Book XIII
Ajax tries to persuade the crowd that he deserves Achilles’s armor, arguing that he is a strong, undefeated warrior. Ajax contrasts himself with Ulysses, who is known for his trickery and skill in speech and strategy. He details his pedigree, including Telamon, his father, who defeated Troy with Hercules. Ajax is a descendant of Jupiter and a cousin of Achilles. He reminds the crowd that Ulysses tried to avoid fighting in the Trojan War, abandoned Philoctetes on Lemnos, and slandered Palamedes. He recalls a time when Ulysses quailed in battle, fearing death, and credits himself with saving the other man’s life. He also claims that all of Ulysses’s achievements take place in the dark of night rather than out in the open on the battlefield.
When Ulysses begins, he addresses the chieftains rather than the crowd. He plays up his emotions by wiping away tears shed for Achilles. Ulysses reminds the leaders that it was he who brought Achilles to war when his mother tried to keep him home because she had received a prophecy that her son would be killed in Troy. He tries to dismantle Ajax’s claim that he is deserving because he is a cousin of Achilles; Ulysses argues that if kinship is a factor in this decision, then Peleus or Pyrrhus are more deserving of the armor, as they are closer relations. Though Ulysses admits he did not physically accomplish the deeds of Achilles, he takes credit for them, as he was responsible for encouraging him to join the war.
Ulysses speaks to Menelaus directly, reminding the king of his unwavering support, despite the risk to his own life. Ulysses describes himself as working diligently behind the scenes on strategies and logistics. He also questions Ajax’s character by recounting what happened when Agamemnon tested his men, telling them Jupiter wanted to end the war. Ajax, according to Ulysses, ran toward the ships. Ulysses claims he has wounds that prove his dedication to the Greek cause and exposes his chest in a symbolic show that his heart has always been committed to the chieftains. Ulysses suggests Ajax fetch Philoctetes and Hercules’s arrows, which they will need to win the war. However, he also volunteers himself for the task and reminds the men that he took the statue of Pallas from Troy, another necessary step to ending the conflict. Finally, he emphasizes that while Ajax is an outstanding physical warrior, Ulysses has both a strong body and an impressive mind.
The chieftains award Achilles’s armor to Ulysses, and Ajax’s resentment leads him to take his own life. He shouts that only he has the power to defeat Ajax, then falls on his sword. His blood produces a purple flower like the one associated with Hyacnithus. Ulysses goes to Lemnos to obtain the arrows and bring Philoctetes back. Once they have returned, they set fire to Troy, kill Priam, and tear the rest of the royal family and the Dardanian women from their shrines and homes. Hector’s young son Astyanax is thrown from a tower and killed. Hecuba, Hector’s mother, smuggles some of his ashes out in her dress and leaves a lock of her hair on her son’s tomb.
Priam had one more son, Polydorus, who had been raised in Thrace and away from the war. When Troy falls, the Thracian king stabs Polydorus and throws him over a cliff. Meanwhile, Achilles’s ghost rises from the underworld to demand a sacrifice: the Trojan princess Polyxena. She bravely faces her death, asserting that she will not be any man’s slave. Though Polyxena did not want her mother to know...
(This entire section contains 1376 words.)
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of her fate, Hecuba soon learns she has lost yet another child. She laments that she carried all her children to have them die at Achilles’s hand. Hecuba then remembers Polydorus and feels a glimmer of hope before discovering that he, too, has been killed. She goes after Polymestor, Thrace’s king, tricking him into thinking that she will give him gold. Instead, Hecuba gouges his eyes out, and she is then transformed into a dog, forever howling her grief.
Aurora mourns the loss of her son Memnon when Troy falls; she has no grief to spare for the royal family. Memnon was slain in battle by Achilles, and Aurora could not even watch his body burn on the pyre. She prays to Jupiter to give Memnon’s spirit comfort. Soon, a bird emerges from the pyre and is joined by its sisters. The birds turn on each other as enemies, their bodies falling from the sky in memory of Memnon. Aurora’s grief continues to be captured in the presence of morning dew each day.
Aeneas, a son of Venus and survivor of the war, seeks to rebuild Troy elsewhere. He first travels to Delos, where he is welcomed by King Anius. Aeneas’s father, Anchises, asks about the king’s children; he remembers Anius’s son and four daughters. The king explains that his son, Andros, now lives on an island named for him while his daughters have scattered; after Agamemnon attempted to kidnap them, two fled to Euboea and the other two went to their brother on Andros. When threatened by the Greeks, Andros sold his sisters. Before they fell into Agamemnon’s clutches, the girls asked Apollo for help, and he changed them into doves.
The next morning, the Trojans visit the shrine of Apollo. Anius gives Aeneas an elaborately-decorated bowl depicting scenes of mourning. The artwork features the daughters of Orion, who gave their lives to save their people from a plague. The Trojans offer gifts to their hosts. After a brief stay in Crete, their ships are blown into Strophades port by a tempest. While there, Aello the Harpy delivers a foreboding prophecy about how intense hunger will strike them before they reach Italy. Aeneas and his men eventually land in Sicily near Charybdis, the whirlpool where the monster Scylla, who was once a much-desired young woman, now lives. While mortal, Scylla rejected all of her suitors and preferred chatting with the ocean nymphs.
Commenting on Scylla’s more-enviable problem of having so many suitors, Galatea told her the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus’s pursuit of her. Galatea loved Acis, the son of a nymph and a god of the countryside, but Polyphemus chased Galatea nonetheless. She described Polyphemus’s terrifying appearance and bloodlust, as well as Telemus’s warning that Ulysses would blind his one giant eye. The Cyclops laughed off the prediction; it would, of course, come true. While tending to his sheep, the Cyclops often sang about the beauty of Galatea and how much she would regret turning him down. He sang of his ample harvest of fruits and his flocks of livestock; he encouraged her to take all the gifts he had to offer by marrying him. Moreover, he tried to persuade Galatea that she did not have to think of him as ugly: his hair was like a tree’s foliage, and his eye was like the sun. Polyphemus insulted Acis and claimed superiority over the other man while emphasizing his fervent love for Galatea. Enraged that Galatea still chose Acis over him, the Cyclops hurled a rock that crushed Acis to death, though he was ultimately changed into a river.
After hearing Galatea’s story, Scylla returned to the shore and met Glaucus. He immediately desired Scylla, and she fled in terror. Once she stopped running, she began to look at him with some interest. As they spoke, Glaucus described his mortal life. One day, he was near a beach and observed the strange effects of a free-growing grass, explaining that the fish he caught leaped back into the water after touching the grass. To test the effects on himself, Glaucus ate some of the grass and quickly felt an impulse to jump into the water. When he did, the sea gods transformed him into one of their own. After explaining his origins, Glaucus wondered what good his new form did him if he could not have Scylla. However, Scylla was uninterested and fled, so Glaucus traveled to the witch Circe to seek revenge.
