where, it was long said and believed, lie lay either in a charmed sleep or a passionless immortality. One legend ran that the Greek hero, in his happy island, was favoured with the society of Helen, whose matchless beauty he had much desired to see.
His wondrous shield and armour—the masterpieces of Vulcan—were left by Thetis as a prize for "the bravest of the Greeks," and became almost as fatal a source of discord as the golden apple which had been labelled for "the fairest." Ulysses and Ajax were the most distinguished claimants, and when, as before, counsel was preferred to strength, Ajax went mad with vexation, and fell upon his own sword. Ulysses handed on the coveted armour to its rightful inheritor, the young Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, who, in accordance with an oracle, had been sent for to take Troy. Still the city held out, secure so long as the sacred image of Minerva, the "Palladium," a gift from Jupiter himself, remained in the citadel: until Ulysses broke the spell by entering within the walls in disguise, and carrying it off. One quick eye discovered the venturous Greek, through his rags and self-inflicted wounds: Helen recognised him; but she was weary of her guilty life, and became an excusable traitress in favour of her lawful husband. It was again the fertile brain of Ulysses which conceived the stratagem of the wooden horse; and when the curiosity of the Trojans (against all ordinary probabilities, it must be confessed) dragged it inside the walls, the armed warriors whom it contained issued forth in the night, and opened the gates to their comrades.
The details of the sack of the city are neither more
