THE BOYHOOD AND PARENTS
OF ULYSSES
Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece,
there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small and
mountainous. People used to say that Ithaca "lay like a shield upon the
sea," which sounds as if it were a flat country. But in those times shields
were very large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow
between them, so that Ithaca, seen far off in the sea, with her two chief
mountain peaks, and a cloven valley between them, looked exactly like a
shield. The country was so rough that men kept no horses, for, at that
time, people drove, standing up in little light chariots with two horses;
they never rode, and there was no cavalry in battle: men fought from
chariots. When Ulysses, the son of Laertes, King of Ithaca grew up, he
never fought from a chariot, for he had none, but always on foot