or of the white beard at Pylos, Nestor who had reigned
over two generations of men, who had fought against the wild folk of the
hills, and remembered the strong Heracles, and Eurytus of the black bow
that sang before the day of battle.

The cry came to black-bearded Agamemnon, in his strong town called
"golden Mycenae," because it was so rich; it came to the people in
Thisbe, where the wild doves haunt; and it came to rocky Pytho, where is
the sacred temple of Apollo and the maid who prophesies. It came to
Aias, the tallest and strongest of men, in his little isle of Salamis;
and to Diomede of the loud war-cry, the bravest of warriors, who held
Argos and Tiryns of the black walls of huge, stones, that are still
standing. The summons came to the western islands and to Ulysses in
Ithaca, and even far south to the great island of Crete of the hundred
cities, where Idomeneus ruled in Cnossos; Idomeneus, whose ruined palace
may still be seen with the throne of the king, and pictures painted on
the walls, and the King's own draught-board of gold and silver, and
hundreds of tablets of clay, on which are written the lists of royal
treasures. Far north went the news to Pelasgian Argos, and Hellas, where
the people of Peleus dwelt, the Myrmidons; but Peleus was too old to
fight, and his boy, Achilles, dwelt far away, in the island of Scyros,
dressed as a girl, among the daughters of King Lycomedes. To many
another town and to a hundred islands went the bitter news of approaching
war, for all princes knew that their honour and their oaths compelled
them to gather their spearmen, and bowmen, and slingers from the fields
and the fishing, and to make ready their ships, and meet King Agamemnon
in the harbour of Aulis, and cross the wide sea to besiege Troy town.

Now the story is told that Ulysses was very unwilling to leave his island
and his wife Penelope, and little Telemachus; while Penelope had no wish
that he should pass into danger, and into the sight of Helen of the fair
hands. So it is said that when two of the princes came to summon
Ulysses, he pretended to be mad, and went ploughing the sea sand with
oxen, and sowing the sand with salt. Then the prince Palamedes took the
baby Telemachus from the arms of his nurse, Eurycleia, and laid him in
the line of the furrow, where the ploughshare would strike him and kill
him. But Ulysses turned the plough aside, and they cried that he was not
mad, but sane, and he must keep hi