POPE, _Iliad_, Book III.

But the eloquence of Ulysses was of no avail. King Priam, blinded by his
love for his son, saw not the threatened danger, and he refused the
demand of the ambassadors. Menelaus was not even permitted to see his
wife. Ulysses and his companions then returned to Greece, and at once
preparations for war with Troy were commenced.

These preparations occupied a very long time. Ten years were spent in
getting together the vast force, which in more than a thousand ships was
carried across the Ægean Sea to the Trojan shores, from the port of
Auʹlis on the east coast-of Greece. Some of the Hel-lenʹic (Greek)
princes were very unwilling to join the expedition, as they knew that
the struggle would be a tedious and perilous one. Even Ulysses, who, as
we have seen, had first proposed the suitors' oath at Sparta, was at the
last moment unwilling to go. He had now become king of Ithaca, his
father, La-erʹtes, having retired from the cares of government, and he
would gladly have remained in his happy island home with his young wife,
Penelope, and his infant son, Te-lemʹa-chus, both of whom he tenderly
loved.

But the man of many arts could not be spared from the Trojan War. He
paid no heed, however, to the messages sent to him asking him to join
the army at Aulis. Agamemnon resolved, therefore, to go himself to
Ithaca to persuade Ulysses to take part in the expedition. He was
accompanied by his brother Menelaus, and by a chief named Pal-a-meʹdes,
a very wise and learned man as well as a brave warrior. As soon as
Ulysses heard of their arrival in Ithaca, he pretended to be insane, and
he tried by a very amusing stratagem to make them believe that he was
really mad. Dressing himself in his best clothes, and going down to the