Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/35

ULYSSES 11 was the cave of Scylla, a monster having six snake-like heads, with each of which she seized a man from every passing ship. Choosing the lesser evil, the bold Ulysses sailed through the strait close to Scylla ; and six poor wretches were snatched by the monster from the deck and devoured, but the rest escaped. Then they came to an uninhabited island, filled with herds of cattle. These were held sacred to the sun, and no man might slay or eat them without being punished by the gods. This Ulysses knew well, and warned his men against touching Jhem ; but great tempests now swelled up, and for a whole month the sailors could not leave the island. Their provisions gave out and they were starving. Then their leader wandered away looking for help, and while he was gone they slew some of the oxen and ate their fill. The storm died, and, Ulysses returning, they again set sail ; but at once came a terrific hurricane, up- AGAMEMNON. set the ship, and drowned all of the guilty ones. Ulysses had not eaten the flesh of the oxen ; and he alone was saved, clinging to a spar, and was tossed on the island of the nymph Calypso. After a long sojourn he escaped from here on a raft. But his old enemy Neptune again raised a storm, which broke his raft ; and, naked and almost dead, he was thrown upon another shore, from which at last the pitying people sent him home. He had been away twenty years. His fair wife Penelope had been for four years past pestered with suitors, who declared that Ulysses must be dead. She put them all off, by saying that first she must finish a wonderful cloth she was weaving ; and on this she undid each night what she had done in the day. Meanwhile they stayed in the palace, haughty and insolent, terrifying everybody, in defiance of the protests of Ulysses' infant son, now grown to be almost a man. The wanderer, coming alone and finding how things were, feared they would slay him ; so, disguised as an old beggar man, he went to the palace. The suit- ors mocked him, and then in sport it was proposed to see who could bend the