exploits, has made him a leading figure in legendary history.

The twelve great "labors" which he performed for the king of Mycena are world-renowned. One of these is of especial importance to the student of Milton, because it pertains to the myth of the "Hesperides," a myth to which he frequently refers.

61. It is said that among the gifts received by Juno on the occasion of her marriage with Jove was a tree bearing apples of the purest gold. Juno caused the tree to be set in a garden in the extreme west, where dwelt the mighty monarch Atlas, supporting upon his shoulders the weight of the dome of the sky. The precious apples were entrusted to the care of his daughters, who, from the name of their mother Hesperia, or of their grandfather Hesperus, were called the Hesperides. They proved not entirely faithful to their trust, and Juno attempted to ensure the safety of the apples by placing in the garden, as a guardian, a dragon with a hundred heads, not all of which were ever asleep at the same time.

62. One of the tasks of Hercules was to secure these golden apples. He roamed over almost the entire world, but for a long time was unable even to find the garden. Finally he learned that Atlas could aid him to secure the fruit, and he undertook to support the sky upon his own shoulders while Atlas went on his quest. The latter was able to outwit his daughters, the Hesperides, to put all the dragon's heads to sleep by enchantments, and to secure three of the apples for Hercules. The last of these tasks was to descend into the lower world and bring to the light of day the dog Cerberus (23), an

exploit possible only to a being of supernatural strength.

63. Hercules afterwards won renown in a series of heroic adventures, but finally fell a victim to the revengefuì craft of an enemy. He had attacked the king of Echalia in revenge for a gross breach of faith, had stormed the citadel, slain the monarch, and borne away his beautiful daughter as a captive. On his return he halted near Mount Eta, in Thessaly, to render to Jove a sacrifice of gratitude for his success. His wife, dreading the charms of the captured maiden, sent him a sacrificial robe which she had drenched with a certain liquid, potent (as she supposed) to keep him faithful to herself. But the liquid had been given her by a treacherous enemy of the hero, and its actual effect was to make the garment cling closely to the skin of the wearer, poisoning his blood and causing intolerable torment. Crazed with pain, Hercules tore up trees by the roots, and seizing the bearer of the robe (Lichas) by one leg, in his blind wrath he hurled him far from the mountain top into the distant Euboic sea. Finally, in despair at his unconquerable agony, he destroyed himself.

1

The Trojan War.

64. In the era succeeding the Argonautic Expedition and the Adventures of Hercules, occurred the Siege of Troy. This city was the capital of a kingdom in Asia Minor,

1 The original story makes him halt for sacrifice at the northern end of the island of Euboea, thence hurl Lichas into the sea, and afterwards proceed to Mount Eta to erect his own funeral pyre.

near the Hellespont, under the rule of a king named Priam. One of his sons, named Paris, with the aid of the goddess Venus had carried off to Troy the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. This wife was Helen, daughter of Jupiter and Leda, and accounted the most beautiful woman in the world, so that her name has become a synonym for the perfection of female beauty.

An expedition of a hundred and fifty thousand men and over a thousand ships was organized to restore the fugitive to Greece, and to wreak vengeance upon the Trojans. Menelaus' brother, the stalwart warrior Agamemnon, took command and all the heroes of Greece joined in the undertaking. Their names, too many to be recounted here, were familiar to Milton's readers, owing to the numerous translations from the classics with which the Renaissance had enriched English literature.

As Venus had aided Paris in securing Helen, she aided the Trojans throughout the war. Juno and Minerva, on the other hand, threw the weight of their influence in favor of the Greeks, and most of the gods ranged themselves on the one side or the other as auxiliaries in the conflict.

65. Among the mortals the principal figure in the war was the mighty Achilles, who slew vast numbers of the Trojan forces, among them the Ethiopian prince, Memnon.1 But the capture of Troy itself was due, not to the prowess of Achilles, but to the craft of Ulysses, who

1 This prince, though dark-skinned, was famed for his beauty, being a son of the beautiful prince Tithonus and Eos, goddess of the rosy dawn. It is not without reason that Milton assigns to his sister Hemera the same dusky charms of person.

becomes thenceforth the principal figure in the legend (see 68).

On the fall of Troy, Menelaus became reconciled to his wife Helen, and by a somewhat round-about route bore her back to Sparta. On the way they visited Thone, the king of Egypt, whose wife, Polydamna, presented Helen with a magic draught called nepenthes. This drink had the power to invigorate the body, to dispel care from the mind, and to cause the happy partaker to forget all past causes of sorrow. With its aid the memory of Helen's infidelity was obliterated from the mind of Menelaus, and complete wedded happiness was again made possible to him.

66. Not so fortunate was his brother Agamemnon (called by Homer Pelides, i.e. descendant of Pelops); for his wife had become unfaithful to him during his long absence at Troy, and on his return he was treacherously murdered by her paramour. This crime and its consequences form the subject of several tragedies by Æschylus, the greatest Greek dramatist, and subjects related to this are treated by both Sophocles and Euripides.

The same authors also employ portions of the legendary history of Thebes as subject material for dramatic treatment. But as the incidents have not won a place in general literature like those of the "Tale of Troy," they will not be rehearsed here.

Anchises' Line.

67. Of the Trojan leaders the only one to escape from the vengeance of the Greeks was Æneas, son of Anchises. and the Goddess Venus. He took refuge in a mountain

near the city, and some time afterward managed to depart with a band of followers in a fleet hastily constructed.

The Romans, seeking to trace an exalted ancestry for their rulers, declared that fate had decreed that Æneas should found the Roman nation; and Virgil in a magnificent epic, the Eneid, recounts the adventures of Æneas before and after reaching Italy, tracing the line of his descendants down to Augustus Cæsar, in whose reign the poem was composed.

In like manner the earliest English writers attempted to connect this line with their own early kings; and we accordingly read in early English literature how a greatgrandson of Æneas named Brut migrated from Italy to the island of Britain and became monarch of the nation that bears his name, the Britons. According to the legend, Brut had a son and successor named Locrine. The latter had a daughter named Sabrina, by a mistress, but later wedded a woman named Gwendolen, and still later divorced her and returned to his former love. The enraged Gwendolen raised an army, attacked and defeated Locrine, and procured the death of Sabrina by drowning, but not in the exact manner described by Milton (Comus, 829+).

The Wanderings of Ulysses.

68. The adventures of Ulysses on his departure from Troy form the subject of Homer's second great epic poem, the Odyssey. Ten years the hero had been absent from his home, but the Fates decreed that ten more should be spent in traversing the unknown regions of the world before he should see Ithaca again. The first of

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