Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang

  
(Book Review)

Started: September 18, 2020
Finished: October 22, 2020

Why I Read This Book
After reading Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, I was feeling in the mood for more mythology.
As always, the book selection in Vietnam is limited, but our school has a small library, so I browsed through.  I was ideally hoping to find another book on Norse Mythology.  (I thought it might be fun to compare how a different author told the same stories, or maybe to learn a couple different stories.)  But alas, there were no books on Norse Mythology on the shelves.  I did, however, find this book on Greek Mythology.

The book is published by Wordsworth Classics.  At first it struck me as slightly strange to label this book a "classic" when it's simply just a modern re-telling of other classic books.  But then I thought about it, and I thought: Well, maybe it is a classic, even if it is just a retelling.  After all, every year the bookstores are full of retellings of Greek Mythology.  Most of these retellings are soon forgotten, but a few of them survive the test of time.  And if it does survive the test of time, then it qualifies as a classic. (*1)

Wordsworth Classics actually provides absolutely  zero information on the history of this book.  (There's no publisher's introduction, or information about the author, or anything.)  But a quick Google search shows that this book was originally published in 1907, and that Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish novelist best known for collecting and retelling fairy tales.

The book is rather slender--only 256 pages.  The bulk of the book (the first 158 pages) are a retelling of the Trojan War and Odysseus's subsequent voyage home.  The rest of the book contains retellings of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Theseus, and Perseus (in that order) (*2).

Now, unlike Norse Mythology, Greek Mythology is actually well-trodden ground for me.  I actually know all of these stories, and know them well.  (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, et cetera).  And in fact I've actually read the original classics on which this book is based on--or at least 2 and  a half of them--The Iliad , The Odyssey, and The Posthomerica.  (I started The Posthomerica when I was in 7th grade, but ended up returning it to the library only half finished.) (*3) , (*4)

All of which begs the question... do I need to read these stories again?
As I stood in library, I debated with myself whether or not I needed to read this book.  On the one hand, it wouldn't tell me anything I didn't already know.  But on the other hand, after finishing Norse Mythology and still being hungry for more, I was in the mood for another book about gods, heroes and monsters--be they new stories or old stories.  Plus the thing about Greek Mythology is that you're supposed to read these stories over and over and over again.  (I once read somewhere that the reason there's so much foreshadowing in Greek plays is because the audience already knew how the play was going to end.  When you went to the theater in ancient Greece, the point wasn't to see a new story--the point was to see what skill a new author had in handling old material.)
Plus, this book was a classic, after all.  It said so on the cover, and it's all the way from 1907.  And it's always worthwhile to read the classics.  

So I checked the book out, and here I am with my review.

The Review

In my video review of The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit, I talked about how The Enchanted Castle was a classic because it was from 1907.   Someone commented: "Classic" does not mean what you think it does. It is not a synonym of "old".

I never replied to this, because I have a policy of ignoring smart aleck comments.  But it was on the tip of my tongue to say, "Oh, yes it is!"
I mean, I get what the guy means.  "Classic" is used in different ways in different contexts.  In some contexts, it is used to imply high quality.
But I would contend that in other contexts, the word "classic" simply means a work of literature that has survived the test of time.  If it was published before World War I, and it's still being sold in bookstores nowadays, it's a classic.   Ipso facto.

Or at least that would have been my contention prior to reading Tales of Troy and Greece. Now I'm beginning to wonder if my definition might need some revising.  Is this book truly a classic, or is this simply an old book that Wordsworth publishers found in the public domain, slapped the label "classic" on, and decided to charge money for.  I'm leaning towards the latter.

The first warning sign is that there's no publisher's introduction.  (Usually these classic books have an introduction by some literature professor giving the background or historical significance of the work.)  

And it gets worse--there's not even a Wikipedia page for this book.  Wikipedia lists it in Andrew Lang's bibliography, but the book has no blue-texted hyperlink to its own separate page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lang#1900-1909

And then, there's the story itself, which reads less like a classic work of literature that was produced with great care, and more like something that was dashed out as quickly as possible to meet a publishing deadline.  (Wikipedia's bibliography of Andrew Lang indicates that he was incredibly prolific, which may also be an indication that not all of these books received the care and attention they deserved.)

To start with the positives, there are plenty of indications that Andrew Lang can write well when he wants to.  The opening paragraphs, for example, are very well-written, and seem to promise that you are in the hand of a master storyteller. (*5)  And every so often I found myself fascinated by his descriptions of mythological places and beasts.  Take, for instance, this description of Theseus encountering the Minotaur for the first time:

He sat still, and from afar away within he heard a faint sound, like the end of the echo of a roar, and he stood up, drew his long sword, and listened keenly.  The sound came nearer and louder, a strange sound, not deep like the roar of a bull, but more shrill and thin. Theseus laughed silently. A monster with the head and tongue of a bull, but with the chest of a man, could roar no better than that! The sounds came nearer and louder with the thin sharp tone in them. 

Isn't that great?  I'd never before paused to consider how the Minotaur must sound, but this seems like a pretty accurate description of what such a beast must sound like.

So, there are these really well-written passages throughout the book that almost make me want to forgive the broader problems with the editing.  Almost.

The problem is not at the prose level, but rather with the many inconsistencies throughout the book.  Andrew Lang seems to have had a hard time making up his mind about how he wanted to retell these myths, and apparently changed his mind several times during the course of his actual writing.  Such inconsistencies would be expected in a first draft, but then, surely they should have been edited out and smoothed over in the redrafting phase.  My best guess is that Andrew Lang was in such a hurry to rush this book out to publication, that his first draft became his final draft, and all the changes of heart that he had along the way in the course of composition are now preserved in print. (*6)
And although Andrew Lang is certainly not the only writer guilty of dashing something off to the publishers without bothering to redraft it, I wonder if it is necessary to preserve this book as a classic 125 years later. 

The first problem with the book is the focus.  The first two sections of the book are subtitled Ulysses, the Sacker of Cities (which is a retelling of the Trojan War) and The Wanderings of Ulysses (which is a retelling of The Odyssey).  (*7) , (*8)

The idea is to keep Ulysses the central character for both sections.  And well one can certainly see the temptation to do this (it strengthens the connection between The Odyssey and The Trojan War), it doesn't work, because Ulysses was not the main character in the Trojan War, and the Trojan War cannot be re-written to make him the main character without a lot of awkwardness.

Every once and a while, Andrew Lang will state his reluctance to spend too much time on any story that doesn't involve Ulysses.  For example, on page 49, just when getting into the fight between Hector and Achilles, Andrew Lang writes:

After Ulysses was wounded, early in this great battle, he was not able to fight for several days, and, as the story is about Ulysses, we must tell quite shortly how Achilles returned to the war to take vengeance for Patroclus, and how he slew Hector.  

And yet, despite this, he's not able to pull it off.  He's not able to retell the story of the Trojan War as if it was the story of Ulysses.  Ulysses keeps getting pushed to the edges of the story during the section about the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, or the section about Hector visiting his wife and son, or the section about Achilles versus Hector, Achilles versus the Amazons and then Achilles versus Memnon, et cetera.  After a while, Andrew Lang's insistence that this is a story about Ulysses just comes off as weird.
The thing is, The Trojan War was always an ensemble story, and it deserves to be told as such.  Then, after the story of the Trojan War has been told, then we can focus on Ulysses' return voyage home as a separate spin-off story.

But more annoying than this is Andrew Lang's attempt to demythologize the Trojan War and tell it as a history.

Robert Graves did the same thing in The Golden Fleece, and in my review of that book, I wrote: 

I believe that there was a phase in academia when it was fashionable to try to tease out the historical origins behind the myths.

In the early 19th century, Greek myths were treated as simply campfire stories with no historical value whatsoever.  Then after Schliemann discovered Troy (W), the pendulum swung in the other direction, and for a while the fashion became to assume that every myth had an origin in a historical event.

  ...that actually seems to apply even more to Andrew Lang.  Andrew Lang was writing in 1907, much closer in time to Schliemann's discoveries.  And we know Schliemann was on Andrew Lang's mind, because he explicitly references the archeological discoveries in his book (*9). 

Granted, ever since Schliemann, it's been an interesting parlor game to try to tease out what part of the story is partly historical and what part is pure legend.  Was the legend of Achilles based on a real Greek warrior whose deeds later got exaggerated over time?  Did Agamemnon have a historical analogue? (*10)  But no one seriously believes that the whole legend of the Trojan War, or the description of various battles that as they are described in The Iliad, are in any way historical.  So why attempt to treat it as such?

Whenever Andrew Lang gets to a part in The Iliad where the gods intervenes, he either omits the gods, or he posits an alternative explanation as to what really happened.
For instance, when Andrew Lang gets to the part where Apollo is striking down the Greek camp with sickness, Andrew Lang writes:

They [the Greeks] thought that the beautiful God Apollo (who took the Trojan side) was shooting invisible arrows at them from his silver bow, though fevers in armies are usually caused by dirt and drinking water.  The great heat of the sun, too, may have helped to cause the disease; but we must tell the story as the Greeks told it themselves. (p.29)

Right. As if the only thing that is unbelievable about this whole story is that the disease had a supernatural explanation.  Change that one little part, and everything else can read as true history?
Similarly, when Aphrodite rescues Paris during the fight with Menelaus, Lang writes simply that Paris escaped somehow, and the Greeks thought that it was Aphrodite.  Several other times Lang will record instances of miraculous things happening in the Trojan War, but then go on to qualify them by saying that this is what the Greeks believed, and the reality might be different--again, as if all the heroes and all the battles in the Trojan War could be considered historical, just minus the supernatural elements!

As a consequence of this, some of the best parts of the Iliad are left out in Lang's retelling.  All the stories about the gods joining in the fighting, or about the gods quarreling up in Olympus, are left out of Lang's version.
Now, what fun is that?  The best parts of the Trojan War is reading about the gods and humans meeting each other on the battlefield.  If I can't read about the human Diomedes and the goddess Athena fighting against the war god Ares on the battlefield, then why am I reading about the Trojan War?
(It's not entirely consistent--there are a few references to Thetis, the goddess mother of Achilles, and a few references to Zeus.  But for the most part, the tendency is to treat the gods and goddess as simply something the Greeks believed in, but  not an integral part of the story.)

Now, throughout the whole time I'm reading this, I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, maybe you can tell a demythologized version of the Trojan War.  But what is Andrew Lang going to do when he gets to The Odyssey?  Surely that story can't be told without reference to the supernatural?"

Well,  at the beginning of Andrew Lang's retelling of The Odyssey, his initial pivot is to say that Ulysses somehow travelled into fairyland, so now the rules are different, I guess:

A great storm arose and beat upon the ships, and it seems that Ulysses and his men were driven into Fairyland, where they remained for ten years.  We have heard that King Arthur and Thomas the Rhymer were carried into Fairyland, but what adventures they met with there we do not know. About Ulysses we have stories which are now to be told. (p.99)

This is a cheat, of course.  In the original myth, there's no division between the world of the Trojan War and the world of The Odyssey.  But it allows Andrew Lang to bring in all the magical and mythical creatures in The Odyssey.  Suddenly, the Greek gods and goddesses (which Andrew Lang had previously treated as just old beliefs) are now very real and coming down to talk to Ulysses regularly.
Also, this is the last we ever hear of "Fairyland".  There's no indication that Ulysses ever leaves "Fairyland" and that the story can return to something historical.  For the rest of the book, gods, goddesses and mythical creatures are just part of the story.  Ulysses eventually returns to his homeland in Ithaca, but still is helped by the goddess Athena.
And then the book moves on to the stories of Jason, Theseus, and Perseus, and the pseudo-historical angle is completely abandoned.

This is the kind of inconsistency you'd expect to find in a first draft, but how did this get printed up as the final version?  Unless Andrew Lang was simply rushing to meet deadlines, and had long since stopped caring.  But then why do we treat this book as a classic?

And it gets worse.
There are inconsistencies regarding how characters are named, and Andrew Lang seems to have trouble keeping track of some of the minor characters in the Trojan War.
For example, the character of Teucer--the brother of Ajax the Great.  Andrew Lang mentions Teucer early on as one of the great archers among the Greeks, but then later he seems to forget that he's already identified Teucer for his readers, because then he keeps referring to him simply as "Ajax's brother".  (Presumably he's trying to avoid overburden his readers by forcing them to remember too many obscure characters, but he it would be simpler and less awkward just to say "Teucer, Ajax's brother".)  He then later mentions Teucer later in the story a couple times, without ever making the connection that this is Ajax's brother.  Essentially, in Andrew Lang's retelling, the character of Teucer, Ajax's brother, splits into two characters: one named Teucer, and one named Ajax's brother.
And then Andrew Lang begins to get the brother of Ajax confused with Ajax the lesser.  When describing the Greeks returning home, Andrew Lang writes: "...and the ship of the brother of Ajax was wrecked on a rock, and there he was drowned..." (p.98).  But this was not the fate of the brother of Ajax (who arrived safely back in Greece), but the fate of Ajax the Lesser. (*11)
And then it gets even worse, when on page 121, Andrew Lang says that it was Ajax who was drowned in the sea.  (Ajax the Lesser was never identified as a character in Andrew Lang's retelling, so the reader would presumably have to assume this as a reference to Ajax the Great.)
So basically, Andrew Lang can't keep track of the difference between Ajax the Great, Ajax's brother, and Ajax the Lesser. 

Now, it's not that Andrew Lang is ignorant.  According to his Wikipedia bio, he was actually a Homeric scholar.  So presumably he knew the difference between Ajax the Great and Ajax the Lesser.  But it's painfully obvious that neither he nor anyone else ever proofread this thing before it got sent off to the printers, and so he apparently couldn't be bothered to keep track of what he adjustments he was making to the source material.   

Nor, apparently, can Andrew Lang be bothered to keep track of what style of English he's using.  His characters speak sometimes in modern English, and sometimes in King James style English.  The narration style is mostly in modern English, but every now and again, after two characters have been talking to each other in King James English, Andrew Lang will get confused and also briefly continue the narration in King James English, before he snaps out of it and goes back into modern English.  (Example: "So spake he, and Calyspo, that fair Goddess, shuddered and spake unto him..." (p.123))

Also, for a work that's meant to be an introduction to the Greek myths for schoolchildren, there's a lot of confusing and inconsistent referencing going on.  At one point, Andrew Lang, without any explanation, suddenly starts referring to Hermes as "the slayer of Argos" right in the middle of a chapter.  If you know your Greek mythology, then you know that this is a reference to Hermes.  But how confusing this must be for new readers!  (And this book is meant as an introduction for young readers.)
In another chapter, Andrew Lang suddenly refers to Menelaus as "the hero Atrides".  That one confused even me.  I had to Google it, but it turns out Menelaus and Agamemnon can both be called "Atrides" as the sons of Atreus.  It confused me at the time I was reading it though.  "Wait, who is Atrides?  Where did he come from?  Is he the same person as Menelaus?"
I suspect that when he was writing these sections, Andrew Lang was looking at the Odyssey, and he just copied the Homeric names directly and forgot to clarify the names for his readers.  (Homer is famous for using these obscure references to refer to his characters, but then Homer was writing for a different audience, an audience that could keep up with all these references.  This is not appropriate for an introductory book on Greek Myths.)

And what else is inconsistent?  While, Andrew Lang's depiction of sex is inconsistent as well.  His intended audience is school children, so I don't entirely blame him for trying to take some of the sex out of these ancient myths, even though it does create some awkwardness in the retelling every now and then.  But then, he'll leave in the sex in some other areas where he could easily have taken it out.  (I'm assuming this inconsistency is like all the others--he just wasn't keeping track of what he was doing.)

Am I making it sound like I didn't enjoy this book?  Because I actually enjoyed this book.

In spite of everything, in spite of all the inconsistencies and irritations, it was for the most part an easy to read pleasant retelling of the Greek Myths.

Most of the first section is just a retelling of The Iliad and The Posthomerica, but it is on the whole a very pleasant retelling of these books.  I mean, there's a reason why I'm choosing to read this book instead of slogging my way through The Iliad again.  Andrew Lang's version is much easier to read.

...with a couple exceptions.  There were a few sections where I got the impression that Andrew Lang was covering the plot points of The Iliad just because he felt like he had to do it, and his heart wasn't in it.  For example, the dual between Paris and Menelaus. Or the part with Hector meeting his wife Andromache and baby for the last time on the walls of Troy. (*12)   So for some of these sections, I thought I would be better of reading the original Iliad again rather than reading Andrew Lang's version.

But those sections aside, on the whole, it's a very readable summary of the major plot points of The Iliad and The Posthomerica.  And in several sections, I thought he did a good job of retelling some of the battle scenes from The Iliad and The Posthomerica, keeping the dramatic tension tight, while avoiding getting bogged down in too much detail.  The scenes with Hector and the Trojans attacking the Greek ships in particular did a good job of capturing the feeling from the original Iliad of increasing intensity as the Trojans relentlessly just kept coming and coming and the Greek situation got more and more desperate.  It is described with a lot of intensity in the original Iliad, and Andrew Lang does a good job of capturing that same intensity.

This book is meant to be an introduction to the Trojan War for young readers encountering the story for the first time.  I'm not sure how many readers actually first encountered the Trojan War from Andrew Lang's retelling, but because this book has been in print for 110 years now, it's safe to say that at least some readers over the years have first learned of Troy and Hector and Achilles through this book.  Occasionally, I would try to imagine myself in the place of a new reader.  Andrew Lang's prose is very readable, and I often found myself thinking that this would not be a bad way to learn the story of Troy for the first time.

...except...except that it's a pity Andrew Lang took out all the parts about the gods and goddesses joining in the battle.  It makes me feel sad that some people might read this book as their first and only 

encounter with the Trojan War, and never read about the goddess Athena driving the chariot of Diomedes as they go to attack the war god Ares.

And then, after the retelling of the Trojan War and The Odyssey, come almost as an afterthought the stories of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Theseus, and Perseus.
If you know your Greek Mythology, you know that chronologically all 3 of these stories come before the Trojan War.  So it's a bit strange that Andrew Lang has placed them afterwards.  It means he has to jump back in time after he gets done with the Trojan War story.  But I guess it makes a certain degree of sense to put the main story at the front of the book.

I don't have a lot to say about these last three stories.  I enjoyed Andrew Lang's retelling.  My only nit-pick is that there are certain plot threads from these earlier stories that lead in to the Trojan War (*13), and it would have made the narrative more coherent to put these stories first, and then emphasizes the plot threads that lead into the subsequent Trojan War story.  But that's not the way Andrew Lang wanted to do it, and his version still works in its own way.

Other Notes and Nitpicks

* So, when reviewing a book like this, I try really hard to just stick to my critiques of the retelling of the Greek Myths, and not to critique the Greek Myths themselves.  Because, good grief, we'd be here all night if I opened that can of worms.
But I do feel like I have to make a few general comments on my experience as a reader.
The thing about Greek Myths is that they can be fantastically imaginative, and wonderfully action packed, but they can also be a real downer.  So many ironic tragedies.
When I was younger, I tried to ignore the tragedy part, and just focus on the heroes, gods and monsters.  But there's a reason that each story has a tragedy, and that's because the Greeks themselves viewed this as an important part of storytelling.  Or as the kids say nowadays, "this isn't a bug, this is a feature"--at least that's how the Greeks saw it.  Me?  I can get easily depressed by reading too much of this.
I also find I'm more sentimental now that I'm middle-aged.  In my youth, I could read all these stories about family tragedies with detachment.  Now, I can't help but feeling emotional about family tragedy such as parents being separated from children, or aged parents dying.
As for the morality of The Trojan War itself--I've got a lot of mixed feelings about it (some of which I worked through in these video blogs here).  When Phil attacked The Iliad as a barbaric bronze age story some years back, I defended it, but the truth is that I'm far more ambivalent than I let on in my comments.  A large part of me could see where Phil was coming from.
When reading a retelling of The Trojan War, it doesn't do to try to get too much into the morality of it.  You just have to enjoy the story as the Greek's themselves told it.

But it irked me when Andrew Lang, in his authorial voice, interjected to insert his editorial opinion and praise Ulysses for stopping the Greeks soldiers from abandoning the war.

That night Zeus sent a deceitful dream to Agamemnon. The dream took the shape of old Nestor, and said that Zeus would give him victory that day. While he was still asleep, Agamemnon was full of hope that he would instantly take Troy, but, when he woke, he seems not to have been nearly so confident, for in place of putting on his armour, and bidding the Greeks arm themselves, he merely dressed in his robe and mantle, took his sceptre, and went and told the chiefs about his dream. They did not feel much encouraged, so he said that he would try the temper of the army. He would call them together, and propose to return to Greece; but, if the soldiers took him at his word, the other chiefs were to stop them. This was a foolish plan, for the soldiers were wearying for beautiful Greece, and their homes, and wives and children. Therefore, when Agamemnon did as he had said, the whole army rose, like the sea under the west wind, and, with a shout, they rushed to the ships, while the dust blew in clouds from under their feet. Then they began to launch their ships, and it seems that the princes were carried away in the rush, and were as eager as the rest to go home.

But Ulysses only stood in sorrow and anger beside his ship, and never put hand to it, for he felt how disgraceful it was to run away. At last he threw down his mantle, which his herald Eurybates of Ithaca, a round-shouldered, brown, curly-haired man, picked up, and he ran to find Agamemnon, and took his sceptre, a gold-studded staff, like a marshal's baton, and he gently told the chiefs whom he met that they were doing a shameful thing; but he drove the common soldiers back to the place of meeting with the sceptre. They all returned, puzzled and chattering, but one lame, bandy-legged, bald, round-shouldered, impudent fellow, named Thersites, jumped up and made an insolent speech, insulting the princes, and advising the army to run away. Then Ulysses took him and beat him till the blood came, and he sat down, wiping away his tears, and looking so foolish that the whole army laughed at him, and cheered Ulysses when he and Nestor bade them arm and fight. Agamemnon still believed a good deal in his dream, and prayed that he might take Troy that very day, and kill Hector. Thus Ulysses alone saved the army from a cowardly retreat; but for him the ships would have been launched in an hour. (page 31-32)

Many modern authors have pointed out that Thersites is the only one in the Trojan War who shows any sense (W).  The ancients may have viewed this differently, but it is a little bit disconcerting to see an author in the twentieth century go out of his way to praise Ulysses for beating Thersites. (*14)

* The book is dedicated to H. Rider Haggard.  See here for my review of King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard.

* The cover of the book I read (the one pictured at the top of this blog post) has a picture of Pan playing the flute.  Since Pan does not appear at all in this book, the picture is completely unrelated to the book's contents.
I would normally forgive this.  (I'm usually quite tolerant of cheap reprints of classics just grabbing some art from the public domain).  Except that there is so much art about Greek Mythology already in the public domain.  Aside from the Bible, it's got to be the most represented subject in Western Art.  Couldn't they have found some picture that actually represented the contents of this book a little bit better?

Footnotes (docs, pub)

(*1) Other contenders for "Retellings of Classic Mythology that Are Now Considered Classics in Themselves" category: Mythology by Edith Hamilton, Bulfinches Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch, and The Luck of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green, all come to mind.  What am I missing? 
I've read parts of Edith Hamilton and Thomas Bulfinch, but never the whole works cover-to-cover.  I believe my brother read The Luck of Troy for one of his college classes, and for several years afterwards his copy was in my parent's house.  I never bothered picking it up while it was laying around because I figured I already knew the Trojan War story well enough, and didn't need to read another retelling.  But it strikes me now that I'd be curious to find out what in particular made Roger Lancelyn Green's version pass the test of time.  If I ever cross paths with that book again, I'll check it out.
The book that introduced me to the Trojan War as a young lad was The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge, which could perhaps also at this point be considered a classic retelling, since it was published in 1952 and is still in print.

(*2) And the story of Bellerophon also appears as a story within a story in the Perseus section. 
Actually speaking of which, I'm not sure whether or not to count this as an error.  In Andrew Lang's retelling, the hero Perseus is inspired by the story of the hero Bellerophon.  But usually, Bellerophon is depicted as riding the horse Pegasus, and Pegasus originates with Perseus and was later tamed by Bellerophon.  So when Andrew Lang puts the story of Bellerophon before Perseus, this appears to be a continuity error.  The only thing I'm not sure of is whether or not there might be different versions of this myth.  (In Andrew Lang's version, by the way, the horse Pegasus appears in neither Bellerophon's story or Perseus's story.  So it's not a problem in Andrew Lang's version.  But in other retellings, the Pegasus is usually a part of each of their stories.)  I guess count this as a possible error, for now.

(*3) Oh, also I read The Aeneid in high school, but I'm not counting that as one of the sources for this book because I'm relatively sure Andrew Lang is borrowing nothing from The Aeneid's account of the fall of Troy.  

(*4) Admittedly I've never read the ancient classical sources for Jason and the Golden Fleece, Perseus or Theseus.  But I've read those stories many times in various modern editions of Greek Mythology.  In fact, this is the second book I've read this year retelling the story of Jason and the Argonauts.

(*5) Since this is best illustrated by quotation, here are the opening paragraphs from page 1.  I think you'll agree they're well-written:

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.
If there were no horses in Ithaca, there was plenty of cattle.  The father of Ulysses had flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, and wild goats, deer, and hares lived in the hills and in the plains.  The sea was full of fish of many sorts, which men caught with nets, and with rod and line and hook.
Thus Ithaca was a good island to live in.  The summer was long, and there was hardly any winter; only a few cold weeks, and then the swallows came back, and the plains were like a garden, all covered with wild flowers—violets, lilies, narcissus, and roses.  With the blue sky and the blue sea, the island was beautiful.  White temples stood on the shores; and the Nymphs, a sort of fairies, had their little shrines built of stone, with wild rose-bushes hanging over them.

(*6)  That's based off of nothing but my own supposition, of course.  But given how there's no information available on the history or composition of this book anywhere, supposition is all I have to go with.  It seems like a reasonable enough guess going off of how many books he was publishing during this period.  

(*7) I'm not sure that the section title, Ulysses, the Sacker of Cities (which covers the Trojan War section) is a fitting title for the content that it covers.  The main thrust of the narrative is that Ulysses is a very clever and virtuous soldier, so why is the title about sacking cities? 
I know, you could make the argument that sacking a city isn't entirely alien to the story of Ulysses.  According to legend, the Greeks sacked some cities on the way to Troy. Plus Ulysses was definitely part of the sack of Troy.  

But the sack of the other cities is a minor footnote in the story of the Trojan War. (Andrew Lang deals with it in just one sentence fragment, "...as they went out again, with the people's of unfriendly islands, and besieged their towns.." (p.25).)  Putting aside those other cities (which Andrew Lang largely ignores), then "the sacker of cities" really should be in the singular--a sacker of a city.  And even then,  Ulysses was not the only person who sacked Troy, nor was he the leader of the expedition.

A bit of Googling reveals that "sacker of cities" originally come from Homer.  In The Odyssey, Ulysses calls himself "the sacker of cities when bragging to the Cyclops that he blinded. -quote: 

[500] “So they spoke, but they could not persuade my great-hearted spirit; and I answered him again with angry heart: “'Cyclops, if any one of mortal men shall ask thee about the shameful blinding of thine eye, say that Odysseus, the sacker of cities, blinded it, [505] even the son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca.

Okay, so fair enough.  Andrew Lang gets points for authenticity, I guess.  (Although apparently even among Homeric scholars, there's some confusion as to why Homer gave Ulysses this epithet.)  But even if the quote is authentic, it still doesn't fit the story he wants to tell.
And when Andrew Lang retells this part of The Odyssey, he changes the wording.  From Andrey Lang's version:

Ulysses again shouted to the giant, "If anyone asks who blinded you, say that it was Ulysses, Laertes' son, of Ithaca, the stormer of cities." (p.102-103)

The stormer of cities? What a wasted opportunity to explain the reference in the title of the first section.  
Given all the other sloppiness that is surrounding this book, I suspect Andrew Lang just forgot he had used different wording in the text when it was time to choose a title for the work.  It is SO obvious that he was never going back to read over what he wrote.

And what's more, to modern audiences there is no act of ancient warfare more repellant than the idea of sacking a defeated city.  And when Andrew Lang is otherwise doing so much work to make Ulysses seem sympathetic, why then make the unnecessary association between Ulysses and sacking?

(*8) Just from looking at the titles, questions present themselves?  If this is supposed to be Tales of Troy and Greece, then why are we using the Latin Ulysses instead of the Greek Odysseus .  I can't figure it out myself.  All the other characters in the book are referenced by their Greek names.  So why is only Ulysses going by the Latin?  I mean, I could understand using the Latin name if that was the more common one, but Odysseus is the more common way to refer to the hero in the English speaking world, right?  All the mythology books I grew up with always used Odysseus.  So why use Ulysses here?Unless... has this convention changed over time?  Was Ulysses the more common name in Edwardian England?
Hey, wait a minute! You don't suppose that's the reason Joyce named his book Ulysses and not Odysseus, do you?  And what about the 1963 film: Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (which I saw re-run on TNT back when I was young).
My experience is that modern English retellings of Greek myths usually use the Greek names for everyone except Hercules. (Greek: Heracles, Latin: Hercules).  For whatever reason, Hercules is much more well-known in the English-speaking world by his Latin name instead of his Greek name.  (Sidenote: Does anyone know why this is?  Why does only Hercules get referred to in the Latin, and why Hercules specifically?)
Andrew Lang, however, in Tales of Troy and Greece uses the Greek Heracles to refer to the hero.  Which to my mind makes it all the odder that Ulysses is the only character that uses the Latin.

(*9) For example, on page 95 is one of several passages in which Lang references Schliemann's discoveries in his narrative:

All the gold and silver and rich embroideries, and ivory and amber, the horses and chariots were divided among the army; all but a treasure of silver and gold, hidden in a chest within a hollow of the wall, and this treasure was found, not very many years ago, by men digging deep on the hill where Troy once stood (p.95)

(*10) I once read in a book that the historical Trojan War probably occurred because a coalition of Greek cities wanted to put an end to a powerful trading rival, and the legend of Helen of Troy was pure fairy-tale.  But later, I read somewhere else that even in the ancient world, wars needed some kind of pretext.  So it could well be that the Greek cities had been looking for an excuse to go to war with Troy anyway, and then there was some incident with a jilted husband's honor that was seized upon as an excuse.  So maybe Helen of Troy did have a historical basis!  
So don't get me wrong, I enjoy some good old speculation about teasing out the myth from the history as much as anybody.  But that's all for a separate discussion.  When I sit down to read the myth of the Trojan War, I don't want concerns about historical accuracy interfering with my enjoyment of the myth.  

(*11) For some confusing reason, the Trojan War story has two characters named Ajax.  They are usually distinguished by calling them "Ajax the Great" and "Ajax the Lesser". 
Dan Simmons also confused Ajax the Great and Ajax the Lesser.  This was one of my nit-picks in my review of his book Ilium, in which Dan Simmons attributed the rape of Cassandra to Ajax the Great.  (It was actually Ajax the Lesser.) 
Andrew Lang completely omits any mention of Cassandra or rape (which was probably wise, given that he was writing for children) and in so doing avoids any confusion about which Ajax raped her.

(*12) The meeting between Hector and Andromache in particular is a very powerful scene in the original Iliad, and Andrew Lang just doesn't have the time or the patience to deal with the emotions in this scene, so he just gives a quick synopsis of what happened.  It would have been better for him to leave it out entirely.

(*13) Nestor was one of Jason's Argonauts.  Theseus once abducted Helen of Troy.  Et cetera.

(*14) Ulysses is the hero of the book, so Andrew Lang is always praising everything he does.  The darker parts of Ulysses legend are omitted from this book. 
My first introduction to the story of the Trojan War was  The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge in which Ulysses is not always portrayed in such positive terms.  In that book, Ulysses was responsible for framing and killing Palamedes.  Also in Olivia Coolidge's version, if memory serves, Ulysses won the contest for Achilles' armor by deceitful tactics. 
Andrew Lang sets up the story of how Palamedes proved that Ulysses was faking his madness, but does not provide the pay-off of how Ulysses later got his revenge.
(I was searching on Google just now, and can't find any other source that Ulysses used deceit to win the contest for Ajax's armor.  Maybe Olivia Coolidge just invented that part?  Or maybe I'm remembering wrong?)
The fact that Andrew Lang is doing so much to set up Ulysses as the great hero in my opinion makes it all the more strange that he calls the first section "Ulysses: The Sacker of Cities."

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Language Design - Noam Chomsky / Serious Science