dead,' said Menelaus, 'and his glorious armour was offered as a prize
for the warrior whom the Greeks thought the most of. Two men strove for
the prize--Odysseus and his friend Aias. To Odysseus the armour of
Achilles was given, but he was in no way glad of the prize, for his
getting it had wounded the proud spirit of great Aias.'

'It was fitting that Odysseus should have been given Achilles' armour,
for no warrior in the host had done better than he. But Odysseus was to
do still greater things for us. He knew that only one man could wield a
bow better than Paris,--Paris who had shot with an arrow Achilles, and
who after that had slain many of our chiefs. That man was Philoctetes.
He had come with Agamemnon's host to Troy. But Philoctetes had been
bitten by a water-snake, and the wound given him was so terrible that
none of our warriors could bear to be near him. He was left on the
Island of Lemnos and the host lost memory of him. But Odysseus
remembered, and he took ship to Lemnos and brought Philoctetes back.
With his great bow and with the arrows of Hercules that were his,
Philoctetes shot at Paris upon the wall of Troy and slew him with an
arrow.'

'And then Odysseus devised the means by which we took Priam's city at
last. He made us build a great Wooden Horse. We built it and left it
upon the plain of Troy and the Trojans wondered at it greatly. And
Odysseus had counselled us to bring our ships down to the water and to
burn our stores and make it seem in every way that we were going to
depart from Troy in weariness. This we did, and the Trojans saw the
great host sail away from before their City. But they did not know that
a company of the best of our warriors was within the hollow of the
Wooden Horse, nor did they know that we had left a spy behind to make a
signal for our return.'