Chapter 4 4

Paris went to Sparta as an envoy, but his behavior seriously violated the civil law and the principle of guest and host, and soon produced bad results. King Menelaus of Sparta and his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, were the most powerful royal family among Greek heroes.Both were descendants of Tantalus, son of Zeus, grandson of Pelops, son of Atreus.This is a noble family.In addition to ruling Argos and Sparta, they also ruled other kingdoms in Peloponnese.Many of the kings of Greece were their allies. Menelaus was furious when he heard that his wife had been kidnapped.He left Pylos at once and rushed to Mycenae, where he told his brother Agamemnon and Helen's half-sister Clytemnestra.Both of them shared the pain and humiliation for him.Agamemnon comforts him and promises to urge the princes who had previously proposed to Helen to fulfill their vows.The two brothers traveled all over Greece, asking all the princes to join the war against Troy.The first to grant this request was Troplemus, the famous king of Rhodes and a son of Hercules.He is willing to equip ninety warships for the expedition.Next came Diomedes, king of Agos and son of the god Tydeus, who promised to take eighty ships into battle.The two sons of Zeus, namely Helen's two elder brothers, Castor and Pollux, immediately set sail to the sea after hearing the news that their sister had been robbed, followed and pursued, and approached the island of Lesbos on the coast of Troy.Unexpectedly, they encountered a storm and the ship was lost.Legend has it that they did not drown, but were recalled to the sky by their father Zeus and turned into two stars.They have since become the patron saints of sailors at sea.

Now, almost all of Greece answered the call of the son of Atreus.Only two kings still hesitate, one is the cunning Odysseus, the other is Achilles. Odysseus, king of Ithaca, was Penelope's husband.He was unwilling to leave his young wife and young son Telemachus for the infidelity of the Queen of Sparta.When he saw Palamedes visiting him with the king of Sparta, he feigned madness and drove an ass uncoordinatedly to plow the fields.Later, he sprinkled the salt as a seed in the field.Palamedes is so clever that he can see through all the tricks of mortals.While Odysseus was plowing, he sneaked into the palace, took the baby Telemachus, and placed him on the field Odysseus was about to plow.Odysseus carefully lifts the plowshare and passes by his son.This revealed that he was very sane, and that he was completely pretending to be crazy.Now he could no longer obstinately refuse to take part in the campaign, but at length he agreed to sacrifice the eight ships of Ithaca and its neighboring islands to King Menelaus.But since then he has been dissatisfied with Palamedes and has prejudices.

Achilles did not agree to participate in the expedition for a long time.He was the son of the Argonaut Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis. When he was born, his goddess mother also wanted to make him a god-man.At night, behind her father's back, she burned her son in the fire of heaven, in order to burn the human elements inherited from his father and make him holy.During the day, she used magic medicine to heal her son's burning wound.She did this for several nights in a row.Once Peleus peeped in the dark.He cried out in terror when he saw his son convulsing in the flames.This prevented Thetis from fulfilling her secret mission.She sadly abandoned her son, and did not want to go back to the palace, but hid in the sea kingdom and lived with the fairy Nereids.Peleus thought his son had been seriously injured, and sent him to the famous physician Chiron.Chiron, half-man, half-horse, was a wise Centaurus who took in and raised many heroes.He kindly adopted the child, feeding him lion liver, pig gall, and bear bone marrow.When Achilles was nine years old, the Greek prophet Calchas predicted that the city of Troy in Asia would be invincible without the participation of Peleus' son.His mother heard the prophecy, and knowing that the battle would cost her son's life, she rose to the surface of the sea, sneaked into her husband's palace, dressed her son in girl's clothes, and sent him to the island of Scyros, where King Lycomedes.Seeing that he was a girl, Lycomedes let him live and play with his daughters.Later, when he grew a shaggy beard on his chin, he revealed the secret of his disguise to the king's daughter Deidamia.The two fell in love.The residents of the island thought that he was a female relative of the king, but in fact he had quietly become the husband of Deida Mia.Now, he became an indispensable figure in the victory of the Trojan campaign. The prophet Calchas knew where he lived and his role in the campaign, so he revealed his residence.So they sent Odysseus and Diomedes to mobilize him for battle.The two heroes went to the island of Scyros and met the king and his daughters.But no matter how keen the eyes of the two heroes are, it is still impossible to recognize which is Achilles in women's clothes.Odysseus had an idea. He asked someone to bring a spear and a shield and put them in the room where the girls gathered.Then he ordered his followers to blow the battle horn, as if the enemy had stormed the palace.The girls were shocked and fled the house.Only Achilles remained, bravely picking up spear and shield.Now that he exposed his identity, he had to agree to lead Myrmidon and the Thessaly to the expedition, and he brought his coach Phoenix and his friend Patroclus with him.Patroclus grew up with him in the palace of Peleus.Now they sailed into the Greek Sea with fifty warships, bound for Oris.Oris was a port city in the country of Biosia, in the Gulf of Eubia, which was the place chosen by Agamemnon for the rendezvous of all the Greek princes and warships.Agamemnon was elected commander in chief of the coalition.In addition to the above-mentioned princes, the heroes gathered at the Port of Oris included other heroes, chief among them were Telamon and Ajax the son of Eliboa, and his half-brother, the famous archer Teucros of the hand; Ajax the younger, son of Oreus from Locris; Menastheus of Athens; Ascalaphus and Ialmenos, sons of Mars; Several heroes; several heroes from Phocis and Eubia; among Argos and the Peloponnesians Stheneros, Capaneus, and Eaudne, and Mecastus Euryaros son of Ness; from Pylos the elder Nestor the elder; from Arcadea Agapanor son of Anceus; from Elis and other cities Amphimachus, Tarpius, Diores, and Polyxanos; Meges, grandson of Augeas, king of Neris; Idomeneus and Myrionas from Crete; Telepalmus, descendant of Hercules from Rhodes; Nereus from Simma, He was the most handsome man among the Greek soldiers; Phydipus and Antiphus, descendants of Hercules from Calydon; Padarcus and Palotesi, sons of Iphiclus from Philac Laos; Oyumelos, son of Admetus from Phrai and his chaste wife Alcestis; Padalelius and Maheon, two brothers from Trica, two brothers A man of great medicine, son of Asclepius; Eurypyrus from Ormenion; Polypates from Agrysa, son of Pirithous, Theo Friends of Hughes; Cronius from Kephus and Palotius from Macnacia.

These are the princes and kings of Greece except the sons of Atreus, Odysseus, and Achilles.Each of them assembled at the port of Oris with a warship.At that time the Greeks were sometimes called Danae, after Deneus, king of Egypt, who lived in Argos in the Peloponnese; people; sometimes called Achaeans, after ancient Greece was called Achaeans.They were not called Grecians until later, after Greccus, son of Thessalus; And got the name.