he went to the
palace. The suitors mocked him, and then in sport it was proposed to see
who could bend the great Ulysses's bow. It was brought out, but none
could bend it. The beggar asked leave to try, and they hesitated, but
gave him leave. Right easily he bent it, and sent then a broad arrow
through the leader of the suitors. Ulysses's son ranged himself by his
side. Some old servants, recognizing him, did the same; and soon all
those parasites were slain. Then was there a royal welcome from wife and
son, and afterward from kinsmen and friends and servants, for the royal
wanderer, whom the gods had spared, and who at last was returned home.

AENEAS

By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

[Illustration: AEneas.]

Among the Trojans at the fall of Troy there was a prince called AEneas,
whose father was Anchises, a cousin of Priam, and whose mother was said
to be the goddess Venus. When he saw that the city was lost he rushed
back to his house and took his old father Anchises on his back, giving
him his penates, or little images of household gods, to take care of,
and led by the hand his little son Iulus, or Ascanius, while his wife
Creusa followed close behind, and all the Trojans who could get their
arms together joined him, so that they escaped in a body to Mount Ida;
but just as they were outside the city he missed poor Creusa, and though
he rushed back and searched for her everywhere, he never could find her.
Because of his care for his gods, and for his old father, he is always
known as the pious AEneas.

In the forests of Mount Ida he built ships enough to set forth with all
his followers in quest of the new home which his mother, the goddess
Venus, gave him hopes of. He had adventures rather like those of Ulysses
as he sailed about the Mediterranean. Once in the Strophades, some
clusters belonging to the Ionian Islands, where he and his troops had
landed to get food, and were eating the flesh of the numerous goats
which they found climbing about the rocks, down on them came the
harpies, horrible birds with women's faces and hooked hands, with which
they snatched away the food and spoiled what they could not eat. The
Trojans shot at them, but the arrows glanced off their feathers and did
not hurt them. However, they all flew off except one, who sat on a high
rock, and croaked out that the Trojans would be punished for thus
molesting the harpies, by being tossed about till they should reach
Italy, but there they shou