e 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.

THE STEALING OF HELEN

This happy time did not last long, and Telemachus was still a baby, when
war arose, so great and mighty and marvellous as had never been known in
the world. Far across the sea that lies on the east of Greece, there
dwelt the rich King Priam. His town was called Troy, or Ilios, and it
stood on a hill near the seashore, where are the straits of Hellespont,
between Europe and Asia; it was a great city surrounded by strong walls,
and its ruins are still standing. The kings could make merchants who
passed through the straits pay toll to them, and they had allies in
Thrace, a part of Europe opposite Troy, and Priam was chief of all
princes on his side of the sea, as Agamemnon was chief king in Greece.
Priam had many beautiful things; he had a vine made of gold, with golden
leaves and clusters, and he had the swiftest horses, and many strong and
brave sons; the strongest and bravest was named Hector, and the youngest
and most beautiful was named Paris.

There was a prophecy that Priam's wife would give birth to a burning
torch, so, when Paris was born, Priam sent a servant to carry the baby
into a wild wood on Mount Ida, and leave him to die or be eaten by wolves
and wild cats. The servant left the child, but a shepherd found him, and
brought him up as his own son. The boy became as bea