nelaus experience any difficulty.

Odysseus, famed for his wisdom and great astuteness, was at this time
living happily in Ithaca with his fair young wife Penelope and his little
son Telemachus, and was loath to leave his happy home for a perilous
foreign expedition of uncertain duration. When therefore his services were
solicited he feigned madness; but the shrewd Palamedes, a distinguished
hero in the suite of Menelaus, detected and exposed the ruse, and thus
Odysseus was forced to join in the war. But he never forgave the
interference of Palamedes, and, as we shall see, eventually revenged
himself upon him in a most cruel manner.

Achilles was the son of Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis, who is said to
have dipped her son, when a babe, in the river Styx, and thereby rendered
him invulnerable, except in the right heel, by which she held him. When the
boy was nine years old it was foretold to Thetis that he would either enjoy
a long life of inglorious ease and inactivity, or that after a brief career
of victory he would die the death of a hero. Naturally desirous of
prolonging the life of her son, the fond mother devoutly hoped that the
former fate might be allotted to him. With this view she conveyed him to
the island of Scyros, in the AEgean Sea, where, disguised as a girl, he was
brought up among the daughters of Lycomedes, king of the country.

Now that the presence of Achilles was required, owing to an oracular
prediction that Troy could not be taken without him, Menelaus consulted
Calchas the soothsayer, who revealed to him the place of his concealment.
Odysseus was accordingly despatched to Scyros, where, by {288} means of a
clever device, he soon discovered which among the maidens was the object of
his search. Disguising himself as a merchant, Odysseus obtained an
introduction to the royal palace, where he offered to the king's daughters
various trinkets for sale. The girls, with one exception, all examined his
wares with unfeigned interest. Observing this circumstance Odysseus
shrewdly concluded that the one who held aloof must be none other than the
young Achilles himself. But in order further to test the correctness of his
deduction, he now exhibited a beautiful set of warlike accoutrements,
whilst, at a given signal, stirring strains of martial music were heard
outside; whereupon Achilles, fired with warlike ardour, seized the weapons,
and thus revealed his identity. He now joined the cause of the Greeks,