The Book of the Epic

ceived so coldly that the poet, in disgust, withdrew to Rhodes, where, having remodelled his work, he obtained immense applause.

The principal burlesque epic in Greek, the Bactrachomyomachia, or Battle of Frogs and Mice, is attributed to Homer, but only some 300 lines of this work remain, showing what it may have been.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: A detailed account of Oedipus, Heracles, the Argonauts, and the "War of Troy" is given in the author's "Myths of Greece and Rome."]

THE ILIAD

Introduction. Jupiter, king of the gods, refrained from an alliance with Thetis, a sea divinity, because he was told her son would be greater than his father. To console her, however, he decreed that all the gods should attend her nuptials with Peleus, King of Thessaly. At this wedding banquet the Goddess of Discord produced a golden apple, inscribed "To the fairest," which Juno, Minerva, and Venus claimed.

Because the gods refused to act as umpires in this quarrel, Paris, son