Thus the Helen legend became the allegory of Greek beauty, and so exquisite an ideal, uplifting the spirit and satisfying one's longing for higher things, strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of lovers of beauty in every clime. The romance of Helen, after lying dormant for centuries, came to life again in the legend of Faust. Marlowe treated merely the external phases of the Faust legend; Goethe allegorized the whole, and in the loves of Faust and Helen symbolized the passion of the Renaissance for the Greek ideal of beauty; the fruit of the union of the two is Euphorion, the genius of romantic art. Nor has Helen exerted less influence on modern English poets. Landor, in numerous poems, portrays the sweetness of her character and the omnipotence of her beauty and charm; Swinburne dwells on the innocence and joyfulness of her childhood; Tennyson speaks of her as
"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair;"
and Andrew Lang has written a lengthy poem on the Helen legend, in which he ascribes her frailty to the irresistible power of Aphrodite. Thus Homer and the Homeric Age are inextricably entwined about the name of Helen. It is significant in the study of Greek women that at the very dawn of Greek civilization we should find such an ideal conception of womanhood--one that universally captivates the fancy and has exerted an influence through all succeeding ages.
Let us now pause a moment to contemplate the most lovable of all the women of Homer, Hector's spouse, white-armed Andromache. Homer does not devote much space to her--only the famous parting scene and the two lamentations which she utters over her fallen husband. Yet, as the ideal type of the soldier's wife, the loving mother, she has taken a hold on the modern imagination and is the best known of all the female characters of Greek epos. We know that she must have been beautiful, though Homer uses only one epithet to describe her; we know that she must have been brave and devoted and domestic, for Homer has painted for us an ideal picture which portrays her with all these and many other lovable attributes. Andromache is neither Trojan nor Greek; she is universal; and wherever there are scenes of husband parted from wife, of uncertainty as to the issue of the combat and the destiny of the children, Andromache will be the great prototype. Andromache feels in her heart that sacred Ilium is doomed, and, in those cruel times when might was right, she knew but too well what was to be the fate of herself and the lad Astyanax. Euripides tells us how the forebodings of Andromache came true, and dwells on those sad days for the daughters of Troy when the mailed hand of the Achæans carried them off captive after the fall of the city and determined their destiny by lot.
Andromache was apportioned to Neoptolemus, Achilles's valiant son, and in Euripides's Daughters of Troy she reappears, with her child in her arms, haled forth to her new bondage. Sadly she bewails her lost Hector, who could have warded off from her the curse of thraldom. The Greek herald, Talthybius, demands from her the lad Astyanax, whom the Greeks have decided to hurl from the battlements of Troy. The child is ruthlessly torn from his mother's embrace, and she is led off to the hollow ships. Neoptolemus takes her over sea to his home in Thessaly, and loves her and treats her with a kindness and consideration that are sweetly perfect. To him she bears a son in her captivity; but not of her own will does she share his couch, for her heart is true to the memory of Hector. After many years, Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, a princess of Sparta. To them no child is born, and Hermione's heart is filled with anger and jealousy toward the thrall, whom her husband still treats tenderly. With her father, Menelaus, Hermione, during Neoptolemus's absence, plots the destruction of Andromache and her boy, but the aged Peleus protects the defenceless ones. Neoptolemus is slain at Delphi, and Thetis, who appears at the close of the Andromache, thus solves the problem of fate:
"And that war-captive dame, Andromache,
In the Molossian land must find a home
In lawful wedlock joined to Helenus,
With that child who alone is left alive