Ulysses

Ulysses (also Ulyxēs or Ulixēs), the Latin form of the Greek ODYSSEUS, the name of one of the most celebrated heroes of the Trojan war. A son either of Laertes or of Sisyphus and Anticleia, he married Penelope, and by her became the father of Telemachus. Agamemnon visited Ithaca and with difficulty prevailed on Ulysses to take part in the Trojan expedition. Later traditions represent him as feigning madness in order to escape, but in vain. He brought with him twelve ships, and during the siege showed himself equal to any of the chiefs in courage, and superior to all in prudence and ingenuity of resource. His adventures after the fall of Troy form the subject of the Homeric poem called the Odyssey. Of these the most remarkable befell in the country of the Lotus-eaters, where the companions of Ulysses ate of the wondrous fruit, and wished to rest for ever; the island of the Cyclops, where he escaped with difficulty from Polyphemus; the island of Ææa, inhabited by the sorceress Circe, with whom he sojourned a year; the country of the Cimmerians, where darkness reigns perpetually; the perilous island of the Sirens, the fatal charms of whose singing he resisted by lashing himself to the mast and stopping his men's ears with wax; the alternate horrors of Scylla and Charybdis; the island of Ogygia, where he lived eight years of quiet happiness with the nymph Calypso; and the shores of Scheria, the island of the Phœacians, where in his shipwrecked condition he was succoured by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous. At length he reached Ithaca, and in his beggar's disguise was recognised by his nurse and by his old dog Argus alone. Aided by Telemachus and the swineherd Eumœus, he slew all the insolent suitors of his faithful wife, Penelope. See Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, with introduction by A. Lang (1890).