Download Achilles and the Trojan War:

Achilles and the Trojan War:
Helen, the woman that Aphrodite promised to Paris, was already married to the Greek King
Menalaus.
The Greeks and the Trojans were still friends when Paris came to visit. Helen fell instantly in
love with Paris and ran away to Troy.
King Menalaus was angry and got King Agamemnon to go to Troy to get Helen back. Helen
was called the Face that Launched a Thousand Ships. Thus started the Trojan War.
The Trojans were led by Prince Hector, the brother of Paris. But the Greeks had a great warrior
names Achilles.
He was a demi-god. Thetes, his mother, tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the River
Styx, but she missed one part, his heel. She warned him he would have to choose between a long
life or a short, heroic one. He chose the heroic one.
He decided not to fight for King Agammemnon, but Petrochlus put on his armor and went into
battle. Hector killed Petrochlis when he thought it was Achilles. Hector was angry and fought
Hector.
Paris vowed revenge on Achilles. He got a poisoned arrow and Apollo guided his arrow to the
one vulnerable spot on Achilles, his heel.
It was another Greek hero, Odysseus, who brought down the Trojans. After ten years of fighting,
he came up with a plan. One day, the Trojans woke up to see the Greeks leaving. They left
behind a giant statue of a horse and thought it was a peace offering in honor of the goddess
Athena.
When they brought it in, Odysseus and his Greek soldiers came out of it at night. The Greek
army had come back and Odysseus let them in. The Trojans were taken by surprise, and Troy
was conquered.
Theseus and the Minotaur
King Aegeus, the King of Athens, pay tribute to the more powerful King Minos, the
King of Crete by sending 7 boys and girls each year to die in the labyrinth.
Theseus go to Crete to save them and kill the minotaur.
Ariadne falls in love with Theseus and helps him. She asks Daedalus to devise an escape for
Theseus
Theseus kills the minotaur and returns to Athens, but he makes a tragic mistake- he
forgot to put up a white sail. King Aegeus throws himself into the sea.
Echo and Narcissus
Echo had upset the Queen of the Gods; Hera. As a punishment Hera made Echo unable to
speak except to repeat the last three words of the person she was talking to.
Narcissus was a beautiful looking boy. Many young ladies fell in love with him including
the nymph; Echo.
Poor Echo fell in love with Narcissus but could never tell him how she felt. Narcissus teased
her and she ran away with tears pouring down her face. Aphrodite, the goddess of love saw
what happened and decided to punish Narcissus. As he came to a pool of water Narcissus
saw his reflection and fell in love with the vision he saw...it was of course his own reflection.
Poor Narcissus watched his own reflection, every time he tried to touch the face of the
vision he loved it broke up on the shimmering surface of the water. Narcissus stopped
eating, lost his beautiful looks and pined for his love. Eventually he faded away and died.
Aphrodite took pity on him and made a flower grow in his place on the bank of the lake.
Narcissus flowers can be found to this day growing wherever you can find water and trees.
PANDORA’S BOX
Zeus was angry at Prometheus for giving people fire, Zeus got back at the people by getting Hephaistos
to make a beautiful woman, whom he named Pandora (which means all-gifts). Zeus sent Pandora
down to earth and gave her as a present to Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus. Zeus told Epimetheus
that he should marry Pandora. Also, Zeus sent Pandora with a little box, with a big lock on it (Actually
in ancient Greek versions of this story it is a sealed pottery vase). He said not to ever open the box, and
he gave the key to Epimetheus.
But Pandora was very curious about what was in the box. She begged Epimetheus to let her open it,
but he always said no. Finally one day he fell asleep, and she stole the key (or broke the seal) and
opened the box (or vase).
Out of the box flew every kind of trouble that people had never known about before: sicknesses, and
worries, and crimes, and hate and envy and all sorts of bad things. The bad things all began to fly
away like little bugs, all over the place.
Pandora was very sorry now that she had opened the box! She tried to catch the bad things and put
them back in the box but it was too late. They all flew away.
But the very last thing to fly out of the box, as Pandora sat there crying, was not as ugly as the others.
In fact it was beautiful. It was Hope, which Zeus sent to keep people going when all the nasty things
got them down.