Ulysses Goes To War

Long, long ago, the island of Ithaca, off the west coast of Greece, was ruled by a king called Ulysses.

Ithaca was a very pleasant island, for the summers were long and warm, and during the winter, there were only a few cold weeks. Wildflowers like violets, roses, lilies, and many others bloomed in the fields and meadows, while flocks of sheep and herds of goats and wild deer roamed the hillsides. Fruit grew on almost every tree and vine, and the sea around the island was full of fish.

Ulysses, whose wife was called Penelope, had one son named Telemachus, but he was only a baby when war suddenly came to Greece.

Far across the sea lay the city of Troy, which was ruled by a rich king called Priam. His youngest son, Paris, had been to visit Menelaus, one of the Greek kings, and while he was staying at the palace, Paris had fallen in love with the wife of King Menelaus. Her name was Helen, and she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris loved her so dearly that he could not bear to sail away without her, so when he returned home, he took her with him.

The news that Helen had been carried off to Troy by Paris soon spread to all the other Greek kings and princes, and it was taken by them as a great personal insult to King Menelaus.

King Agamemnon, whom they looked upon as their leader, ordered all the kings and princes of Greece and the islands around to gather all their ships and soldiers together and prepare for war against Troy.

On the island of Ithaca, Ulysses, who had heard about the war with Troy, did not want to leave his beloved island and his beautiful wife and little son. So when two princes came to Ithaca to ask Ulysses to join them in the war, he decided to trick them by pretending he was mad.

When the princes reached the palace of Ithaca, a servant told them that Ulysses had gone down to the beach with a plough, two oxen, and a bag of salt. Wondering what the king was doing, the princes went down to the seashore to see for themselves, and there they found Ulysses, ploughing the sand and sowing grains of salt in it, just as if he were ploughing and sowing a field with corn.

Although it seemed as though the king had lost his wits, the two princes could not be sure. They knew that Ulysses was a clever and cunning man, so they decided to test him.

They went back to the palace and fetched his baby son. Then they laid the child on the sand, right in the path that Ulysses would take as he ploughed the next furrow.

When Ulysses turned his plough, he saw his son lying on the sand before him, and he knew that if he continued, the oxen would kill the boy.

Just as he reached his son, he turned the oxen and the plough aside, and the two princes knew for certain that Ulysses was only pretending to be mad. They told him that however much he disliked the idea of leaving Ithaca and his family behind, he must obey the orders of King Agamemnon, lord of all the kings and princes of Greece, and come and fight in the war.

Ulysses knew he could not disobey King Agamemnon, so he gathered together twelve black ships, their bows and sterns painted red, and summoned his soldiers. Each soldier manned an oar, and after saying a sad farewell to his wife and son, the King of Ithaca boarded his boat, and the fleet rowed away. They soon met up with the others, and now the Greek fleet numbered over a thousand ships and many thousands of soldiers.

Although the fleet was so large, the Greek leaders knew that they could not take the city of Troy without the help of another prince named Achilles, for it had been prophesied that without Achilles, the war against Troy would never be won.

Achilles was the son of a king called Peleus, and at his birth, his mother, who was the goddess of the sea, had been told that her son would be a brave and mighty warrior, but he would die in battle when he was quite young.

His mother, who did not want her son to die young, sent Achilles far away to the island of Scyros, where, dressed as a girl, he lived with the King of Scyros’s daughters.

The Greek leaders, who were certain because of the prophecy that they could never take Troy without the help of Achilles, altered course for the island of Scyros.

Once there, the King of Scyros invited the leaders of the Greek fleet to his palace, but although Ulysses looked everywhere for Achilles, he did not find him. So, he thought up a plan that would reveal the boy.

Ulysses dressed as a peddler and pretended he had just arrived from a far country. When the king’s daughters heard that a foreign trader had landed on the island, they flocked to see what exciting things he had brought with him for them to buy. One of the girls chose a gold brooch, another bought a pair of glittering glass earrings, and a third bought a roll of cloth to make a dress.

Right at the bottom of the peddler’s pack, Ulysses had placed a fine bronze sword with a golden hilt. When Achilles, disguised as a girl, saw this, he reached down, and drawing the sword from its sheath, he whirled it around his head. “Ah! At last,” cried Ulysses. “Now I know who you are. You are Achilles, the son of King Peleus. Come with us, and you will become the greatest of all Greek warriors.”

Achilles’ mother wept when her son returned, and she heard that he was preparing for battle. “Stay here with me,” she said, “and you will have a long and peaceful life. If you go to war, you will gain great fame as a warrior, but you will die young.”

Achilles, however, had to become a warrior, so his father, who was too old to go to war himself, gave him fifty ships, and his mother, realizing that she could not persuade him to stay, gave him a suit of wonderful armor and a heavy spear that only Achilles himself could lift.

Then, with his fleet of ships and his soldiers, the young man sailed to meet the rest of the Greek fleet, the proudest and fiercest soldier of all.