What Phrygian artist on the top of Ide,
Or vagrant of a Grecian line,
Felled that inauspicious pine,
To frame the bark which Paris o’er the tide
Dared with barbaric oars to guide,
When to my palace, in an evil hour
Caught by beauty’s magic power,
He came to seize me for his bride?
But crafty Venus, authoress of these broils,
Marched thither, leagued with death, t’ annoy
Triumphant Greece and vanquished Troy,
(Wretch that I am, consumed with endless toils!)
And Juno seated on her golden throne,
Consort of thundering Jove,
Sent Hermes from the realms above,
Who found me, when I carelessly had strewn
Leaves plucked from roses in my vest,
As Minerva’s votary drest;
He bore me through the paths of air
To this loathed, this dreary land,
Called Greece, and Priam’s friends the strife to share,
And roused to bloody deeds each rival band;
Where Simois’ current glides, my name
Hence is marked with groundless shame.
CHOR. Your woes I know are grievous: but to bear
With tranquil mind the necessary ills
Of life, is most expedient.
HEL. To what ills
Have I been subject, O my dear companions!
Did not my mother, as a prodigy
Which wondering mortals gaze at, bring me forth?
For neither Grecian nor barbaric dame
Till then produced an egg, in which her children
Enveloped lay, as they report, from Jove
Leda engendered. My whole life and all
That hath befallen me, but conspires to form
One series of miraculous events;
To Juno some, and to my beauty some.
Are owing. Would to Heaven, that, like a tablet
Whose picture is effaced, I could exchange
This form for one less comely, since the Greeks
Forgetting those abundant gifts showered down
By prosperous Fortune which I now possess,
Think but of what redounds not to my honour,
And still remember my ideal shame.
Whoever therefore, with one single species
Of misery is afflicted by the gods,
Although the weight of Heaven’s chastising hand
Be grievous, may with fortitude endure
Such visitation: but by many woes
Am I oppressed, and first of all exposed
To slanderous tongues, although I ne’er have erred.
It were a lesser evil e’en to sin
Then be suspected falsely. Then the gods,
’Midst men of barbarous manners, placed me far
From my loved country: torn from every friend,
I languish here, to servitude consigned
Although of free born race: for ’midst barbarians
Are all enslaved but one, their haughty lord.
My fortunes had this single anchor left,
Perchance my husband might at length arrive
To snatch me from my woes; but he, alas!
Is now no more, my mother too is dead,
And I am deemed her murd’ress, though unjustly,
Yet am I branded with this foul reproach;
And she who was the glory of our house,
My daughter in the virgin state grown grey,
Still droops unwedded: my illustrious brothers,
Castor and Pollux, called the sons of Jove,
Are now no more. But I impute my death,
Crushed as I am by all these various woes,
Not to my own misdeeds, but to the power
Of adverse fortune only: this one danger
There yet remains, if at my native land
I should again arrive, they will confine me
In a close dungeon, thinking me that Helen
Who dwelt in Ilion, till she thence was borne
By Menelaus. Were my husband living,
We might have known each other, by producing
Those tokens to which none beside are privy:
But this will never be, nor can he e’er
Return in safety. To what purpose then
Do I still lengthen out this wretched being?
To what new fortunes am I still reserved?
Shall I select a husband, but to vary
My present ills, to dwell beneath the roof
Of a barbarian, at luxurious boards
With wealth abounding, seated? for the dame
Whom wedlock couples with the man she hates
Death is the best expedient. But with glory
How shall I die? the fatal noose appears
To be so base, that e’en in slaves ’tis held
Unseemly thus to perish; in the poniard
There’s somewhat great and generous. But to me
Delays are useless: welcome instant death:
Into such depth of misery am I plunged.
For beauty renders other women blest,
But hath to me the source of ruin proved.
CHOR. O Helen, whosoe’er the stranger be
Who hither came, believe not that the whole
Of what he said, is truth.
HEL. But in plain terms
Hath he announced my dearest husband’s death.
CHOR. The false assertions which prevail, are many.
HEL. Clear is the language in which honest Truth
Loves to express herself.
CHOR. You are inclined
Rather to credit inauspicious tidings
Than those which are more favourable.
HEL. By fears
Encompassed, am I hurried to despair.
CHOR. What hospitable treatment have you found
Beneath these roofs?
HEL. All here, except the man
Who seeks to wed me, are my friends.
CHOR. You know
How then to act: leave this sepulchral gloom.
HEL. What are the counsels, or the cheering words
You wish to introduce?
CHOR. Go in, and question
The daughter of the Nereid, her who knows
All hidden truths, Theonoe, if your lord
Yet live, or view the solar beams no more:
And when you have learnt this, as suit your fortunes
Indulge your joys, or pour forth all your tears:
But ere you know aught fully, what avail
Your sorrows? therefore listen to my words;
Leaving this tomb, attend the maid: from her
Shall you know all. But why should you look farther
When truth is in these mansions to be found?
With you the doors I’ll enter; we together
The royal virgin’s oracles will hear.
For ’tis a woman’s duty to exert
Her utmost efforts in a woman’s cause.
HEL. My friends, your wholesome counsels I approve:
But enter ye these doors, that ye, within
The palace, my calamities may hear.
CHOR. You summon her who your commands obeys
Without reluctance.
HEL. Woeful day! ah me,
What lamentable tidings shall I hear?
CHOR. Forbear these plaintive strains, my dearest queen,
Nor with presaging soul anticipate
Evils to come.
HEL. What hath my wretched lord
Endured? Doth he yet view the light, the sun
Borne in his radiant chariot, and the paths
Of all the starry train? Or hath he shared
The common lot of mortals, is he plunged
Among the dead, beneath th’ insatiate grave?
CHOR. O construe what time yet may bring to pass
In the most favourable terms.
HEL. On thee
I call to testify, and thee adjure,
Eurotas, on whose verdant margin grow
The waving reeds: O tell me, if my lord
Be dead, as fame avers.
CHOR. Why do you utter
These incoherent ditties?
HEL. Round my neck
The deadly noose will I entwine, or drive
With my own hand a poinard through my breast;
For I was erst the cause of bloody strife;
But now am I a victim, to appease
The wrath of those three goddesses who strove
On Ida’s mount, when ’midst the stalls where fed
His lowing herds, the son of Priam waked
The sylvan reed, to celebrate my beauty.
CHOR. Cause these averted ills, ye gods, to light
On other heads; but, O my royal mistress,
May you be happy.
HEL. Thou, O wretched Troy,
To crimes which thou hast ne’er committed, ow’st
Thy ruin, and those horrible disasters
Thou hast endured. For as my nuptial gifts,
Hath Venus caused an intermingled stream
Of blood and tears to flow, she, griefs to griefs
And tears to tears hath added; all these sufferings
Have been the miserable Ilion’s lot.
Of their brave sons the mothers were bereft
The virgin sisters of the mighty dead
Strewed their shorn tresses on Scamander’s banks,
While, by repeated shrieks, victorious Greece
Her woes expressing, smote her laurelled head,
And with her nails deep furrowing tore her cheeks.
Happy Calisto, thou Arcadian nymph
Who didst ascend the couch of Jove, transformed
To a four-footed savage, far more blest
Art thou than she to whom I owe my birth:
For thou beneath the semblance of a beast,
Thy tender limbs with shaggy hide o’erspread,
And glaring with stern visage, by that change
Didst end thy griefs. She too whom Dian drove
Indignant from her choir, that hind whose horns
Were tipped with gold, the bright Titanian maid,
Daughter of Merops, to her beauty owed
That transformation: but my charms have ruined
Both Troy and the unhappy Grecian host.
[_Exeunt_ HELEN _and_ CHORUS.