THE ADVENTURES OF ODYSSEUS.


I. THE CURSE OF POLYPHEMUS.

Of all the heroes that wandered far and wide before they came to their
homes again after the fall of Troy, none suffered so many hardships as
Odysseus.

There was, indeed, one other man whose adventures have been likened to
his, and this was Aeneas, a Trojan hero. He escaped from the burning
city with a band of fugitives, his countrymen; and after years of peril
and wandering he came to found a famous race in Italy. On the way, he
found one hospitable resting-place in Carthage, where Queen Dido
received him with great kindliness; and when he left her she took her
own life, out of very grief.

But there were no other hardships such as beset Odysseus, between the
burning of Troy and his return to Ithaca, west of the land of Greece.
Ten years did he fight against Troy, but it was ten years more before
he came to his home and his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus.

Now all these latter years of wandering fell to his lot because of
Poseidon's anger against him. For Poseidon had favored the Grecian
cause, and might well have sped home this man who had done so much to
win the Grecian victory. But as evil destiny would have it, Odysseus
mortally angered the god of the sea by blinding his son, the Cyclops
Polyphemus. And thus it came to pass.