Gateway to the Classics: Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang

Tales of Troy and Greece

by Andrew Lang

Table of Contents

The Boyhood and Parents of Ulysses

How People Lived in the Time of Ulysses

The Wooing of Helen of the Fair Hands

The Stealing of Helen

Trojan Victories

Battle at the Ships

The Slaying and Avenging of Patroclus

The Cruelty of Achilles and Ransoming of Hector

How Ulysses Stole the Luck of Troy

The Battle with the Amazons and Memnon

Ulysses Sails To Seek the Son of Achilles

The Slaying of Paris

How Ulysses Invented the Horse of Tree

The End of Troy and the Saving of Helen

The Slaying of Agamemnon and Sorrows of Ulysses

The Enchantress Circe, Land of the Dead, Sirens

The Whirlpool, Sea Monster, and Cattle of the Sun

How Telemachus Went To Seek His Father

How Ulysses Escaped from the Island of Calypso

How Ulysses Was Wrecked, Yet Reached Phaeacia

How Ulysses Came to His Own Country

Ulysses Comes Disguised to His Own Palace

The Slaying of the Wooers

The End

The Children of the Cloud

The Search for the Fleece

The Winning of the Fleece

The Wedding of Æthra

The Boyhood of Theseus

Adventures of Theseus

Theseus Finds His Father

Heralds Come for Tribute

Theseus in Crete

The Slaying of the Minotaur

The Prison of Danae

The Vow of Perseus

Perseus and Andromeda

How Perseus Avenged Danae

Back Matter

Notes

< I>THE story of Ulysses is taken mainly from the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Post Homerica of Quintus Smyrnæus. As we have no detailed account of the stealing of the Palladium by Ulysses, use has been made of Helen's tale about his entry into Troy in the disguise of a beaten beggar.

The chief source of "The Fleece of Gold" is tradition, with the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the fight between Polydeuces and the Giant is best reported by Theocritus.

No epic or tragedy concerning the early fortunes of Theseus and the history of Perseus has reached us: summaries in Plutarch and Apollodorus provide the outlines of the legends.

The descriptions of costume, arms, and mode of life are derived from Homer and from the "Mycenæan" relics discovered in the last thirty years by Dr. Schliemann, Mr. A. J. Evans, and many other explorers.

"The Fleece of Gold," first published in an American magazine, has also appeared in America in a little volume (Henry Altemus & Co.). It is here reprinted by permission of Messrs. Altemus, with some changes and corrections.