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 their gathered flints let fall;
And like men shamed they stole across the plain,
Back to the swift ships and their festival.[[1]]
So Helen went home to Lacedaemon again, the dear wife of Menelaus. And when we take up the second great Homeric epic, the Odyssey, we find her the serene and gracious hostess of young Telemachus. All the hateful past is purged away, and chaste as the moon-goddess,
Forth of her high-roofed, odorous chamber came
Helen, like golden-shafted Artemis.[[3]]