d his neck,
and they both wept. That night Menelaus fought no more, but they tended
the wound of Ulysses, for the sword of Deiphobus had bitten through his
helmet.

When dawn came Troy lay in ashes, and the women were being driven with
spear shafts to the ships, and the men were left unburied, a prey to
dogs and all manner of birds. Thus the grey city fell, that had lorded
it for many centuries. All the gold and silver and rich embroideries,
and ivory and amber, the horses and chariots, were divided among the
army; all but a treasure of silver and gold, hidden in a chest within a
hollow of the wall, and this treasure was found, not very many years
ago, by men digging deep on the hill where Troy once stood. The women,
too, were given to the princes, and Neoptolemus took Andromache to his
home in Argos, to draw water from the well and to be the slave of a
master, and Agamemnon carried beautiful Cassandra, the daughter of
Priam, to his palace in Mycenae, where they were both slain in one
night. Only Helen was led with honour to the ship of Menelaus.

[Illustration: MENELAUS REFRAINS FROM KILLING HELEN AT THE INTERCESSION
OF ULYSSES.]

THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES

I

THE SLAYING OF AGAMEMNON AND THE SORROWS OF ULYSSES

The Greeks left Troy a mass of smouldering ashes; the marks of fire are
still to be seen in the ruins on the hill which is now called Hissarlik.
The Greeks had many troubles on their way home, and years passed before
some of the chiefs reached their own cities. As for Agamemnon, while he
was at Troy his wife, Clytaemnestra, the sister of Helen, had fallen in
love with a young man named Aegisthus, who wished to be king, so he
married Clytaemnestra, just as if Agamemnon had been dead. Meanwhile
Agamemnon was sailing home with his share of the wealth of Troy, and
many a storm drove him out of his course. At last he reached the
harbour, about seven miles from his city of Mycenae, and he kissed the
earth when he landed, thinking that all his troubles were over, and that
he would find his son and daughter, Orestes and Electra, grown up, and
his wife happy because of his return.

But Aegisthus had set, a year before, a watchman on a high tower, to
come with the news as soon as Agamemnon landed, and the watchman ran to
Mycenae with the good news. Aegisthus placed twenty armed men in a
hidden place in the great hall, and then he shouted for his chariots
and horses, and drove down to meet Agamemnon