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THE WOOING OF HELEN OF THE FAIR HANDS
This was the way in which people lived when Ulysses was young, and wished
to be married. The worst thing in the way of life was that the greatest
and most beautiful princesses might be taken prisoners, and carried off
as slaves to the towns of the men who had killed their fathers and
husbands. Now at that time one lady was far the fairest in the world:
namely, Helen, daughter of King Tyndarus. Every young prince heard of
her and desired to marry her; so her father invited them all to his
palace, and entertained them, and found out what they would give. Among
the rest Ulysses went, but his father had a little kingdom, a rough
island, with others near it, and Ulysses had not a good chance. He was
not tall; though very strong and active, he was a short man with broad
shoulders, but his face was handsome, and, like all the princes, he wore
long yellow hair, clustering like a hyacinth flower. His manner was
rather hesitating, and he seemed to speak very slowly at first, though
afterwards his words came freely. He was good at everything a man can
do; he could plough, and build houses, and make ships, and he was the
best archer in Greece, except one, and could bend the great bow of a dead
king, Eurytus, which no other man could string. But he had no horses,
and had no great train of followers; and, in short, neither Helen nor her
father thought of choosing Ulysses for her husband out of so many tall,
handsome young princes, glittering with gold ornaments. Still, Helen was
very kind to Ulysses, and there was great friendship between them, which
was fortunate for her in the end.
Tyndarus first made all the princes take an oath that they would stand by
the prince whom he chose, and would fight for him in all his quarrels.
Then he named for her husband Menelaus, King of Lacedaemon. He was a
very brave man, but not one of the strongest; he was not such a fighter
as the gigantic Aias, the tallest and strongest of men; or as Diomede,
the friend of Ulysses; or as his own brother, Agamemnon, the King of the
rich city of Mycenae, who was chief over all other princes, and general
of the whole army in war. The great lions carved in stone that seemed to
guard his city are still standing above the gate through which Agamemnon
used to drive his chariot.
The man who proved to be the best fighter of all, Achilles, was not among
the lovers of Helen, for he was still a boy, and his mother, Thetis of
the silver feet, a goddess of the sea, had sent him to be brought up as a
girl, among the daughters of Lycomedes of Scyros, in an island far away.
Thetis did this because Achilles was her only child, and there was a
prophecy that, if he went to the wars, he would win the greatest glory,
but die very young, and never see his mother again. She thought that if
war broke out he would not be found hiding in girl's dress, among girls,
far away.
So at last, after thinking over the matter for long, Tyndarus gave fair
Helen to Menelaus, the rich King of Lacedaemon; and her twin sister
Clytaemnestra, who was also very beautiful, was given to King Agamemnon,
the chief over all the princes. They all lived very happily together at
first, but not for long.
In the meantime King Tyndarus spoke to his brother Icarius, who had a
daughter named Penelope. She also was very pretty, but not nearly so
beautiful as her cousin, fair Helen, and we know that Penelope was not
very fond of her cousin. Icarius, admiring the strength and wisdom of
Ulysses, gave him his daughter Penelope to be his wife, and Ulysses loved
her very dearly, no man and wife were ever dearer to each other. They
went away together to rocky Ithaca, and perhaps Penelope was not sorry
that a wide sea lay between her home and that of Helen; for Helen was not
only the fairest woman that ever lived in the world, but she was so kind
and gracious and charming that no man could see her without loving her.
When she was only a child, the famous prince Theseus, who was famous in
Greek Story, carried her away to his own city of Athens, meaning to marry
her when she grew up, and even at that time, there was a war for her
sake, for her brothers followed Theseus with an army, and fought him, and
brought her home.
She had fairy gifts; for instance, she had a great red jewel, called "the
Star," and when she wore it red drops seemed to fall from it and vanished
before they touched and stained her white breast--so white that people
called her "the Daughter of the Swan." She could speak in the very voice
of any man or woman, so folk also named her Echo, and it was believed
that she could neither grow old nor die, but would at last pass away to
the Elysian plain and the world's end, where life is easiest for men. No
snow comes thither, nor great storm, nor any rain; but always the river
of Ocean that rings round the whole earth sends forth the west wind to
blow cool on the people of King Rhadamanthus of the fair hair. These
were some of the stories that men told of fair Helen, but Ulysses was
never sorry that he had not the fortune to marry her, so fond he was of
her cousin, his wife, Penelope, who was very wise and good.
When Ulysses brought his wife home they lived, as the custom was, in the
palace of his father, King Laertes, but Ulysses, with his own hands,
built a chamber for Penelope and himself. There grew a great olive tree
in the inner court of the palace, and its stem was as large as one of the
tall carved pillars of the hall. Round about this tree Ulysses built the
chamber, and finished it with close-set stones, and roofed it over, and
made close-fastening doors. Then he cut off all the branches of the
olive tree, and smoothed the trunk, and shaped it into the bed-post, and
made the bedstead beautiful with inlaid work of gold and silver and
ivory. There was no such bed in Greece, and no man could move it from
its place, and this bed comes again into the story, at the very end.
Now time went by, and Ulysses and Penelope had one son called Telemachus;
and Eurycleia, who had been his father's nurse, took care of him. They
were all very happy, and lived in peace in rocky Ithaca, and Ulysses
looked after his lands, and flocks, and herds, and went hunting with his
dog Argos, the swiftest of hounds. _