Читать книгу The Story of Troy - Michael Clarke - Страница 7

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Design by Burne-Jones.

That part of Asia Minor which borders the narrow channel now known as the Dar-da-nellesʹ, was in ancient times called Troʹas. Its capital was the city of Troy, which stood about three miles from the shore of the Æ-geʹan Sea, at the foot of Mount Ida, near the junction of two rivers, the Simʹo-is, and the Sca-manʹder or Xanʹthus. The people of Troy and Troas were called Trojans.

Some of the first settlers in northwestern Asia Minor, before it was called Troas, came from Thrace, a country lying to the north of Greece. The king of these Thraʹcian colonists was Teuʹcer. During his reign a prince named Darʹdanus arrived in the new settlement. He was a son of Jupiter, and he came from Samʹo-thrace, one of the many islands of the Ægean Sea. It is said that he escaped from a great flood which swept over his native island, and that he was carried on a raft of wood to the coast of the kingdom of Teucer. Soon afterwards he married Teucer's daughter. He then built a city for himself amongst the hills of Mount Ida, and called it Dar-daʹni-a; and on the death of Teucer he became king of the whole country, to which he gave the same name, Dardania.

Jove was the father, cloud-compelling Jove,

Of Dardanus, by whom Dardania first

Was peopled, ere our sacred Troy was built

On the great plain—a populous town; for men

Dwelt still upon the roots of Ida fresh

With Qiany springs.

Bryant, Iliad, Book XX.

Dardanus was the ancestor of the Trojan line of kings. He had a grandson named Tros, and from him the city Troy, as well as the country Troas, took its name. The successor of King Tros was his son Iʹlus. By him Troy was built, and it was therefore also called Ilʹi-um or Ilʹi-on; hence the title of Homer's great poem—the Iliad. From the names Dardanus and Teucer the city of Troy has also been sometimes called Dardania and Teuʹcri-a, and the Trojans are often referred to as Dardanians and Teucrians. Ilus was succeeded by his son La-omʹe-don, and Laomedon's son Priʹam was king of Troy during the famous siege.

The story of the founding of Troy is a very interesting one. Ilus went forth from his father's city of Dardania, in search of adventures, as was the custom of young princes and heroes in those days; and he traveled on until he arrived at the court of the king of Phrygʹi-a, a country lying east of Troas. Here he found the people engaged in athletic games, at which the king gave valuable prizes for competition. Ilus took part in a wrestling match, and he won fifty young men and fifty maidens—a strange sort of prize we may well think, but not at all strange or unusual in ancient times, when there were many slaves everywhere. During his stay in Phrygia the young Dardanian prince was hospitably entertained at the royal palace. When he was about to depart, the king gave him a spotted heifer, telling him to follow the animal, and to build a city for himself at the place where she should first lie down to rest.

Ilus did as he was directed. With his fifty youths and fifty maidens he set out to follow the heifer, leaving her free to go along at her pleasure. She marched on for many miles, and at last lay down at the foot of Mount Ida on a beautiful plain watered by two rivers, and here Ilus encamped for the night. Before going to sleep he prayed to Jupiter to send him a sign that that was the site meant for his city. In the morning he found standing in front of his tent a wooden statue of the goddess Minerva, also called Pallas. The figure was three cubits high. In its right hand it held a spear, and in the left, a distaff and spindle.

This was the Pal-laʹdi-um of Troy, which afterwards became very famous. The Trojans believed that it had been sent down from heaven, and that the safety of their city depended upon its preservation. Hence it was guarded with the greatest care in a temple specially built for the purpose.

Ilus, being satisfied that the statue was the sign for which he had prayed, immediately set about building his city, and thus Troy was founded. It soon became the capital of Troas and the richest and most powerful city in that part of the world. During the reign of Laomedon, son of Ilus, its mighty walls were erected, which in the next reign withstood for ten years all the assaults of the Greeks. These walls were the work of no human hands. They were built by the ocean god Neptune. This god had conspired against Jupiter and attempted to dethrone him, and, as a punishment, his kingdom of the sea was taken away from him for one year, and he was ordered to spend that time in the service of the king of Troy.

In building the great walls, Neptune was assisted by Apollo, who had also been driven from Olympus for an offense against Jupiter. Apollo had a son named Æs-cu-laʹpi-us, who was so skilled a physician that he could, and did, raise people from death to life. Jupiter was very angry at this. He feared that men might forget him and worship Æsculapius. He therefore hurled a thunderbolt at the great physician and killed him. Enraged at the death of his son, Apollo threatened to destroy the Cyclops, the giant workmen of Vulcan, who had forged the terrible thunderbolt. Before he could carry out his threat, however, Jupiter expelled him from heaven. He remained on earth for several years, after which he was permitted to return to his place among the gods on the top of Mount Olympus.

Neptune. National Museum, Athens.

Though Neptune was bound to serve Laomedon for one year, there was an agreement between them that the god should get a certain reward for building the walls. But when the work was finished the Trojan king refused to keep his part of the bargain. Apollo had assisted by his powers of music. He played such tunes that he charmed even the huge blocks of stone, so that they moved themselves into their proper places, after Neptune had wrenched them from the mountain sides and had hewn them into shape. Moreover, Apollo had taken care of Laomedon's numerous flocks on Mount Ida. During the siege, Neptune, in a conversation with Apollo before the walls of Troy, spoke of their labors in the service of the Trojan king:

"Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch's prayer,

We shared the lengthen'd labors of a year?

Troy walls I raised (for such were Jove's commands),

And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands:

Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves

Along fair Ida's vales and pendant groves."

Pope, Iliad, Book XXI.

Long before this, however, the two gods had punished Laomedon very severely for breaking his promise. Apollo, after being restored to heaven, sent a plague upon the city of Troy, and Neptune sent up from the sea an enormous serpent which killed many of the people.

A great serpent from the deep,

Lifting his horrible head above their homes,

Devoured the children.

Lewis Morris.

In this terrible calamity the king asked an oracle in what way the anger of the two gods might be appeased. The answer of the oracle was that a Trojan maiden must each year be given to the monster to be devoured. Every year, therefore, a young girl, chosen by lot, was taken down to the seashore and chained to a rock to become the prey of the serpent. And every year the monster came and swallowed up a Trojan maiden, and then went away and troubled the city no more until the following year, when he returned for another victim. At last the lot fell on He-siʹo-ne, the daughter of the king. Deep was Laomedon's grief at the thought of the awful fate to which his child was thus doomed.

But help came at an unexpected moment. While, amid the lamentations of her family and friends, preparations were being made to chain Hesione to the rock, the great hero, Herʹcu-les, happened to visit Troy. He was on his way home to Greece, after performing in a distant eastern country one of those great exploits which made him famous in ancient story. The hero undertook to destroy the serpent, and thus save the princess, on condition that he should receive as a reward certain wonderful horses which Laomedon just then had in his possession. These horses were given to Laomedon's grandfather, Tros, on a very interesting occasion. Tros had a son named Ganʹy-mede, a youth of wonderful beauty, and Jupiter admired Ganymede so much that he had him carried up to heaven to be cupbearer to the gods—to serve the divine nectar at the banquets on Mount Olympus.

Godlike Ganymede, most beautiful

Of men; the gods beheld and caught him up

To heaven, so beautiful was he, to pour

The wine to Jove, and ever dwell with them.

Bryant, Iliad, Book XX.

To compensate Tros for the loss of his son, Jupiter gave him four magnificent horses of immortal breed and marvelous fleetness. These were the horses which Hercules asked as his reward for destroying the serpent. As there was no other way of saving the life of his daughter, Laomedon consented. Hercules then went down to the seashore, bearing in his hand the huge club which he usually carried, and wearing his lion-skin over his shoulders. This was the skin of a fierce lion he had strangled to death in a forest in Greece, and he always wore it when going to perform any of his heroic feats.

When Hesione had been bound to the rock, the hero stood beside her and awaited the coming of the serpent. In a short time its hideous form emerged from beneath the waves, and darting forward it was about to seize the princess, when Hercules rushed upon it, and with mighty strokes of his club beat the monster to death. Thus was the king's daughter saved and all Troy delivered from a terrible scourge. But when the hero claimed the reward that had been agreed upon, and which he had so well earned, Laomedon again proved himself to be a man who was neither honest nor grateful. Disregarding his promise, and forgetful, too, of what he and his people had already suffered as a result of his breach of faith with the two gods, he refused to give Hercules the horses.

The hero at once went away from Troy, but not without resolving to return at a convenient time and punish Laomedon. This he did, not long afterwards, when he had completed the celebrated "twelve labors" at which he had been set by a Grecian king, whom Jupiter commanded him to serve for a period of years because of an offense he had committed. One of these labors was the killing of the lion. Another was the destroying of the Lerʹnæ-an hydra, a frightful serpent with many heads, which for a long time had been devouring man and beast in the district of Lerʹna in Greece.

Having accomplished his twelve great labors and ended his term of service, Hercules collected an army and a fleet, and sailed to the shores of Troas. He then marched against the city, took it by surprise, and slew Laomedon and all his sons, with the exception of Po-darʹces, afterwards called Priam. This prince had tried to persuade his father to fulfill the engagement with Hercules, for which reason his life was spared. He was made a slave, however, as was done in ancient times with prisoners taken in war. But Hesione ransomed her brother, giving her gold-embroidered veil as the price of his freedom. From this time he was called Priam, a word which in the Greek language means "purchased." Hesione also prevailed upon Hercules to restore Priam to his right as heir to his father's throne, and so he became king of Troy. Hesione herself was carried off to Greece, where she was given in marriage to Telʹa-mon, king of Salʹa-mis, a friend of Hercules.

Priam reigned over his kingdom of Troas many years in peace and prosperity. His wife and queen, the virtuous Hecʹu-ba, was a daughter of a Thracian king. They had nineteen children, many of whom became famous during the great siege. Their eldest son, Hecʹtor, was the bravest of the Trojan heroes. Their son Parʹis it was, as we shall see, who brought upon his country the disastrous war. Another son, Helʹe-nus, and his sister Cas-sanʹdra, were celebrated soothsayers.

Cassandra was a maiden of remarkable beauty. The god Apollo loved her so much that he offered to grant her any request if she would accept him as her husband. Cassandra consented and asked for the power of foretelling events, but when she received it, she slighted the god and refused to perform her promise. Apollo was enraged at her conduct, yet he could not take back the gift he had bestowed. He decreed, however, that no one should believe or pay any attention to her predictions, true though they should be. And so when Cassandra foretold the evils that were to come upon Troy, even her own people would not credit her words. They spoke of her as the "mad prophetess."

Cassandra cried, and cursed the unhappy hour;

Foretold our fate; but by the god's decree,

All heard, and none believed the prophecy.

Vergil.

The first sorrow in the lives of King Priam and his good queen came a short time before the birth of Paris, when Hecuba dreamed that her next child would bring ruin upon his family and native city. This caused the deepest distress to Priam and Hecuba, especially when the soothsayer Æsʹa-cus declared that the dream would certainly be fulfilled. Then, though they were tender and loving parents, they made up their minds to sacrifice their own feelings rather than that such a calamity should befall their country. When the child was born, the king, therefore, ordered it to be given to Ar-che-laʹus, one of the shepherds of Mount Ida, with instructions to expose it in a place where it might be destroyed by wild beasts. The shepherd, though very unwilling to do so cruel a thing, was obliged to obey, but on returning to the spot a few days afterwards he found the infant boy alive and unhurt. Some say that the child had been nursed and carefully tended by a she-bear. Archelaus was so touched with pity at the sight of the innocent babe smiling in his face, that he took the boy to his cottage, and, giving him the name Paris, brought him up as one of his own family.

With the herdsmen on Mount Ida, Paris spent his early years, not knowing that he was King Priam's son. He was a brave youth, and of exceeding beauty.

"His sunny hair

Cluster'd about his temples like a god's."

Tennyson, Œnone.

He was skilled, too, in all athletic exercises, he was a bold huntsman, and so brave in defending the shepherds against the attacks of robbers that they called him Alexander, a name which means a protector of men. Thus the young prince became a favorite with the people who lived on the hills. Very happy he was amongst them, and amongst the flocks which his good friend and foster father, Archelaus, gave him to be his own. He was still more happy in the company of the charming nymph Œ-noʹne, the daughter of a river god; and he loved her and made her his wife. But this happiness was destined not to be of long duration. The Fates[A] had decreed it otherwise. Œnone the beautiful, whose sorrows have been the theme of many poets, was to lose the love of the young shepherd prince, and the dream of Hecuba was to have its fulfillment.

The Fate

That rules the will of Jove had spun the days

Of Paris and Œnone.

Quintus Smyrnæus.

[A] The Fates were the three sisters, Cloʹtho, Lachʹe-sis, and Atʹro-pos, powerful goddesses who controlled the birth and life of mankind, Clotho, the youngest, presided over the moment of birth, and held a distaff in her hand; Lachesis spun out the thread of human existence (all the events and action's of man's life); and Atropos, with a pair of shears which she always carried, cut this thread at the moment of death.