Explore "Heroes in Strange Garb" by James Baldwin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There dwelt at Mycenae a wise soothsayer, named Calchas, -- a man versed in all the lore of earth and sky, and holding some sort of communion with the immortals. He could lift the veil of the future, and see what to other men lay hidden in the darkness; and next to the Pythian oracle at Delphi, or the talking oak of Dodona, he was held in high repute as knowing the counsels of the gods. When all the great chiefs sat one day in Agamemnon's hall, and talked of their warriors and their ships and their arms, and boasted of their readiness to sail at once for Ilios, the old soothsayer came and stood before them. His white locks streamed in flowing waves about his shoulders; his gray eyes gleamed with a strange, wild light; he moved his long arms to and fro above his head, and pointed with his thin fingers first towards the sky, and then towards the sea.
"Hearken ye to the seer," said Menelaus; "he has had a vision, and perchance he can tell us how we shall fare in this great business which we have undertaken."