When the Greek ambassadors arrived in the Trojan capital they were respectfully received by the king. During their stay in the city they were entertained at the residence of An-teʹnor, one of Priam's ministers of state, who had the wisdom to disapprove of the action of Paris, and to advise that the Spartan queen should be given back to her husband. Antenor much admired the appearance and eloquence of Ulysses, which are thus described in the Iliad: "But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound, His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground; As one unskilled or dumb, he seem'd to stand, Nor raised his head, nor stretch'd his sceptred hand; But, when he speaks, what elocution flows! Soft as the fleeces of descending snows, The copious accents fall, with easy art; Melting they fall, and sink into the heart!" POPE, _Iliad_, Book III. But the eloquence of Ulysses was of no avail. King Priam, blinded by his love for his son, saw not the threatened danger, and he refused the demand of the ambassadors. Menelaus was not even permitted to see his wife. Ulysses and his companions then returned to Greece, and at once preparations for war with Troy were commenced. These preparations occupied a very long time. Ten years were spent in getting together the vast force, which in more than a thousand ships was carried across the Ægean Sea to the Trojan shores, from the port of Auʹlis on the east coast-of Greece. Some of the Hel-lenʹic (Greek) princes were very unwilling to join the expedition, as they knew that the struggle would be a tedious and perilous one. Even Ulysses, who, as we have seen, had first proposed the suitors' oath at Sparta, was at the last moment unwilling to go. He had now become king of Ithaca, his father, La-erʹtes, having retired from the cares of government, and he would gladly have remained in his happy island home with his young wife, Penelope, and his infant son, Te-lemʹa-chus, both of whom he tenderly loved. But the man of many arts could not be spared from the Trojan War. He paid no heed, however, to the messages sent to him asking him to join the army at Aulis. Agamemnon resolved, therefore, to go himself to Ithaca to persuade Ulysses to take part in the expedition. He was accompanied by his brother Menelaus, and by a chief named Pal-a-meʹdes, a very wise and learned man as well as a brave warrior. As soon as Ulysses heard of their arrival in Ithaca, he pretended to be insane, and he tried by a very amusing stratagem to make them believe that he was really mad. Dressing himself in his best clothes, and going down to the seashore, he began to plow the beach with a horse and an _ox_ yoked together, and to scatter salt upon the sand instead of seed. [Illustration: ULYSSES FEIGNING MADNESS. _Heywood Hardy._]