"Odysseus' Induction" (1874) Heywood Hardy

Odysseus has no taste for the war. When the inducting officers, Menelaus and Palamedes, come for him, he feigns madness by yoking two unlike yoke-mates, an ox and a horse, to plow the sand on the seashore. But Palamedes, match for Odysseus in cleverness, lays down the latter's newborn son, Telemachus, in the plow's path. Odysseus halts his team and reluctantly joins the war effort. (The story is not told in the Odyssey, but see Proclus, Chrestomathy [summary of the Cypria, one of the epics in the so-called Trojan Cycle].) Later at Troy, Odysseus murders Palamedes.

Move cursor over figures to identify them.

ßBACK                  CONTENTS & INDICES                 NEXTà