os,
and to the palace of King Lycomedes. There they found Neoptolemus, the
son of Achilles, in the court before the doors. He was as tall as his
father, and very like him in face and shape, and he was practising the
throwing of the spear at a mark. Right glad were Ulysses and Diomede to
behold him, and Ulysses told Neoptolemus who they were, and why they
came, and implored him to take pity on the Greeks and help them.

'My friend is Diomede, Prince of Argos,' said Ulysses, 'and I am Ulysses
of Ithaca. Come with us, and we Greeks will give you countless gifts,
and I myself will present you with the armour of your father, such as it
is not lawful for any other mortal man to wear, seeing that it is
golden, and wrought by the hands of a God. Moreover, when we have taken
Troy, and gone home, Menelaus will give you his daughter, the beautiful
Hermione, to be your wife, with gold in great plenty.'

Then Neoptolemus answered: 'It is enough that the Greeks need my sword.
To-morrow we shall sail for Troy.' He led them into the palace to dine,
and there they found his mother, beautiful Deidamia, in mourning
raiment, and she wept when she heard that they had come to take her son
away. But Neoptolemus comforted her, promising to return safely with the
spoils of Troy, 'or, even if I fall,' he said, 'it will be after doing
deeds worthy of my father's name.' So next day they sailed, leaving
Deidamia mournful, like a swallow whose nest a serpent has found, and
has killed her young ones; even so she wailed, and went up and down in
the house. But the ship ran swiftly on her way, cleaving the dark waves
till Ulysses showed Neoptolemus the far off snowy crest of Mount Ida;
and Tenedos, the island near Troy; and they passed the plain where the
tomb of Achilles stands, but Ulysses did not tell the son that it was
his father's tomb.

Now all this time the Greeks, shut up within their wall and fighting
from their towers, were looking back across the sea, eager to spy the
ship of Ulysses, like men wrecked on a desert island, who keep watch
every day for a sail afar off, hoping that the seamen will touch at
their isle and have pity upon them, and carry them home, so the Greeks
kept watch for the ship bearing Neoptolemus.

Diomede, too, had been watching the shore, and when they came in sight
of the ships of the Greeks, he saw that they were being besieged by the
Trojans, and that all the Greek army was penned up within the wall, and
was fight