He looked around to see who of his companions remained with him. There was not one. They had all gone and left him alone. Some had leaped down from the battlements and made their escape to other parts of the city. Some had fallen in the attempt to leap, and had perished in the flames that were burning among the buildings beneath them. Others still had been reached by darts and arrows from below, and had tumbled headlong from their lofty height into the street beneath them. The Greeks, too, had left that part of the city. When the destruction of the palace had been effected, there was no longer any motive to remain, and they had gone away, one band after another, with loud shouts of exultation and defiance, to seek new combats in other quarters of the city. Æneas listened to the sounds of their voices, as they gradually died away upon his ear. Thus, in one way and another, all had gone, and Æneas found himself alone.
He goes away.
He sees the princess Helen.
Æneas contrived to find his way back safely to the street, and then stealthily choosing his way, and vigilantly watching against the dangers that surrounded him, he advanced cautiously among the ruins of the palace, in the direction toward his own home. He had not proceeded far before he saw a female figure lurking in the shadow of an altar near which he had to pass. It proved to be the princess Helen.
Helen.
Story of Helen.
Æneas determines to destroy her.
His reflections.
Helen was a Grecian princess, formerly the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, but she had eloped from Greece some years before, with Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, and this elopement had been the whole cause of the Trojan war. In the first instance, Menelaus, accompanied by another Grecian chieftain, went to Troy and demanded that Helen should be given up again to her proper husband. Paris refused to surrender her. Menelaus then returned to Greece and organized a grand expedition to proceed to Troy and recapture the queen. This was the origin of the war. The people, therefore, looked upon Helen as the cause, whether innocent or guilty, of all their calamities.
When Æneas, therefore, who was, as may well be supposed, in no very amiable or gentle temper, as he hurried along away from the smoking ruins of the palace toward his home, saw Helen endeavoring to screen herself from the destruction which she had been the means of bringing upon all that he held dear, he was aroused to a phrensy of anger against her, and determined to avenge the wrongs of his country by her destruction. "I will kill her," said he to himself, as he rushed forward toward the spot where she was concealed. "There is no great glory it is true in wreaking vengeance on a woman, or in bringing her to the punishment which her crimes deserve. Still I will kill her, and I shall be commended for the deed. She shall not, after bringing ruin upon us, escape herself, and go back to Greece in safety and be a queen there again."
The apparition of Aphrodite.
Her words.