Books: Helen of Troy
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Andrew Lang >> Helen of Troy
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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 which cannot be
reproduced.] 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. AD.) 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.
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