Original Copyright 1906 by Alfred J. Church. Distributed by Heritage History 2010
CHAPTER I
THE CYCLOPS
A great many years ago there was a very famous siege
of a city called Troy. The eldest son of the king who reigned in
this city carried off the wife of one of the Greek kings, and
with her a great quantity of gold and silver. She was the most
beautiful woman in the world, and all the princes of Greece
had come to her father's court wishing to marry her. Her father
had made them all swear, that if any one should steal her away
from the man whom she would choose for her husband, they
would help him to get her back. This promise they had now to
keep. So they all went to besiege Troy, each taking a number
of his subjects with him. On the other hand, the Trojans were
helped by many of the nations that lived near them. The siege
lasted for a long time, but in the tenth year the city was taken.
Then the Greeks began to think about going home. The story
that you are now going to hear is about one of these Greek
princes, Ulysses by name, who was the King of Ithaca. (This
was an island on the west coast of Greece, and you can find it
now marked on the map.) Ulysses was, according to one story,
very unwilling to go. He had married, you see, a very good
and beautiful wife, and had a little son. So he pretended to be
mad, and took a plough down to the sea-shore and began to
plough the sand. But some one took his little son and laid him
in front of the plough. And when Ulysses stopped lest he
should hurt him, people said: "This man is not really mad." So
he had to go. And this is the story of how, at last, he came
back.
When Troy had been taken, Ulysses and his men set
sail for his home, the Island of Ithaca. He had twelve ships
with him, and fifty men or thereabouts in each ship. The first
place they came to was a city called Isma rus. This they took
and plundered. Ulysses said to his men: "Let us sail away with
what we have got." They would not listen to him, but sat on
the sea-shore, and feasted, for they had found plenty of wine in
the city, and many sheep and oxen in the fields round it.
Meanwhile the people who had escaped out of the city fetched
their countrymen who dwelt in the mountains, and brought an
army to fight with the Greeks. The battle began early in the
morning of the next day, and lasted nearly till sunset. At first
the Greeks had the better of it, but in the afternoon the people
of the country prevailed, and drove them to their ships. Very
glad were they to get away; but when they came to count, they
found that they had lost six men out of each ship.
After this a great storm fell upon the ships, and carried
them far to the south, past the very island to which they were
bound. It was very hard on Ulysses. He was close to his home,
if he could only have stopped; but he could not, and though he
saw it again soon after, it was ten years before he reached it,
having gone through many adventures in the meantime.
The first of these was in the country of the Cyclopes or
Round-eyed People. Late on a certain day Ulysses came with
his ships to an island, and found in it a beautiful harbour, with
a stream falling into it, and a flat beach on which to draw up
the ships. That night he and his men slept by the ships, and the
next day they made a great feast. The island was full of wild
goats. These the men hunted and killed, using their spears and
bows. They had been on shipboard for many days, and had had
but little food. Now they had plenty, eight goats to every ship,
and nine for the ship of Ulysses, because he was the chief. So
they ate till they were satisfied, and drank wine which they
had carried away from Isma rus.
Now there was another island about a mile away, and
they could see that it was larger, and it seemed as if there
might be people living in it. The island where they were was
not inhabited. So on the second morning Ulysses said to his
men: "Stay here, my dear friends; I with my own ship and my
own company will go to yonder island, and find out who
