him brown, and had escaped by hiding among the great stones, carried down
the Nile in a raft, for building a temple on the seashore. The raft
arrived at night, and the beggar said that he stole out from it in the
dark and found a Phoenician ship in the harbour, and the Phoenicians took
him on board, meaning to sell him somewhere as a slave. But a tempest
came on and wrecked the ship off the Isle of Tenedos, which is near Troy,
and the beggar alone escaped to the island on a plank of the ship. From
Tenedos he had come to Troy in a fisher's boat, hoping to make himself
useful in the camp, and earn enough to keep body and soul together till
he could find a ship sailing to Crete.

He made his story rather amusing, describing the strange ways of the
Egyptians; how they worshipped cats and bulls, and did everything in just
the opposite of the Greek way of doing things. So Diomede let him have a
rug and blankets to sleep on in the portico of the hut, and next day the
old wretch went begging about the camp and talking with the soldiers. Now
he was a most impudent and annoying old vagabond, and was always in
quarrels. If there was a disagreeable story about the father or
grandfather of any of the princes, he knew it and told it, so that he got
a blow from the baton of Agamemnon, and Aias gave him a kick, and
Idomeneus drubbed him with the butt of his spear for a tale about his
grandmother, and everybody hated him and called him a nuisance. He was
for ever jeering at Ulysses, who was far away, and telling tales about
Autolycus, and at last he stole a gold cup, a very large cup, with two
handles, and a dove sitting on each handle, from the hut of Nestor. The
old chief was fond of this cup, which he had brought from home, and, when
it was found in the beggar's dirty wallet, everybody cried that he must
be driven out of the camp and well whipped. So Nestor's son, young
Thrasymedes, with other young men, laughing and shouting, pushed and
dragged the beggar close up to the Scaean gate of Troy, where Thrasymedes