The sack of Troy, and of how Menelaus would have let stone Helen, but
Aphrodite saved her, and made them at one again, and how they came home
to Lacedaemon, and of their translation to Elysium.
I.
There came a day, when Trojan spies beheld
How, o'er the Argive leaguer, all the air
Was pure of smoke, no battle-din there swell'd,
Nor any clarion-call was sounding there!
Yea, of the serried ships the strand was bare,
And sea and shore were still, as long ago
When Ilios knew not Helen, and the fair
Sweet face that makes immortal all her woe.
II.
So for a space the watchers on the wall
Were silent, wond'ring what these things might mean.
But, at the last, sent messengers to call
Priam, and all the elders, and the lean
Remnant of goodly chiefs, that once had been
The shield and stay of Ilios, and her joy,
Nor yet despair'd, but trusted Gods unseen,
And cast their spears, and shed their blood for Troy.
III.
They came, the more part grey, grown early old,
In war and plague; but with them was the young
Coroebus, that but late had left the fold
And flocks of sheep Maeonian hills among,
And valiantly his lot with Priam flung,
For love of a lost cause and a fair face,--
The eyes that once the God of Pytho sung,
That now look'd darkly to the slaughter-place.
IV.
Now while the elders kept their long debate,
Coroebus stole unheeded to his band,
And led a handful by a postern gate
Across the plain, across the barren land
Where once the happy vines were wont to stand,
And 'mid the clusters once did maidens sing,--
But now the plain was waste on every hand,
Though here and there a flower would breathe of Spring.
V.
So swift across the trampled battle-field
Unchallenged still, but wary, did they pass,
By many a broken spear or shatter'd shield
That in Fate's hour appointed faithless was:
Only the heron cried from the morass
By Xanthus' side, and ravens, and the grey
Wolves left their feasting in the tangled grass,
Grudging; and loiter'd, nor fled far away.
VI.
There lurk'd no spears in the high river-banks,
No ambush by the cairns of men outworn,
But empty stood the huts, in dismal ranks,
Where men through all these many years had borne
Fierce summer, and the biting winter's scorn;
And here a sword was left, and there a bow,
But ruinous seem'd all things and forlorn,
As in some camp forsaken long ago.
VII.
Gorged wolves crept round the altars, and did eat
The flesh of victims that the priests had slain,
And wild dogs fought above the sacred meat
Late offer'd to the deathless Gods in vain,
By men that, for reward of all their pain,
Must haul the ropes, and weary at the oar,
Or, drowning, clutch at foam amid the main,
Nor win their haven on the Argive shore.
VIII.
Not long the young men marvell'd at the sight,
But grasping one a sword, and one the spear
Aias, or Tydeus' son, had borne in fight,
They sped, and fill'd the town with merry cheer,
For folk were quick the happy news to hear,
And pour'd through all the gates into the plain,
Rejoicing as they wander'd far and near,
O'er the long Argive toils endured in vain.
IX.
Ah, sweet it was, without the city walls,
To hear the doves coo, and the finches sing;
Ah, sweet, to twine their true-loves coronals
Of woven wind-flowers, and each fragrant thing
That blossoms in the footsteps of the spring;
And sweet, to lie, forgetful of their grief,
Where violets trail by waters wandering,
And the wild fig-tree putteth forth his leaf!
X.
Now while they wander'd as they would, they found
A wondrous thing: a marvel of man's skill,
That stood within a vale of hollow ground,
And bulk'd scarce smaller than the bitter-hill,--
The common barrow that the dead men fill
Who died in the long leaguer,--not of earth,
Was this new portent, but of tree, and still
The Trojans stood, and marvell'd 'mid their mirth.
XI.
Ay, much they wonder'd what this thing might be,
Shaped like a Horse it was; and many a stain
There show'd upon the mighty beams of tree,
For some with fire were blacken'd, some with rain
Were dank and dark amid white planks of plane,
New cut among the trees that now were few
On wasted Ida; but men gazed in vain,
Nor truth thereof for all their searching knew.
XII.
At length they deem'd it was a sacred thing,
Vow'd to Poseidon, monarch of the deep,
And that herewith the Argives pray'd the King
Of wind and wave to lull the seas to sleep;
So this, they cried, within the sacred keep
Of Troy must rest, memorial of the war;
And sturdily they haled it up the steep,
And dragg'd the monster to their walls afar.
XIII.
All day they wrought: and children crown'd with flowers
Laid light hands on the ropes; old men would ply
Their feeble force; so through the merry hours
They toil'd, midst laughter and sweet minstrelsy,
And late they drew the great Horse to the high
Crest of the hill, and wide the tall gates swang;
But thrice, for all their force, it stood thereby
Unmoved, and thrice like smitten armour rang.
XIV.
Natheless they wrought their will; then altar fires
The Trojans built, and did the Gods implore
To grant fulfilment of all glad desires.
But from the cups the wine they might not pour,
The flesh upon the spits did writhe and roar,
The smoke grew red as blood, and many a limb
Of victims leap'd upon the temple floor,
Trembling; and groans amid the chapels dim
XV.
Rang low, and from the fair Gods' images
And from their eyes, dropp'd sweat and many a tear;
The walls with blood were dripping, and on these
That sacrificed, came horror and great fear;
The holy laurels to Apollo dear
Beside his temple faded suddenly,
And wild wolves from the mountains drew anear,
And ravens through the temples seem'd to fly.
XVI.
Yet still the men of Troy were glad at heart,
And o'er strange meat they revell'd, like folk fey,
Though each would shudder if he glanced apart,
For round their knees the mists were gather'd grey,
Like shrouds on men that Hell-ward take their way;
But merrily withal they feasted thus,
And laugh'd with crooked lips, and oft would say
Some evil-sounding word and ominous.
XVII.
And Hecuba among her children spake,
"Let each man choose the meat he liketh best,
For bread no more together shall we break.
Nay, soon from all my labour must I rest,
But eat ye well, and drink the red wine, lest
Ye blame my house-wifery among men dead."
And all they took her saying for a jest,
And sweetly did they laugh at that she said.
XVIII.
Then, like a raven on the of night,
The wild Cassandra flitted far and near,
Still crying, "Gather, gather for the fight,
And brace the helmet on, and grasp the spear,
For lo, the legions of the Night are here!"
So shriek'd the dreadful prophetess divine.
But all men mock'd, and were of merry cheer;
Safe as the Gods they deem'd them, o'er their wine.
XIX.
For now with minstrelsy the air was sweet,
The soft spring air, and thick with incense smoke;
And bands of happy dancers down the street
Flew from the flower-crown'd doors, and wheel'd, and broke;
And loving words the youths and maidens spoke,
For Aphrodite did their hearts beguile,
As when beneath grey cavern or green oak
The shepherd men and maidens meet and smile.
XX.
No guard they set, for truly to them all
Did Love and slumber seem exceeding good;
There was no watch by open gate nor wall,
No sentinel by Pallas' image stood;
But silence grew, as in an autumn wood
When tempests die, and the vex'd boughs have ease,
And wind and sunlight fade, and soft the mood
Of sacred twilight falls upon the trees.
XXI.
Then the stars cross'd the zenith, and there came
On Troy that hour when slumber is most deep,
But any man that watch'd had seen a flame
Spring from the tall crest of the Trojan keep;
While from the belly of the Horse did leap
Men arm'd, and to the gates went stealthily,
While up the rocky way to Ilios creep
The Argives, new return'd across the sea.
XXII.
Now when the silence broke, and in that hour
When first the dawn of war was blazing red,
There came a light in Helen's fragrant bower,
As on that evil night before she fled
From Lacedaemon and her marriage bed;
And Helen in great fear lay still and cold,
For Aphrodite stood above her head,
And spake in that sweet voice she knew of old:
XXIII.
"Beloved one that dost not love me, wake!
Helen, the night is over, the dawn is near,
And safely shalt thou fare with me, and take
Thy way through fire and blood, and have no fear:
A little hour, and ended is the drear
Tale of thy sorrow and thy wandering.
Nay, long hast thou to live in happy cheer,
By fair Eurotas, with thy lord, the King."
XXIV.
Then Helen rose, and in a cloud of gold,
Unseen amid the vapour of the fire,
Did Aphrodite veil her, fold on fold;
And through the darkness, thronged with faces dire,
And o'er men's bodies fallen in a mire
Of new spilt blood and wine, the twain did go
Where Lust and Hate were mingled in desire,
And dreams and death were blended in one woe.
XXV.
Fire and the foe were masters now: the sky
Flared like the dawn of that last day of all,
When men for pity to the sea shall cry,
And vainly on the mountain tops shall call
To fall and end the horror in their fall;
And through the vapour dreadful things saw they,
The maidens leaping from the city wall,
The sleeping children murder'd where they lay.
XXVI.
Yea, cries like those that make the hills of Hell
Ring and re-echo, sounded through the night,
The screams of burning horses, and the yell
Of young men leaping naked into fight,
And shrill the women shriek'd, as in their flight
Shriek the wild cranes, when overhead they spy
Between the dusky cloud-land and the bright
Blue air, an eagle stooping from the sky.
XXVII.
And now the red glare of the burning shone
On deeds so dire the pure Gods might not bear,
Save Ares only, long to look thereon,
But with a cloud they darken'd all the air.
And, even then, within the temple fair
Of chaste Athene, did Cassandra cower,
And cried aloud an unavailing prayer;
For Aias was the master in that hour.
XXVIII.
Man's lust won what a God's love might not win,
And heroes trembled, and the temple floor
Shook, when one cry went up into the din,
And shamed the night to silence; then the roar
Of war and fire wax'd great as heretofore,
Till each roof fell, and every palace gate
Was shatter'd, and the King's blood shed; nor more
Remain'd to do, for Troy was desolate.
XXIX.
Then dawn drew near, and changed to clouds of rose
The dreadful smoke that clung to Ida's head;
But Ilios was ashes, and the foes
Had left the embers and the plunder'd dead;
And down the steep they drove the prey, and sped
Back to the swift ships, with a captive train,--
While Menelaus, slow, with drooping head,
Follow'd, like one lamenting, through the plain.
XXX.
Where death might seem the surest, by the gate
Of Priam, where the spears raged, and the tall
Towers on the foe were falling, sought he fate
To look on Helen once, and then to fall,
Nor see with living eyes the end of all,
What time the host their vengeance should fulfil,
And cast her from the cliff below the wall,
Or burn her body on the windy hill.
XXXI.
But Helen found he never, where the flame
Sprang to the roofs, and Helen ne'er he found
Where flock'd the wretched women in their shame
The helpless altars of the Gods around,
Nor lurk'd she in deep chambers underground,
Where the priests trembled o'er their hidden gold,
Nor where the armed feet of foes resound
In shrines to silence consecrate of old.
XXXII.
So wounded to his hut and wearily
Came Menelaus; and he bow'd his head
Beneath the lintel neither fair nor high;
And, lo! Queen Helen lay upon his bed,
Flush'd like a child in sleep, and rosy-red,
And at his footstep did she wake and smile,
And spake: "My lord, how hath thy hunting sped,
Methinks that I have slept a weary while!"
XXXIII.
For Aphrodite made the past unknown
To Helen, as of old, when in the dew
Of that fair dawn the net was round her thrown:
Nay, now no memory of Troy brake through
The mist that veil'd from her sweet eyes and blue
The dreadful days and deeds all over-past,
And gladly did she greet her lord anew,
And gladly would her arms have round him cast.
XXXIV.
Then leap'd she up in terror, for he stood
Before her, like a lion of the wild,
His rusted armour all bestain'd with blood,
His mighty hands with blood of men defiled,
And strange was all she saw: the spears, the piled
Raw skins of slaughter'd beasts with many a stain;
And low he spake, and bitterly he smiled,
"The hunt is ended, and the spoil is ta'en."
XXXV.
No more he spake; for certainly he deem'd
That Aphrodite brought her to that place,
And that of her loved archer Helen dream'd,
Of Paris; at that thought the mood of grace
Died in him, and he hated her fair face,
And bound her hard, not slacking for her tears;
Then silently departed for a space,
To seek the ruthless counsel of his peers.
XXXVI.
Now all the Kings were feasting in much joy,
Seated or couch'd upon the carpets fair
That late had strown the palace floors of Troy,
And lovely Trojan ladies served them there,
And meat from off the spits young princes bare;
But Menelaus burst among them all,
Strange, 'mid their revelry, and did not spare,
But bade the Kings a sudden council call.
XXXVII.
To mar their feast the Kings had little will,
Yet did they as he bade, in grudging wise,
And heralds call'd the host unto the hill
Heap'd of sharp stones, where ancient Ilus lies.
And forth the people flock'd, as throng'd as flies
That buzz about the milking-pails in spring,
When life awakens under April skies,
And birds from dawning into twilight sing.
XXXVIII.
Then Helen through the camp was driven and thrust,
Till even the Trojan women cried in glee,
"Ah, where is she in whom thou put'st thy trust,
The Queen of love and laughter, where is she?
Behold the last gift that she giveth thee,
Thou of the many loves! to die alone,
And round thy flesh for robes of price to be
The cold close-clinging raiment of sharp stone."
XXXIX.
Ah, slowly through that trodden field and bare
They pass'd, where scarce the daffodil might spring,
For war had wasted all, but in the air
High overhead the mounting lark did sing;
Then all the army gather'd in a ring
Round Helen, round their torment, trapp'd at last,
And many took up mighty stones to fling
From shards and flints on Ilus' barrow cast.
XL.
Then Menelaus to the people spoke,
And swift his wing'd words came as whirling snow,
"Oh ye that overlong have borne the yoke,
Behold the very fountain of your woe!
For her ye left your dear homes long ago,
On Argive valley or Boeotian plain;
But now the black ships rot from stern to prow,
Who knows if ye shall see your own again?
XLI.
"Ay, and if home ye win, ye yet may find,
Ye that the winds waft, and the waters bear
To Argos! ye are quite gone out of mind;
Your fathers, dear and old, dishonour'd there;
Your children deem you dead, and will not share
Their lands with you; on mainland or on isle,
Strange men are wooing now the women fair,
And love doth lightly woman's heart beguile.
XLII.
"These sorrows hath this woman wrought alone:
So fall upon her straightway that she die,
And clothe her beauty in a cloak of stone!"
He spake, and truly deem'd to hear her cry
And see the sharp flints straight and deadly fly;
But each man stood and mused on Helen's face,
And her undream'd-of beauty, brought so nigh
On that bleak plain, within that ruin'd place.
LXIII.
And as in far off days that were to be,
The sense of their own sin did men constrain,
That they must leave the sinful woman free
Who, by their law, had verily been slain,
So Helen's beauty made their anger vain,
And one by one his gather'd flints let fall;
And like men shamed they stole across the plain,
Back to the swift ships and their festival.
XLIV.
But Menelaus look'd on her and said,
"Hath no man then condemn'd thee,--is there none
To shed thy blood for all that thou hast shed,
To wreak on thee the wrongs that thou hast done.
Nay, as mine own soul liveth, there is one
That will not set thy barren beauty free,
But slay thee to Poseidon and the Sun
Before a ship Achaian takes the sea!"
XLV.
Therewith he drew his sharp sword from his thigh
As one intent to slay her: but behold,
A sudden marvel shone across the sky!
A cloud of rosy fire, a flood of gold,
And Aphrodite came from forth the fold
Of wondrous mist, and sudden at her feet
Lotus and crocus on the trampled wold
Brake, and the slender hyacinth was sweet.
XLVI.
Then fell the point that never bloodless fell
When spear bit harness in the battle din,
For Aphrodite spake, and like a spell
Wrought her sweet voice persuasive, till within
His heart there lived no memory of sin,
No thirst for vengeance more, but all grew plain,
And wrath was molten in desire to win
The golden heart of Helen once again.
XLVII.
Then Aphrodite vanish'd as the day
Passes, and leaves the darkling earth behind;
And overhead the April sky was grey,
But Helen's arms about her lord were twined,
And his round her as clingingly and kind,
As when sweet vines and ivy in the spring
Join their glad leaves, nor tempests may unbind
The woven boughs, so lovingly they cling.
* * * * *
XLVIII.
Noon long was over-past, but sacred night
Beheld them not upon the Ilian shore;
Nay, for about the waning of the light
Their swift ships wander'd on the waters hoar,
Nor stay'd they the Olympians to adore,
So eagerly they left that cursed land,
But many a toil, and tempests great and sore,
Befell them ere they won the Argive strand.
XLIX.
To Cyprus and Phoenicia wandering
They came, and many a ship, and many a man
They lost, and perish'd many a precious thing
While bare before the stormy North they ran,
And further far than when their quest began
From Argos did they seem,--a weary while,--
Becalm'd in sultry seas Egyptian,
A long day's voyage from the mouths of Nile.
L.
But there the Gods had pity on them, and there
The ancient Proteus taught them how to flee
From that so distant deep,--the fowls of air
Scarce in one year can measure out that sea;
Yet first within Aegyptus must they be,
And hecatombs must offer,--quickly then
The Gods abated of their jealousy,
Wherewith they scourge the negligence of men.
LI.
And strong and fair the south wind blew, and fleet
Their voyaging, so merrily they fled
To win that haven where the waters sweet
Of clear Eurotas with the brine are wed,
And swift their chariots and their horses sped
To pleasant Lacedaemon, lying low
Grey in the shade of sunset, but the head
Of tall Taygetus like fire did glow.
LII.
And what but this is sweet: at last to win
The fields of home, that change not while we change;
To hear the birds their ancient song begin;
To wander by the well-loved streams that range
Where not one pool, one moss-clad stone is strange,
Nor seem we older than long years ago,
Though now beneath the grey roof of the grange
The children dwell of them we used to know?
LIII.
Came there no trouble in the later days
To mar the life of Helen, when the old
Crowns and dominions perish'd, and the blaze
Lit by returning Heraclidae roll'd
Through every vale and every happy fold
Of all the Argive land? Nay, peacefully
Did Menelaus and the Queen behold
The counted years of mortal life go by.
LIV.
"Death ends all tales," but this he endeth not;
They grew not grey within the valley fair
Of hollow Lacedaemon, but were brought
To Rhadamanthus of the golden hair,
Beyond the wide world's end; ah never there
Comes storm nor snow; all grief is left behind,
And men immortal, in enchanted air,
Breathe the cool current of the Western wind.
LV.
But Helen was a Saint in Heathendom,
A kinder Aphrodite; without fear
Maidens and lovers to her shrine would come
In fair Therapnae, by the waters clear
Of swift Eurotas; gently did she hear
All prayers of love, and not unheeded came
The broken supplication, and the tear
Of man or maiden overweigh'd with shame.
O'er Helen's shrine the grass is growing green,
In desolate Therapnae; none the less
Her sweet face now unworshipp'd and unseen
Abides the symbol of all loveliness,
Of Beauty ever stainless in the stress
Of warring lusts and fears;--and still divine,
Still ready with immortal peace to bless
Them that with pure hearts worship at her shrine.
NOTE
[In this story in rhyme of the fortunes of Helen, the theory that she was
an unwilling victim of the Gods has been preferred. Many of the
descriptions of manners are versified from the Iliad and the Odyssey. The
description of the events after the death of Hector, and the account of
the sack of Troy, is chiefly borrowed from Quintus Smyrnaeus.]
The character and history of Helen of Troy have been conceived of in very
different ways by poets and mythologists. In attempting to trace the
chief current of ancient traditions about Helen, we cannot really get
further back than the Homeric poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. Philological
conjecture may assure us that Helen, like most of the characters of old
romance, is "merely the Dawn," or Light, or some other bright being
carried away by Paris, who represents Night, or Winter, or the Cloud, or
some other power of darkness. Without discussing these ideas, it may be
said that the Greek poets (at all events before allegorical explanations
of mythology came in, about five hundred years before Christ) regarded
Helen simply as a woman of wonderful beauty. Homer was not thinking of
the Dawn, or the Cloud when he described Helen among the Elders on the
Ilian walls, or repeated her lament over the dead body of Hector. The
Homeric poems are our oldest literary documents about Helen, but it is
probable enough that the poet has modified and purified more ancient
traditions which still survive in various fragments of Greek legend. In
Homer Helen is always the daughter of Zeus. Isocrates tells us
("Helena," 211 b) that "while many of the demigods were children of Zeus,
he thought the paternity of none of his daughters worth claiming, save
that of Helen only." In Homer, then, Helen is the daughter of Zeus, but
Homer says nothing of the famous legend which makes Zeus assume the form
of a swan to woo the mother of Helen. Unhomeric as this myth is, we may
regard it as extremely ancient. Very similar tales of pursuit and
metamorphosis, for amatory or other purposes, among the old legends of
Wales, and in the "Arabian Nights," as well as in the myths of
Australians and Red Indians. Again, the belief that different families
of mankind descend from animals, as from the Swan, or from gods in the
shape of animals, is found in every quarter of the world, and among the
rudest races. Many Australian natives of to-day claim descent, like the
royal house of Sparta, from the Swan. The Greek myths hesitated as to
whether Nemesis or Leda was the bride of the Swan. Homer only mentions
Leda among "the wives and daughters of mighty men," whose ghosts Odysseus
beheld in Hades: "And I saw Leda, the famous bedfellow of Tyndareus, who
bare to Tyndareus two sons, hardy of heart, Castor, tamer of steeds, and
the boxer Polydeuces." These heroes Helen, in the Iliad (iii. 238),
describes as her mother's sons. Thus, if Homer has any distinct view on
the subject, he holds that Leda is the mother of Helen by Zeus, of the
Dioscuri by Tyndareus.
Greek ideas as to the character of Helen varied with the various moods of
Greek literature. Homer's own ideas about his heroine are probably best
expressed in the words with which Priam greets her as she appears among
the assembled elders, who are watching the Argive heroes from the wall of
Troy:--"In nowise, dear child, do I blame thee; nay, the Gods are to
blame, who have roused against me the woful war of the Achaeans." Homer,
like Priam, throws the guilt of Helen on the Gods, but it is not very
easy to understand exactly what he means by saying "the Gods are to
blame." In the first place, Homer avoids the psychological problems in
which modern poetry revels, by attributing almost all changes of the
moods of men to divine inspiration. Thus when Achilles, in a famous
passage of the first book of the Iliad, puts up his half-drawn sword in
the sheath, and does not slay Agamemnon, Homer assigns his repentance to
the direct influence of Athene. Again, he says in the Odyssey, about
Clytemnestra, that "she would none of the foul deed;" that is of the love
of Aegisthus, till "the doom of the Gods bound her to her ruin." So far
the same excuse is made for the murderous Clytemnestra as for the amiable
Helen. Again, Homer is, in the strictest sense, and in strong contrast
to the Greek tragedians and to Virgil, a chivalrous poet. It would
probably be impossible to find a passage in which he speaks harshly or
censoriously of the conduct of any fair and noble lady. The sordid
treachery of Eriphyle, who sold her lord for gold, wins for her the
epithet "hateful;" and Achilles, in a moment of strong grief, applies a
term of abhorrence to Helen. But Homer is too chivalrous to judge the
life of any lady, and only shows the other side of the chivalrous
character--its cruelty to persons not of noble birth--in describing the
"foul death" of the waiting women of Penelope. "God forbid that I should
take these women's lives by a clean death," says Telemachus (Odyssey,
xxii. 462). So "about all their necks nooses were cast that they might
die by the death most pitiful. And they writhed with their feet for a
little space, but for no long while." In trying to understand Homer's
estimate of Helen, therefore, we must make allowance for his theory of
divine intervention, and for his chivalrous judgment of ladies. But
there are two passages in the Iliad which may be taken as indicating
Homer's opinion that Helen was literally a victim, an unwilling victim,
of Aphrodite, and that she was carried away by force a captive from
Lacedaemon. These passages are in the Iliad, ii. 356, 590. In the
former text Nestor says, "let none be eager to return home ere he has
couched with a Trojan's wife, and _avenged the longings and sorrows of
Helen_"--[Greek text]. It is thus that Mr. Gladstone, a notable champion
of Helen's, would render this passage, and the same interpretation was
favoured by the ancient "Separatists" (Chorizontes), who wished to prove
that the Iliad and Odyssey were by different authors; but many
authorities prefer to translate "to avenge our labours and sorrows for
Helen's sake"--"to avenge all that we have endured in the attempt to win
back Helen." Thus the evidence of this passage is ambiguous. The fairer
way to seek for Homer's real view of Helen is to examine all the passages
in which she occurs. The result will be something like this:--Homer sees
in Helen a being of the rarest personal charm and grace of character; a
woman who imputes to herself guilt much greater than the real measure of
her offence. She is ever gentle except with the Goddess who betrayed
her, and the unworthy lover whose lot she is compelled to share. Against
them her helpless anger breaks out in flashes of eloquent scorn. Homer
was apparently acquainted with the myth of Helen's capture by Theseus, a
myth illustrated in the decorations of the coffer of Cypselus. But we
first see Helen, the cause of the war, when Menelaus and Paris are about
to fight their duel for her sake, in the tenth year of the Leaguer
(Iliad, iii. 121). Iris is sent to summon Helen to the walls. She finds
Helen in her chamber, weaving at a mighty loom, and embroidering on
tapestry the adventures of the siege--the battles of horse-taming Trojans
and bronze-clad Achaeans. The message of Iris renews in Helen's heart "a
sweet desire for her lord and her own city, and them that begat her;" so,
draped in silvery white, Helen goes with her three maidens to the walls.
There, above the gate, like some king in the Old Testament, Paris sits
among his counsellors, and they are all amazed at Helen's beauty; "no
marvel is it that Trojans and Achaeans suffer long and weary toils for
such a woman, so wondrous like to the immortal goddesses." Then Priam,
assuring Helen that he holds her blameless, bids her name to him her
kinsfolk and the other Achaean warriors. In her reply, Helen displays
that grace of penitence which is certainly not often found in ancient
literature:--"Would that evil death had been my choice, when I followed
thy son, and left my bridal bower and my kin, and my daughter dear, and
the maidens of like age with me." Agamemnon she calls, "the husband's
brother of me shameless; alas, that such an one should be." She names
many of the warriors, but misses her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, "own
brothers of mine, one mother bare us. Either they followed not from
pleasant Lacedaemon, or hither they followed in swift ships, but now they
have no heart to go down into the battle for dread of the shame and many
reproaches that are mine."
"So spake she, but already the life-giving earth did cover them, there in
Lacedaemon, in their own dear country."
Menelaus and Paris fought out their duel, the Trojan was discomfited, but
was rescued from death and carried to Helen's bower by Aphrodite. Then
the Goddess came in disguise to seek Helen on the wall, and force her
back into the arms of her defeated lover. Helen turned on the Goddess
with an abruptness and a force of sarcasm and invective which seem quite
foreign to her gentle nature. "Wilt thou take me further yet to some
city of Phrygia or pleasant Maeonia, if there any man is dear to thee . .
. Nay, go thyself and sit down by Paris, and forswear the paths of the
Gods, but ever lament for him and cherish him, till he make thee his
wife, yea, or perchance his slave, but to him will I never go." But this
anger of Helen is soon overcome by fear, when the Goddess, in turn, waxes
wrathful, and Helen is literally driven by threats--"for the daughter of
Zeus was afraid,"--into the arms of Paris. Yet even so she taunts her
lover with his cowardice, a cowardice which she never really condones. In
the sixth book of the Iliad she has been urging him to return to the war.
She then expresses her penitence to Hector, "would that the fury of the
wind had borne me afar to the mountains, or the wave of the roaring
sea--ere ever these ill deeds were done!" In this passage too, she
prophesies that her fortunes will be [Greek text] famous in the songs,
good or evil, of men unborn. In the last book of the Iliad we meet Helen
once more, as she laments over the dead body of Hector. "'Never, in all
the twenty years since I came hither, have I heard from thee one taunt or
one evil word: nay, but if any other rebuked me in the halls, any one of
my husband's brothers, or of their sisters, or their wives, or the mother
of my husband (but the king was ever gentle to me as a father), then
wouldst thou restrain them with thy loving kindness and thy gentle
speech.' So spake she; weeping."
In the Odyssey, Helen is once more in Lacedaemon, the honoured but still
penitent wife of Menelaus. How they became reconciled (an extremely
difficult point in the story), there is nothing in Homer to tell us.
Sir John Lubbock has conjectured that in the morals of the heroic age
Helen was not really regarded as guilty. She was lawfully married, by
"capture," to Paris. Unfortunately for this theory there is abundant
proof that, in the heroic age, wives were nominally _bought_ for so many
cattle, or given as a reward for great services. There is no sign of
marriage by capture, and, again, marriage by capture is a savage
institution which applies to unmarried women, not to women already
wedded, as Helen was to Menelaus. Perhaps the oldest evidence we have
for opinion about the later relations of Helen and Menelaus, is derived
from Pausanias's (174. A.D.) description of the Chest of Cypselus. This
ancient coffer, a work of the seventh century, B.C., was still preserved
at Olympia, in the time of Pausanias. On one of the bands of cedar or of
ivory, was represented (Pausanias, v. 18), "Menelaus with a sword in his
hand, rushing on to kill Helen--clearly at the sacking of Ilios." How
Menelaus passed from a desire to kill Helen to his absolute complacency
in the Odyssey, Homer does not tell us. According to a statement
attributed to Stesichorus (635, 554, B.C.?), the army of the Achaeans
purposed to stone Helen, but was overawed and compelled to relent by her
extraordinary beauty: "when they beheld her, they cast down their stones
on the ground." It may be conjectured that the reconciliation followed
this futile attempt at punishing a daughter of Zeus. Homer, then, leaves
us without information about the adventures of Helen, between the sack of
Tiny and the reconciliation with Menelaus. He hints that she was married
to Deiphobus, after the death of Paris, and alludes to the tradition that
she mimicked the voices of the wives of the heroes, and so nearly tempted
them to leave their ambush in the wooden horse. But in the fourth book
of the Odyssey, when Telemachus visits Lacedaemon, he finds Helen the
honoured wife of Menelaus, rich in the marvellous gifts bestowed on her,
in her wanderings from Troy, by the princes of Egypt.
"While yet he pondered these things in his mind and in his heart, Helen
came forth from her fragrant vaulted chamber, like Artemis of the golden
arrows; and with her came Adraste and set for her the well-wrought chair,
and Alcippe bare a rug of soft wool, and Phylo bare a silver basket which
Alcandre gave her, the wife of Polybus, who dwelt in Thebes of Egypt,
where is the chiefest store of wealth in the houses. He gave two silver
baths to Menelaus, and tripods twain, and ten talents of gold. And
besides all this, his wife bestowed on Helen lovely gifts; a golden
distaff did she give, and a silver basket with wheels beneath, and the
rims thereof were finished with gold. This it was that the handmaid
Phylo bare and set beside her, filled with dressed yarn, and across it
was laid a distaff charged with wool of violet blue. So Helen sat her
down in the chair, and beneath was a footstool for the feet."
When the host and guests begin to weep the ready tears of the heroic age
over the sorrows of the past, and dread of the dim future, Helen comforts
them with a magical potion.
"Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, turned to new thoughts. Presently she
cast a drug into the wine whereof they drank, a drug to lull all pain and
anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. Whoso should drink a
draught thereof, when it is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let
no tear fall down his cheeks, not though his mother and his father died,
not though men slew his brother or dear son with the sword before his
face, and his own eyes beheld it. Medicines of such virtue and so
helpful had the daughter of Zeus, which Polydamna, the wife of Thon, had
given her, a woman of Egypt, where Earth the grain-giver yields herbs in
greatest plenty, many that are healing in the cup, and many baneful."
So Telemachus was kindly entertained by Helen and Menelaus, and when he
left them it was not without a gift.
"And Helen stood by the coffers wherein were her robes of curious
needlework which she herself had wrought. Then Helen, the fair lady,
lifted one and brought it out, the widest and most beautifully
embroidered of all, and it shone like a star, and lay far beneath the
rest."
Presently, we read, "Helen of the fair face came up with the robe in her
hands, and spake: 'Lo! I too give thee this gift, dear child, a memorial
of the hands of Helen, for thy bride to wear upon the day of thy desire,
even of thy marriage. But meanwhile let it lie with thy mother in her
chamber. And may joy go with thee to thy well-builded house, and thine
own country.'"
Helen's last words, in Homer, are words of good omen, her prophecy to
Telemachus that Odysseus shall return home after long wanderings, and
take vengeance on the rovers. We see Helen no more, but Homer does not
leave us in doubt as to her later fortunes. He quotes the prophecy which
Proteus, the ancient one of the sea, delivered to Menelaus:--
"But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art not ordained to die and meet thy
fate in Argos, the pasture-land of horses, but the deathless gods will
convey thee to the Elysian plain and the world's end, where is
Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. No snow is
there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain; but alway ocean sendeth forth
the breeze of the shrill West to blow cool on men: yea, for thou hast
Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee to be son of Zeus."
We must believe, with Isocrates, that Helen was translated, with her
lord, to that field of Elysium, "where falls not hail, or rain, or any
snow." This version of the end of Helen's history we have adopted, but
many other legends were known in Greece. Pausanias tells us that, in a
battle between the Crotoniats and the Locrians, one Leonymus charged the
empty space in the Locrian line, which was entrusted to the care of the
ghost of Aias. Leonymus was wounded by the invisible spear of the hero,
and could not be healed of the hurt. The Delphian oracle bade him seek
the Isle of Leuke in the Euxine Sea, where Aias would appear to him, and
heal him. When Leonymus returned from Leuke he told how Achilles dwelt
there with his ancient comrades, and how he was now wedded to Helen of
Troy. Yet the local tradition of Lacedaemon showed the sepulchre of
Helen in Therapnae. According to a Rhodian legend (adopted by the author
of the "Epic of Hades"), Helen was banished from Sparta by the sons of
Menelaus, came wandering to Rhodes, and was there strangled by the
servants of the queen Polyxo, who thus avenged the death of her husband
at Troy. It is certain, as we learn both from Herodotus (vi. 61) and
from Isocrates, that Helen was worshipped in Therapnae. In the days of
Ariston the king, a deformed child was daily brought by her nurse to the
shrine of Helen. And it is said that, as the nurse was leaving the
shrine, a woman appeared unto her, and asked what she bore in her arms,
who said, "she bore a child." Then the woman said, "show it to me,"
which the nurse refused, for the parents of the child had forbidden that
she should be seen of any. But the woman straitly commanding that the
child should be shown, and the other beholding her eagerness, at length
the nurse showed the child, and the woman caressed its face and said,
"she shall be the fairest woman in Sparta." And from that day the
fashion of its countenance was changed, "and the child became the fairest
of all the Spartan women."
It is a characteristic of Greek literature that, with the rise of
democracy, the old epic conception of the ancient heroes altered. We can
scarcely recognize the Odysseus of Homer in the Odysseus of Sophocles.
The kings are regarded by the tragedians with some of the distrust and
hatred which the unconstitutional tyrants of Athens had aroused. Just as
the later _chansons de geste_ of France, the poems written in an age of
feudal opposition to central authority, degraded heroes like Charles, so
rhetorical, republican, and sophistical Greece put its quibbles into the
lips of Agamemnon and Helen, and slandered the stainless and fearless
Patroclus and Achilles.
The Helen of Euripides, in the "Troades," is a pettifogging sophist, who
pleads her cause to Menelaus with rhetorical artifice. In the "Helena,"
again, Euripides quite deserts the Homeric traditions, and adopts the
late myths which denied that Helen ever went to Troy. She remained in
Egypt, and Achaeans and Trojans fought for a mere shadow, formed by the
Gods out of clouds and wind. In the "Cyclops" of Euripides, a satirical
drama, the cynical giant is allowed to speak of Helen in a strain of
coarse banter. Perhaps the essay of Isocrates on Helen may be regarded
as a kind of answer to the attacks of several speakers in the works of
the tragedians. Isocrates defends Helen simply on the plea of her
beauty: "To Heracles Zeus gave strength, to Helen beauty, which naturally
rules over even strength itself." Beauty, he declares, the Gods
themselves consider the noblest thing in the world, as the Goddesses
showed when they contended for the prize of loveliness. And so
marvellous, says Isocrates, was the beauty of Helen, that for her glory
Zeus did not spare his beloved son, Sarpedon; and Thetis saw Achilles
die, and the Dawn bewailed her Memnon. "Beauty has raised more mortals
to immortality than all the other virtues together." And that Helen is
now a Goddess, Isocrates proves by the fact that the sacrifices offered
to her in Therapnae, are such as are given, not to heroes, but to
immortal Gods.
When Rome took up the legends of Greece, she did so in no chivalrous
spirit. Few poets are less chivalrous than Virgil; no hero has less of
chivalry than his pious and tearful Aeneas. In the second book of the
Aeneid, the pious one finds Helen hiding in the shrine of Vesta, and
determines to slay "the common curse of Troy and of her own country."
There is no glory, he admits, in murdering a woman:--
Extinxisse nefas tamen et sumpsisse merentis
Laudabor poenas, animumqne explesse juvabit
Ultricis flammae, et cineres satiasse meorum.
But Venus appears and rescues the unworthy lover of Dido from the
crowning infamy which he contemplates. Hundreds of years later, Helen
found a worthier poet in Quintus Smyrnaeus, who in a late age sang the
swan-song of Greek epic minstrelsy. It is thus that (in the fourth
century A.D.) Quintus describes Helen, as she is led with the captive
women of Ilios, to the ships of the Achaeans:--"Now Helen lamented not,
but shame dwelt in her dark eyes, and reddened her lovely cheeks, . . .
while around her the people marvelled as they beheld the flawless grace
and winsome beauty of the woman, and none dared upbraid her with secret
taunt or open rebuke. Nay, as she had been a Goddess they beheld her
gladly, for dear and desired was she in their sight. And as when their
own country appeareth to men long wandering on the sea, and they, being
escaped from death and the deep, gladly put forth their hands to greet
their own native place; even so all the Danaans were glad at the sight of
her, and had no more memory of all their woful toil, and the din of war:
such a spirit did Cytherea put into their hearts, out of favour to fair
Helen and father Zeus." Thus Quintus makes amends for the trivial verses
in which Coluthus describes the flight of a frivolous Helen with an
effeminate Paris.
To follow the fortunes of Helen through the middle ages would demand much
space and considerable research. The poets who read Dares Phrygius
believed, with the scholar of Dr. Faustus, that "Helen of Greece was the
admirablest lady that ever lived." When English poetry first found the
secret of perfect music, her sweetest numbers were offered by Marlowe at
the shrine of Helen. The speech of Faustus is almost too hackneyed to be
quoted, and altogether too beautiful to be omitted:--
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium!
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul! see where it flies;
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again;
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in those lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
* * * * *
Oh thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
The loves of Faustus and Helen are readily allegorized into the passion
of the Renaissance for classical beauty, the passion to which all that is
not beauty seemed very dross. This is the idea of the second part of
"Faust," in which Helen once more became, as she prophesied in the Iliad,
a song in the mouths of later men. Almost her latest apparition in
English poetry, is in the "Hellenics" of Landor. The sweetness of the
character of Helen; the tragedy of the death of Corythus by the hand of
his father Paris; and the omnipotence of beauty and charm which triumph
over the wrath of Menelaus, are the subjects of Landor's verse. But
Helen, as a woman, has hardly found a nobler praise, in three thousand
years, than Helen, as a child, has received from Mr. Swinburne in
"Atalanta in Calydon." Meleager is the speaker:--
Even such (for sailing hither I saw far hence,
And where Eurotas hollows his moist rock
Nigh Sparta, with a strenuous-hearted stream)
Even such I saw their sisters; one swan-white,
The little Helen, and less fair than she
Fair Clytemnestra, grave as pasturing fawns
Who feed and fear some arrow; but at whiles,
As one smitten with love or wrung with joy,
She laughs and lightens with her eyes, and then
Weeps; whereat Helen, having laughed, weeps too,
And the other chides her, and she being chid speaks naught,
But cheeks and lips and eyelids kisses her
Laughing, so fare they, as in their bloomless bud
And full of unblown life, the blood of gods.
There is all the irony of Fate in Althaeas' reply
Sweet days befall them and good loves and lords,
Tender and temperate honours of the hearths,
Peace, and a perfect life and blameless bed.