she never woke again.




THE BATTLES WITH THE AMAZONS AND MEMNON--THE DEATH OF ACHILLES


Ulysses thought much and often of Helen, without whose kindness he could
not have saved the Greeks by stealing the Luck of Troy. He saw that,
though she remained as beautiful as when the princes all sought her hand,
she was most unhappy, knowing herself to be the cause of so much misery,
and fearing what the future might bring. Ulysses told nobody about the
secret which she had let fall, the coming of the Amazons.

The Amazons were a race of warlike maids, who lived far away on the banks
of the river Thermodon. They had fought against Troy in former times,
and one of the great hill-graves on the plain of Troy covered the ashes
of an Amazon, swift-footed Myrine. People believed that they were the
daughters of the God of War, and they were reckoned equal in battle to
the bravest men. Their young Queen, Penthesilea, had two reasons for
coming to fight at Troy: one was her ambition to win renown, and the
other her sleepless sorrow for having accidentally killed her sister,
Hippolyte, when hunting. The spear which she threw at a stag struck
Hippolyte and slew her, and Penthesilea cared no longer for her own life,
and desired to fall gloriously in battle. So Penthesilea and her
bodyguard of twelve Amazons set forth from the wide streams of Thermodon,
and rode into Troy. The story says that they did not drive in chariots,
like all the Greek and Trojan chiefs, but rode horses, which must have
been the manner of their country.