ll the Greek princes were bound by their oath to fight
for Menelaus against any one who injured him and stole his wife away.
But Helen was very unhappy in Troy, and blamed herself as bitterly as
all the other women blamed her, and most of all Oenone, who had been
the love of Paris. The men were much more kind to Helen, and were
determined to fight to the death rather than lose the sight of her
beauty among them.

The news of the dishonour done to Menelaus and to all the princes of
Greece ran through the country like fire through a forest. East and west
and south and north went the news: to kings in their castles on the
hills, and beside the rivers and on cliffs above the sea. The cry came
to ancient Nestor of the white beard at Pylos, Nestor who had reigned
over two generations of men, who had fought against the wild folk of the
hills, and remembered the strong Heracles, and Eurytus of the black bow
that sang before the day of battle.

The cry came to black-bearded Agamemnon, in his strong town called
'golden Mycenae,' because it was so rich; it came to the people in
Thisbe, where the wild doves haunt; and it came to rocky Pytho, where is
the sacred temple of Apollo and the maid who prophesies. It came to
Aias, the tallest and strongest of men, in his little isle of Salamis;
and to Diomede of the loud war-cry, the bravest of warriors, who held
Argos and Tiryns of the black walls of huge stones, that are still
standing. The summons came to the western islands and to Ulysses in
Ithaca, and even far south to the great island of Crete of the hundred
cities, where Idomeneus ruled in Cnossos; Idomeneus, whose ruined palace
may still be seen with the throne of the king, and pictures painted on
the walls, and the King's own draught-board of gold and silver, and
hundreds of tablets of clay, on which are written the lists of royal
treasures. Far north went the news to Pelasgian Argos, and Hellas, where
the people of Peleus dwelt, the Myrmidons; but Peleus was too old to
fight, and his boy, Achilles, dwelt far away, in the island of Scyros,
dressed as a girl, among the daughters of King Lycomedes. To many
another town and to a hundred islands went the bitter news of
approaching war, for all princes knew that their honour and their oaths
compelled them to gather their spearmen, and bowmen, and slingers from
the fields and the fishing, and to make ready their ships, and meet King
Agamemnon in the harbour of Aulis, and cross the wid