Black Ships Before Troy

The Greeks are overcome with grief to find Ajax’s body the next morning. They burn and bury him with honor, knowing that “they had lost too many of their own champions and were no nearer to taking the city and Helen than they had been ten years ago” (124). They seek out their soothsayer Calchas, who tells them to search for Philoctetes, the archer, whom the Greeks had abandoned on the island of Lemnos ten years before, after a dragon bit him.

Diomedes and Odysseus return to Lemnos to retrieve him, finding him in a sorry state. Poison drips from his wound as he cries out in agony, “worn to a skeleton, with long matted hair and beard, and eyes sunk deep into his head” (125). Philoctetes has survived on birds that he kills with his bow and arrow. When he sees Diomedes and Odysseus coming, he dips an arrow into his own poison and tries to shoot them. The men eventually convince Philoctetes to return with them to Troy. The Greeks back at camp treat Philoctetes well: they bathe him, give him riches and slaves, and tend his wound.

In a battle, Philoctetes’s poison arrow grazes Paris. Paris knows that he is done for and begs to be taken to Oenone, who has healing magic. He begs for her help and wishes that he had stayed with her instead of going to Helen. Oenone turns him away at first; when she later decides to help him, it is too late—Paris is already dead. Oenone throws herself into the flames of his pyre with a “veil close over her head like a bride” (129).

The Trojans do not return Helen even after Paris’s death, so the war continues. After many attempts to penetrate Troy fail, Calchas tells Greek leaders about an omen he saw: A hawk hid itself to trick a dove into emerging. Calchas says that “since by strength we can do nothing more against Troy, let us turn to cunning” (131). Athene plants an idea in Odysseus’s mind—the Trojan horse. The Greeks make a huge wooden horse with a hollow body where they hide “the bravest men of the war-host” (131): Menelaus, Odysseus, Diomedes, Epeius, and many others, except Nestor, who is too old, and Agamemnon, who will lead the war party that will return. The rest of the army pretends to leave, though they simply hide offshore. Sinon stays behind to speak to the Trojans about the wooden horse—he “had never been a front-fighter,” so none of them would recognize him (133). Menelaus promises Odysseus lands and gold should he take Troy that night, but Odysseus declines as he simply wishes to rule over his land of Ithaca. Instead, he asks Menelaus for a gift that will cost him “neither land nor gold nor men in the giving” (134). Menelaus swears by Zeus that he will.

The Greeks set their camps on fire and pretend to sail away. The Trojans emerge to rejoice and marvel at the wooden horse. Laocoon, the Trojan high priest of Poseidon, hurries down with his two young sons to warn them that it must be a trap. He throws a spear at the belly of the horse and its echoing shows that the horse is hollow. Just then, however, Sinon appears, lying to the Trojan soldiers that he had been chosen as a sacrifice so that the Greeks might have smooth sailing home. He convinces them that the horse is a “peace-offering to Athene for the theft of the Palladium” (137). Two serpents emerge from the sea and kill Laocoon and his sons before hiding under the statue of Athene’s feet at the citadel. The Trojans take this as an omen, that Athene is displeased at Laocoon for having stood in the way of a sacrifice to her. The Trojans bring the horse into the city. Cassandra, Priam’s daughter, can see the future, but the Trojans ignore her. The Trojans celebrate as they drag the horse into Athene’s temple.

The Trojans celebrate the end of the war and sleep deeply that night. The Greeks leave their ships and return to Troy, lighting a fire as a signal to Sinon. Upon seeing this, Sinon cries out like a bird, signaling that the Greeks should emerge from the wooden horse. They climb out, slay sleeping Trojans, and open the gates of Troy.

The rest of the Greek army burns and pillages the city. Odysseus does not take part. Priam is brutally murdered upon the altar and all the royal women are taken captive. Menelaus searches for Helen, and finds her with Odysseus. Helen throws herself at Menelaus’s feet. Overcome with rage, Menelaus is about kill Helen when Odysseus asks for the gift that Menelaus promised him: He asks Menelaus to spare Helen’s life. Menelaus remembers his love for her, drops his sword, and embraces Helen. All the women of Troy are enslaved; Helen, who “had been the cause of it all, was led with honor, as a queen and not a slave, to the ship of her husband Menelaus” (146). Troy is in ashes and the Greeks can finally return home.