=230. His Purification.= But Orestes was not yet relieved from the vengeance of the Erinyes. Finally, he took refuge with Minerva at Athens. The goddess afforded him protection and appointed the court of Areopagus to decide his fate. The Erinyes brought their accusation, and Orestes pleaded the command of the Delphic oracle as his excuse. When the court voted and the voices were equally divided, Orestes was acquitted by the command of Minerva. He was then purified with plentiful blood of swine. FOOTNOTES: [311] § 128. [312] Pausanias, 5, 11, § 2; and Sophocles, Philoctetes, 445. [313] Virgil, Æneid, 6, 57. [314] Statius, Achilleid, 1, 269. [315] Sophocles, Ajax. [316] See Commentary. [317] Servius Honoratus, Commentary on Æneid (3, 402). According to Sophocles (Philoctetes), the wound was occasioned by the bite of a serpent that guarded the shrine of the nymph Chryse, on an islet of the same name near Lemnos. [318] Virgil, Æneid, 2. [319] _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes._--Æneid. 2, 49. [320] Byron, Childe Harold. [321] Hecuba's exclamation, "Not such aid nor such defenders does the time require," has become proverbial. _Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis_ _Tempus eget._--Æneid, 2, 521. [322] Euripides,--Troades, Hecuba, Andromache. [323] According to Euripides (Helen), and Stesichorus, it was a semblance of Helen that Paris won; the real Helen went to Egypt. [324] Dyer, The Fleece. [325] Milton, Comus. [326] Æschylus, Agamemnon. [327] Æschylus, Choëphori; Sophocles, Electra; Euripides,--Electra, Orestes. [328] Æschylus, Eumenides. [329] Euripides, Iphigenia among the Tauri. CHAPTER XXIV THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES [Illustration: FIG. 170. ULYSSES] As one that for a weary space has lain Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, Where that Ææan isle forgets the main, And only the low lutes of love complain, And only shadows of wan lovers pine,-- As such an one were glad to know the brine Salt on his lips, and the large air again, So, gladly, from the songs of modern speech Men turn and see the stars, and feel the free Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers; And, through the music of the languid hours, They hear like ocean on a western beach The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.[330] =231. From Troy to Phæacia.= The Odyssey of Homer narrates the wanderings of Ulysses (=Odysseus=) in his return from Troy to his own kingdom, Ithaca.[331] From Troy the vessels first made land at Ismarus, city of the Ciconians, where, in a skirmish with the inhabitants, Ulysses lost six men from each ship.[332] [Illustration: THE OUTER GEOGRAPHY OF THE ODYSSEY ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE.]