But it may be asked, what became of Helen, the primary cause of the Trojan war, disastrous alike to victors and vanquished? According to Virgil, [Footnote: Æneid, B. VI.] after the death of Paris she married the Trojan hero, De-iph'o-bus, and on the night after the city was taken betrayed him to Menela'us, to whom she became reconciled, and whom she accompanied, as Homer relates, [Footnote: Odyssey B. IV.] during the eight years of his wandering, on his return to Greece. LANDOR, in one of his Hellen'ics, represents Menelaus, after the fall of Troy, as pursuing Helen up the steps of the palace, and threatening her with death. He thus addresses her:
"Stand, traitress, on that stair—
Thou mountest not another, by the gods!
Now take the death thou meritest, the death,
Zeus, who presides over hospitality—
And every other god whom thou has left,
And every other who abandons thee
In this accursed city—sends at last.
Turn, vilest of vile slaves! turn, paramour
Of what all other women hate, of cowards;
Turn, lest this hand wrench back thy head, and toss
It and its odors to the dust and flames."
Helen penitently receives his reproaches, and welcomes the threatened death; and when he speaks of their daughter, Hermi'o-ne, whom, an infant, she had so cruelly deserted, she exclaims:
"O my child!
My only one! thou livest: 'tis enough;
Hate me, abhor me, curse me—these are duties—
Call me but mother in the shades of death!
She now is twelve years old, when the bud swells,
And the first colors of uncertain life
Begin to tinge it."
Menelaus turns aside to say,
"Can she think of home?
Hers once, mine yet, and sweet Hermione's!
Is there one spark that cheered my hearth, one left
For thee, my last of love?"
When she beseeches him to delay not her merited fate, her words greatly move him, and he exclaims (aside),
"Her voice is musical
As the young maids who sing to Artemis:
How glossy is that yellow braid my grasp
Seized and let loose! Ah, can ten years have passed
Since—but the children of the gods, like them,
Suffer not age.[Footnote: Jupiter was fabled to be
the father of Helen.]
(Then turning to Helen.) Helen! speak honestly,
And thus escape my vengeance—was it force
That bore thee off?"
Her words and grief move him to pity, if not to love, and he again turns aside to say,
"The true alone and loving sob like her.
Come, Helen!" (He takes her hand.)
Helen. Oh, let never Greek see this!
Hide me from Argos, from Amy'clæ [Footnote: A town
of Laconia, where was a temple of Apollo. It was a
short distance to the south-west of Sparta.] hide me,
Hide me from all.
Menelaus. Thy anguish is too strong
For me to strive with.
Helen. Leave it all to me.
Menelaus. Peace! peace! The wind, I hope, is fair for Sparta.