STORIES FROM THE ILIAD

OR

The Siege of Troy

TOLD TO THE CHILDREN BY

JEANIE LANG

WITH PICTURES BY

W. HEATH ROBINSON

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

TO HUGO MEYNELL CYRIL IONIDES AND INGRAM AMYAS IONIDES

ABOUT THIS BOOK

For two Greek boys have I made this little book, which tells them in English some of the stories that they soon will read for themselves in the tongue of their forefathers.

But the stories are not only for boys whose fatherland lies near the sunny sea through which ships, red-prowed and black, fared in the long-ago days.

Of such great deeds, by such brave men, do they tell, that they must make the hearts of all English boys, and of boys of every nation under the sun, grow big within them.

And when, in the gallant-sounding music of the Greek tongue in which the tales first were told, these boys read the story of the Siege of Troy, they must surely long to fight as fought the Greeks in days of old, and long to be heroes such as those who fought and who died without fear for the land that they loved.

JEANIE LANG.

CONTENTS

Page

The Story of what led to the Siege of Troy, 1

Chap.

I. How Achilles and Agamemnon fell out, 6

II. The Council, 17

III. The Fight between Paris and Menelaus, 28

IV. How Menelaus was wounded; and the Brave Deeds of Diomedes, 39

V. Hector and Andromache, 53

VI. The Fight between Hector and Ajax, 61

VII. The Burning of the Dead; and the Battle of the Plain, 67

VIII. The Message to Achilles, 79

IX. The White Horses of Rhesus, 86

X. The Fighting on the Plain, 97

XI. How Patroclus Fought and Died, 103

XII. The Rousing of Achilles, 111

LIST OF PICTURES

Into the sleeping heart of Helen there came remembrance, Frontispiece

At page

Many were the heroes who sailed away from Greece, 4

Achilles, fleetest of foot and bravest of all Greek heroes, 8

Mars, like a thunder-cloud, swept upwards through the sky to Olympus, 52

Agamemnon heard the sound of pipe and flute and laughter of men, as the Trojans feasted and made merry, 86

The point of the spear flew over the left shoulder of Patroclus, 108

The making of the arms of Achilles, 112

The shadow of Death came down upon Hector, 116