Tales of Troy: Ulysses, the Sacker of Cities
by Andrew Lang
- Pages
- about 116
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2.1 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece,
there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small and mountainous.
People used to say that Ithaca "lay like a shield upon the sea," which
sounds as if it were a flat country. But in those times shields were
very large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow between
them, so that Ithaca, seen far off in the sea, with her two chief
mountain peaks, and a cloven valley between them, looked exactly like a
shield. The country was so rough that men kept no horses, for, at that
time, people drove, standing up in little light chariots with two horses;
they never rode, and there was no cavalry in battle: men fought from
chariots. When Ulysses, the son of Laertes, King of Ithaca grew up, he
never fought from a chariot, for he had none, but always on foot.
If there were no horses in Ithaca, there was plenty of cattle. The
father of Ulysses had flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, and wild
goats, deer, and hares lived in the hills and in the plains. The sea was
full of fish of many sorts, which men caught with nets, and with rod and
line and hook.
Thus Ithaca was a good island to live in. The summer was long, and there
was hardly any winter; only a few cold weeks, and then the swallows came
back, and the plains were like a garden, all covered with wild
flowers--violets, lilies, narcissus, and roses. With the blue sky and
the blue sea, the island was beautiful. White temples stood on the
shores; and the Nymphs, a sort of fairies, had their little shrines built
of stone, with wild rose-bushes hanging over them.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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