Diomed was now sent to induce him to rejoin
the army. He sukcceeded. Philoctetes was cured of his wound by
Machaon, and Paris was the first victim of the fatal arrows. In
his distress Paris bethought him of one whom in his prosperity he
had forgotten. This was the nymph OEnone, whom he had married when
a youth, and had abandoned for the fatal beauty Helen. OEnone,
remembering the wrongs she had suffered, refused to heal the
wound, and Paris went back to Troy and died. OEnone quickly
repented, and hastened after him with remedies, but came too late,
and in her grief hung herself. [Footnote 1: Tennyson has chosen
OEnone as the subject of a short poem; but he has omitted the most
poetical part of the story, the return of Paris wounded, her
cruelty and subsequent repentance.]
There was in Troy a celebrated statue of Minerva called the
Palladium. It was said to have fallen from heaven, and the belief
was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue
remained within it. Ulysses and Diomed entered the city in
disguise and succeeded in obtaining the Palladium, which they
carried off to the Grecian camp.
But Troy still held out, and the Greeks began to despair of ever
subduing it by force, and by advice of Ulysses resolved to resort
to stratagem. They pretended to be making preparations to abandon
the siege, and a portion of the ships were withdrawn and lay hid
behind a neighboring island.
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