"——many yet adhere
To the ancient distaff at the bosom fixed.
Casting the whirling spindle as they walk.
. . . . . . . . . .
This was of old, in no inglorious days,
The mode of spinning, when the Egyptian prince
A golden distaff gave that beauteous nymph,
Too beauteous Helen; no uncourtly gift."
Milton also alludes to a famous recipe for an invigorating draught, called Nepenthe, which the Egyptian queen gave to Helen:
"Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena,
Is of such power to stir up joy as this,
To life so friendly or so cool to thirst."
Comus
Menelaus and Helen at length arrived in safety at Sparta, resumed their royal dignity, and lived and reigned in splendor; and when Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, in search of his father, arrived at Sparta, he found Menelaus and Helen celebrating the marriage of their daughter Hermione to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.
In "the Victory Feast," Schiller thus reviews the return of the
Greek heroes.
"The son of Atreus, king of men,
The muster of the hosts surveyed,
How dwindled from the thousands, when
Along Scamander first arrayed!
With sorrow and the cloudy thought,
The great king's stately look grew dim,
Of all the hosts to Ilion brought,
How few to Greece return with him!
Still let the song to gladness call,
For those who yet their home shall greet!
For them the blooming life is sweet;
Return is not for all!
"Nor all who reach their native land
May long the joy of welcome feel;
Beside the household gods may stand
Grim Murder, with awaiting steel
And they who 'scape the foe, may die
Beneath the foul, familiar glaive.
Thus he to whom prophetic eye
Her light the wise Minerva gave;
'Ah! Bless'd, whose hearth, to memory true
The goddess keeps unstained and pure;
For woman's guile is deep and sure,
And falsehood loves the new!'
"The Spartan eyes his Helen's charms,
By the best blood of Greece recaptured;
Round that fair form his glowing arms
(A second bridal) wreath, enraptured.
Woe waits the work of evil birth,
Revenge to deeds unblessed is given!
For watchful o'er the things of earth,
The eternal council-halls of heaven.
Yes, ill shall never ill repay;
Jove to the impious hands that stain
The altar of man's heart,
Again the doomer's doom shall weigh!"
Sir Edw. L. Bulwer's translation
AGAMEMNON, ORESTES, AND ELECTRA
Agamemnon, the general-in-chief of the Greeks, the brother of Menelaus, who had been drawn into the quarrel to avenge another's wrongs, was not so fortunate in the issue as his brother. During his absence his wife Clytemnestra had been false to him, and when his return was expected, she, with her paramour, AEgisthus, laid a plan for his destruction, and at the banquet given to celebrate his return, murdered him.