Homer presents two pictures of heroic motherhood in sorrow,--Hecuba and Thetis; for the latter, though a goddess, is perfectly human in her devotion to her fated son, Achilles. To her he goes for comfort, and she is ever resourceful in responding to his wants. She weeps over his destiny, but, since he has chosen the better part, she nobly supports him in every struggle. Hecuba is truly the companion of her husband, King Priam, associated with him in his projects, and sharing his counsels. She has borne him nineteen children, and these she has seen slain, one after another, by the hand of the foe. Hector is her favorite son, in whose courage she recognizes the bulwark of Ilium. When she sees him exposed to certain death, her anxiety overcomes her pride and she beseeches him to come within the walls; and when at last her son has succumbed, we find in her the same mingling of grief and of pride. Her wild despair seems to be assuaged by the thought that her son died gloriously. This heroic sentiment sustains her before the corpse of Hector, and even in her lamentation she voices her calm courage. IV WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY Ten years have passed since the fall of Ilium, and the various heroes of the Greeks have met with diverse fortunes. Agamemnon, king of men, has returned to his fatherland, but merely to find treason and death at the hands of AEgisthus, the new lord of Clytemnestra, his wife. Menelaus, after long wanderings, especially in Egypt, has reestablished his kingdom in Sparta, with Helen as his queen. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, had the longest and most perilous voyage homeward, and, after meeting with various misadventures, has been detained for nearly eight long years, consuming his own heart, in the island paradise of Calypso, Meanwhile, on his own island, Ithaca, things have begun to go amiss. The island chiefs, men of the younger generation, begin to woo Penelope and to harass her son, Telemachus. The wooers, after being rebuffed for years by the fair queen, are becoming insolent, quartering themselves upon her, and devouring her substance. At this time the action of the Odyssey begins. The determined time has now arrived when, by the counsels of the gods, Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house, to avenge himself on the wooers, and to recover his kingdom, Pallas Athena is the chief agent in the restoration of Odysseus to his fatherland. She beseeches Zeus that he may be delivered, and in accordance with this prayer Hermes is sent to Calypso to bid her release Odysseus. Meanwhile, the goddess, in human form, visits Telemachus in Ithaca, and urges the young prince to withstand the suitors who are devastating his house, and to go in search of his father. Touched by the words of the goddess, youth rapidly gives way to manhood, and Telemachus determines to assert his rights and to find his father.