance upon a union to be productive of untold misfortune to their favored town of Troy.

Fig. 148. The Gods bring Wedding Gifts

… When now the gods had reclined their limbs on the ivory couches,Viands many and rare were heaped on the banqueting tables,Whilst the decrepit Sisters of Fate, their tottering bodiesSolemnly swayed, and rehearsed their soothfast vaticination.– Lo, each tremulous frame was wrapped in robe of a whiteness,Down to the ankles that fell, with nethermost border of purple,While on ambrosial brows there rested fillets like snowflakes.They, at a task eternal their hands religiously plying,Held in the left on high, with wool enfolded, a distaff,Delicate fibers wherefrom, drawn down, were shaped by the right hand —Shaped by fingers upturned, – but the down-turned thumb set a-whirling,Poised with perfected whorl, the industrious shaft of the spindle.Still, as they span, as they span, was the tooth kept nipping and smoothing,And to the withered lip clung morsels of wool as they smoothed it —Filaments erstwhile rough that stood from the twist of the surface.Close at their feet, meantime, were woven baskets of wickerGuarding the soft white balls of the wool resplendent within them.Thus then, parting the strands, these Three with resonant voicesUttered, in chant divine, predestined sooth of the future —Prophecy neither in time, nor yet in eternity, shaken."Thou that exaltest renown of thy name with the name of thy valor,Bulwark Emathian, blest above sires in the offspring of promise,Hear with thine ears this day what oracles fall from the SistersChanting the fates for thee; – but you, ye destiny-drawingSpindles, hasten the threads of the destinies set for the future!"Rideth the orb upon high that heralds boon unto bridegrooms —Hesperus, – cometh anon with star propitious the virgin,Speedeth thy soul to subdue – submerge it with love at the flood tide.Hasten, ye spindles, and run, yea, gallop, ye thread-running spindles!"Erstwhile, never a home hath roofed like generous loving,Never before hath Love conjoinèd lovers so dearly, —Never with harmony such as endureth for Thetis and Peleus.Hasten, ye spindles, and run, yea, gallop, ye thread-running spindles!"Born unto you shall be the undaunted heart of Achilles,Aye by his brave breast known, unknown by his back to the foeman, —Victor in onslaught, victor in devious reach of the race-course,Fleeter of foot than feet of the stag that lighten and vanish, —Hasten, ye spindles, and run, yea, gallop, ye thread-running spindles!"

192. Achilles, Son of Peleus. So the sisters prophesied the future of the hero, Achilles, – from his father called Pelides; from his grandfather, Æacides. How by him the Trojans should fall, as fall the ears of corn when they are yellow before the scythe; how because of him Scamander should run red, warm with blood, choked with blind bodies, into the whirling Hellespont; how finally he himself, in his prime, should fall, and how on his tomb should be sacrificed the fair Polyxena, daughter of Priam, whom he had loved. "So," says Catullus, "sang the Fates. For those were the days before piety and righteous action were spurned by mankind, the days when Jupiter and his immortals deigned to consort with zealous man, to enjoy the sweet odor of his burnt-offering, to march beside him to battle, to swell his shout in victory and his lament in defeat, to smile on his peaceful harvests, to recline at his banquets, and to bless the weddings of fair women and goodly heroes. But now, alas," concludes Catullus, "godliness and chastity, truth, wisdom, and honor have departed from among men":

Fig. 149

Wherefore the gods no more vouchsafe their presence to mortals,Suffer themselves no more to be touched by the ray of the morning.But there were gods in the pure, – in the golden prime of the Ages.

The hero of the Trojan War, here prophesied, Achilles, fleet of foot, the dauntless, the noble, the beloved of Zeus, the breaker of the ranks of men, is the ideal hero of the Greeks, – the mightiest of the Achæans far. Of his youth many interesting stories are told: how his mother, endeavoring to make him invulnerable, plunged him in the river Styx, and succeeded save with regard to his ankles by which she held him; and how he was educated in eloquence and the arts of war by his father's friend Phœnix, and by his father's other friend Chiron, the centaur, in riding and hunting and music and the art of healing. One of the most Greek-minded of our English poets, Matthew Arnold,279 singing of a beauteous dell by Etna, tells how

In such a glen, on such a day,On Pelion, on the grassy ground,Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay,The young Achilles standing by.The Centaur taught him to exploreThe mountains; where the glens are dryAnd the tired Centaurs come to rest,And where the soaking springs aboundAnd the straight ashes grow for spears,And where the hill goats come to feedAnd the sea eagles build their nest.He showed him Phthia far away.And said, "O boy, I taught this loreTo Peleus, in long distant years!"He told him of the gods, the stars,The tides; – and then of mortal wars,And of the life which heroes leadBefore they reach the Elysian placeAnd rest in the immortal mead;And all the wisdom of his race.

Upon the character of Achilles, outspoken, brave, impulsive; to his friends passionately devoted, to his foes implacable; lover of war and lover of home; inordinately ambitious but submissive to divine decree; – upon this handsome, gleaming, terrible, glooming, princely warrior of his race, the poet of the Iliad delights to dwell, and the world has delighted in the portraiture from that day to this.

193. Atreus was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia and grandson of Tantalus, therefore great-grandson of Jove. Both by blood and by marriage he was connected with Theseus. He took to wife Aërope, granddaughter of Minos II, king of Crete, and by her had two sons, Agamemnon, the general of the Grecian army in the Trojan War, and Menelaüs, at whose solicitation the war was undertaken. Of Atreus it may be said that with cannibal atrocity like that of his grandsire, Tantalus, he on one occasion wreaked his vengeance on a brother, Thyestes, by causing him to eat the flesh of two of his own children. A son of this Thyestes, Ægisthus by name, revived in due time against Agamemnon the treacherous feud that had existed between their fathers.

194. Tyndareus was king of Lacedæmon (Sparta). His wife was Leda, daughter of Thestius of Calydon, and sister of Althæa, the mother of Meleager and Dejanira. To Tyndareus Leda bore Castor and Clytemnestra; to Jove she bore Pollux and Helen. The two former were mortal; the two latter, immortal. Clytemnestra was married to Agamemnon of Mycenæ, to whom she bore Electra, Iphigenia, Chrysothemis, and Orestes. Helen, the fair immediate cause of the Trojan War, became the wife of Menelaüs, who with her obtained the kingdom of Sparta.

Of the families of Peleus, Atreus, and Tyndareus, the genealogies will be found in the Commentary corresponding with these sections of the story; also the genealogy of Ulysses, one of the leaders of the Greek army during the war and the hero of the Odyssey, which narrates his subsequent adventures; and that of the royal family of Troy against whom the war was undertaken. A slight study of these family trees will reveal interesting relationships between the principal participants in the war. For instance: that the passionate Achilles and the intolerant Ajax, second only to Achilles in military prowess, are first cousins; and that the family of Ajax is connected by marriage with that of the Trojan Hector, whom he meets in combat. That Ulysses is a distant cousin of his wife Penelope and of Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon; and that he is a kinsman of Patroclus, the bosom friend of Achilles. In the family of Tyndareus we note most the tragic and romantic careers of the women, – Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband and married his cousin Ægisthus; Helen, whose beauty provoked war between her two husbands and their races; Penelope, whose fidelity to her absent lord is the marvel of the Odyssey. It will be noticed, too, that the daughter of Helen, Hermione, is strangely enough married first by the son of Achilles and, afterwards, by the son of Agamemnon, and so becomes sister-in-law to her noble cousins, Electra and Iphigenia.

The kinsmen and descendants of Peleus – Telamon, Ajax, Teucer, Achilles, Neoptolemus – are characterized by their personal valor, their intolerant and resentful temper. In the family of Atreus, the men are remarkable for their kingly attributes; the principal women for their unwavering devotion to religious duty. The members of the royal family of Troy are of richly varied and most unusual individuality: like Tithonus and Memnon, Paris, Hesione, Cassandra and Polyxena, poetic and pathetic; like Laomedon, Priam, Hector and Troilus, patriotic, persistent in the face of overwhelming odds; but all fated to a dolorous end. Of those engaged in the Trojan War, Æneas and his aged father, Anchises, beloved of Venus, are practically the only survivors to a happier day.

CHAPTER XXII

THE TROJAN WAR

… At length I saw a lady within call,Stiller than chisel'd marble, standing there:A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,And most divinely fair.Her loveliness with shame and with surpriseFroze my swift speech: she turning on my faceThe starlike sorrows of immortal eyes,Spoke slowly in her place."I had great beauty; ask thou not my name:No one can be more wise than destiny.Many drew swords and died. Where'er I cameI brought calamity."280

195. Its Origin. At the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis all the gods had been invited with the exception of Eris, or Discord. Enraged at her exclusion, the goddess threw a golden apple among the guests, with the inscription, "For the fairest." Thereupon Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claimed the apple. Not willing to decide so delicate a matter, Jupiter sent the goddesses to Mount Ida where Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, was tending his flocks. Till that moment the shepherd-prince had been happy. He was young and beautiful and beloved, – "White-breasted like a star," says Œnone, the nymph whom he had wedded:

White-breasted like a starFronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skinDropp'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hairCluster'd about his temples like a god's:And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightensWhen the wind blows the foam, and all my heartWent forth to embrace him coming ere he came.[1]

But to him was now committed the judgment between the goddesses. They appeared:

And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,This way and that, in many a wild festoonRan riot, garlanding the gnarlèd boughsWith bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'.281

Juno promised him power and riches, Minerva glory and renown in war, Venus the fairest of women for his wife, – each attempting to bias the judge in her own favor. Paris, forgetting the fair nymph to whom he owed fealty, decided in favor of Venus, thus making the two other goddesses his enemies. Under the protection of the goddess of love, he soon afterwards sailed to Greece. Here he was hospitably received by Menelaüs, whose wife, Helen, as fairest of her sex, was unfortunately the prize destined for Paris. This fair queen had in time past been sought by numerous suitors; but before her decision was made known, they all, at the suggestion of Ulysses, son of Laërtes, king of Ithaca, had taken an oath that they would sustain her choice and avenge her cause if necessary. She was living happily with Menelaüs when Paris, becoming their guest, made love to her, and then, aided by Venus, persuaded her to elope with him, and carried her to Troy. From this cause arose the famous Trojan War, – the theme of the greatest poems of antiquity, those of Homer and Virgil.

Fig. 151. Achilles taken from Scyros

Menelaüs called upon the chieftains of Greece to aid him in recovering his wife. They came forward with a few exceptions. Ulysses, for instance, who had married a cousin of Helen's, Penelope, daughter of Icarius, was happy in his wife and child, and loth to embark in the troublesome affair. Palamedes was sent to urge him. But when Palamedes arrived at Ithaca, Ulysses pretended madness. He yoked an ass and an ox together to the plow and began to sow salt. The ambassador, to try him, placed the infant Telemachus before the plow, whereupon the father, turning the plow aside, showed that his insanity was a mere pretense. Being himself gained for the undertaking, Ulysses lent his aid to bring in other reluctant chiefs, especially Achilles, son of Peleus and Thetis. Thetis being herself one of the immortals, and knowing that her son was fated to perish before Troy if he went on the expedition, endeavored to prevent his going. She, accordingly, sent him to the court of King Lycomedes of the island of Scyros, and induced him to conceal himself in the garb of a maiden among the daughters of the king. Hearing that the young Achilles was there, Ulysses went disguised as a merchant to the palace and offered for sale female ornaments, among which had been placed some arms. Forgetting the part he had assumed, Achilles handled the weapons and thereby betrayed himself to Ulysses, who found no great difficulty in persuading him to disregard his mother's counsels and join his countrymen in the war.

It seems that from early youth Paris had been reared in obscurity, because there were forebodings that he would be the ruin of the state. These forebodings appeared, at last, likely to be realized; for the Grecian armament now in preparation was the greatest that had ever been fitted out. Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ and brother of Menelaüs, was chosen commander in chief. Preëminent among the warriors was the swift-footed Achilles. After him ranked his cousin Ajax, the son of Telamon, gigantic in size and of great courage, but dull of intellect; Diomede, the son of Tydeus, second only to Achilles in all the qualities of a hero; Ulysses, famous for sagacity; and Nestor, the oldest of the Grecian chiefs, to whom they all looked up for counsel.

But Troy was no feeble enemy. Priam the king, son of Laomedon and brother of Tithonus and Hesione, was now old; but he had been a wise prince and had strengthened his state by good government at home and powerful alliances with his neighbors. By his wife Hecuba he had a numerous family; but the principal stay and support of his throne was his son Hector, one of the noblest figures of antiquity. The latter had, from the first, a presentiment of the ruin of Troy, but still he persevered in heroic resistance, though he by no means justified the wrong which brought this danger upon his country. He was united in marriage with the noble Andromache, and as husband and father his character was not less admirable than as warrior. The principal leaders on the side of the Trojans, beside Hector, were his relative, Æneas, the son of Venus and Anchises, Deiphobus, Glaucus, and Sarpedon.

196. Iphigenia in Aulis. After two years of preparation, the Greek fleet and army assembled in the port of Aulis in Bœotia. Here Agamemnon, while hunting, killed a stag that was sacred to Diana. The goddess in retribution visited the army with pestilence and produced a calm which prevented the ships from leaving the port. Thereupon, Calchas the soothsayer announced that the wrath of the virgin goddess could only be appeased by the sacrifice of a virgin, and that none other but the daughter of the offender would be acceptable. Agamemnon, however reluctant, submitted to the inevitable and sent for his daughter Iphigenia, under the pretense that her marriage to Achilles was to be at once performed. But, in the moment of sacrifice, Diana, relenting, snatched the maiden away and left a hind in her place. Iphigenia, enveloped in a cloud, was conveyed to Tauris, where Diana made her priestess of her temple.282

Fig. 152. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

Iphigenia is represented as thus describing her feelings at the moment of sacrifice:

"I was cut off from hope in that sad place,Which men call'd Aulis in those iron years:My father held his hand upon his face;I, blinded with my tears,"Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighsAs in a dream. Dimly I could descryThe stern black-bearded kings, with wolfish eyesWaiting to see me die."The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat;The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore;The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat;Touch'd; and I knew no more."283

197. Protesilaüs and Laodamia. The wind now proving fair, the fleet made sail and brought the forces to the coast of Troy. The Trojans opposed their landing, and at the first onset one of the noblest of the Greeks, Protesilaüs, fell by the hand of Hector. This Protesilaüs had left at home his wife Laodamia (a niece of Alcestis), – who was most tenderly attached to him. The story runs that when the news of his death reached her, she implored the gods for leave to converse with him if but for three hours. The request was granted. Mercury led Protesilaüs back to the upper world; and when the hero died a second time Laodamia died with him. It is said that the nymphs planted elm trees round his grave, which flourished till they were high enough to command a view of Troy, then withered away, giving place to fresh branches that sprang from the roots.

Wordsworth has taken the story of Protesilaüs and Laodamia for a poem invested with the atmosphere of the classics. The oracle, according to the tradition, had declared that victory should be the lot of that party from which should fall the first victim in the war. The poet represents Protesilaüs, on his brief return to earth, relating to Laodamia the story of his fate:

"The wished-for wind was given: – I then revolvedThe oracle, upon the silent sea;And, if no worthier led the way, resolvedThat, of a thousand vessels, mine should beThe foremost prow in pressing to the strand, —Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand."Yet bitter, ofttimes bitter, was the pangWhen of thy loss I thought, belovèd Wife!On thee too fondly did my memory hang,And on the joys we shared in mortal life, —The paths which we had trod – these fountains, flowers,My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers."But should suspense permit the foe to cry,'Behold they tremble! – haughty their array,Yet of their number no one dares to die'?In soul I swept the indignity away:Old frailties then recurred: – but lofty thought,In act embodied, my deliverance wrought."…… Upon the sideOf Hellespont (such faith was entertained)A knot of spiry trees for ages grewFrom out the tomb of him for whom she died;And ever, when such stature they had gainedThat Ilium's walls were subject to their view,The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;A constant interchange of growth and blight!

198. Homer's Iliad. The war continued without decisive result for nine years. Then an event occurred which seemed likely to prove fatal to the cause of the Greeks, – a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon. It is at this point that the great poem of Homer, the Iliad, begins.