Telemachus went up The vessel's side, but Pallas first embarked, And at the stern sat down, while next to her Telemachus was seated. Then the crew Cast loose the fastenings and went all on board, And took their places on the rowers' seats, While blue-eyed Pallas sent a favoring breeze, A fresh wind from the west, that murmuring swept The dark-blue main. Telemachus gave forth The word to wield the tackle; they obeyed, And raised the fir-tree mast, and, fitting it Into its socket, bound it fast with cords, And drew and spread with firmly twisted ropes The shining sails on high. The steady wind Swelled out the canvas in the midst; the ship Moved on, the dark sea roaring round her keel, As swiftly through the waves she cleft her way. BRYANT, _Odyssey_, Book II. For many days the Greek chiefs at Aulis waited for favoring breezes, but none came. "The troops Collected and embodied, here we sit Inactive, and from Aulis wish to sail In vain." EURIPIDES (Potter's tr.). At last the soothsayer Calchas told them that the easterly winds which prevented them from sailing were caused by the anger of Di-anʹa. Diana was the goddess of hunting, and there was one of her sacred groves in the neighborhood of Aulis. In this grove King Agamemnon went hunting during the time the ships were being repaired after the storm, and he killed one of Diana's favorite deer. He even boasted that he was a greater hunter than Diana herself. This enraged the goddess, and Calchas said that her anger could be appeased only by the offering up of Agamemnon's daughter, Iph-i-ge-niʹa, as a sacrifice. [Illustration: DIANA HUNTING. _Painting by Makart._ (_Fragment_.)] The feelings of the father may be easily imagined. He heard the announcement of the soothsayer with the utmost horror, and he declared that he would withdraw from the expedition rather than permit his child to be put to death. But Ulysses and the other princes begged him to remember that the honor of their country was at stake. They said that if he should withdraw, the great cause for which they had labored for ten years would be lost, and the Trojan insult to his own family and to all Greece would remain unpunished. At last Agamemnon consented, and messengers were sent to Mycenæ to bring Iphigenia to Aulis. The king was even persuaded to deceive his wife, Clyt-em-nesʹtra. Knowing that she would not allow her daughter to be taken away for such a purpose, he wrote a letter to the queen, saying that Iphigenia had been chosen to be the wife of Achilles, and that he wished the marriage ceremony to be performed before the departure of the young prince for Troy. "I wrote, I seal'd A letter to my wife, that she should send Her daughter to Achilles as a bride Affianc'd." EURIPIDES (Potter's tr.).