Then, pursuing his thought, he would ponder: "Am not I, Paris, no more a shepherd on Mount Ida, but now a prince in a royal palace and son of the King of Troy? Surely the word that Venus spake will yet be fulfilled!"
Now Priam's sister, Hesione, had been carried off and wedded against her will, and this thing was a bitterness to Priam. So Paris, perceiving this, set himself and his fellows to build and man a fleet, declaring that he would bring back Hesione, but thinking in his heart not of Hesione, but of Helen. To obtain wood for his ships he returned to Mount Ida to cut down the tallest pines that crowned the craggy ledges where the winds of the sea sighed through the branches, as it were, indeed, the soughing of another sea through the melancholy tree-tops.
Œnone received her lord with gladness on his return; but when she knew that his thought was but to fashion ships for a voyage, the spirit of prophecy came upon her, and she cried to him, as one inspired: "A bitter thing is this that thou doest, O Paris, my husband! For behold, thou farest to Greece to fetch hither the ruin of thy country and thy kindred. Yea, and to me shalt thou come at the last, stricken unto death, beseeching the aid of my leechcraft...." At this place the gift failed her as suddenly as it had come, and she fell to weeping.
But Paris, kissing her, bade her put away her fears and look out over the sea for his return. And when he had fashioned his ships and rigged them with tall masts and calked them with pitch, he set sail across the seas, leaving Œnone to watch for his homeward sails.
Many days did she sit upon a cliff that overlooked the blue waters, watching for the ship's return. One night, as in a vision, she saw, or seemed to see, a white sail on the marge, and it sped before the wind and passed close beneath the cliff where she stood at gaze. And as she looked down, her heart turned sick within her; for on the deck stood a lady. A daughter of the gods she seemed, divinely fair, and her arms were round the neck of Paris, while her head lay upon his breast. And Œnone saw Paris spring to shore bearing this lady in his arms; she saw him lead her to the city of Troy; she saw the gates flung open and all the people come forth to meet the pair; and she knew that this was Helen, the fairest of women, who had fled with Paris from Menelaus, her husband. She knew, too, that she, Œnone, would be left lonely till she died.
Now followed that great siege of Troy of which poets will sing till the end of time. For Menelaus, the husband of Helen, and his brother Agamemnon, the great general, stirred up all the princes of Greece who had been the suitors of Helen and, on her marriage with Menelaus, had bound themselves in a solemn league to protect her from all manner of violence. So all the princes and captains of Greece came with a great host and many ships, and laid siege to Troy; and many battles were fought upon the plains outside the city walls. And to Œnone, wandering widowed upon Mount Ida, the sound of the strife rolled up, and from afar she perceived the confused struggle of chariots and horses and men; but she heard and saw these things as one who marked them not, for it was as if her heart had died, and her life had ended.
Now when the war had lasted for a space of years, Paris, although constantly protected by the goddess Venus, received a wound from the poisoned arrow of one Philoctetes. Then in his anguish he remembered his deserted Œnone, and her great skill at leechcraft, and he said to his attendants: "Carry me out of the city to Mount Ida, that I may look once more on the face of my wife Œnone, and beseech her pardon for the great wrong she has endured at my hands. And haply, when she seeth my grievous state, her pitiful heart will be moved with compassion, and she will heal me with her leechcraft, for naught else may avail."
So they carried Paris in a litter up the slopes of Mount Ida. And Œnone, seeing them approach, went down swiftly to meet them. And Paris, when he saw her coming, stretched out his arms a little and let them fall, for they were very weak; and Œnone, uttering a lamentable cry, like a bird who sees her nestling slain, flew to meet his embrace. But in that moment Paris had breathed his last. The eyes, once so bright, were fixed in a stony stare, and the dews of death were on that marble brow. Then Œnone, forgetting all the wrongs she had suffered, remembering only the morning light of happy marriage and that he had come back to her at the last, fell down upon his breast embracing him and bathing him with her tears. Then, crying aloud with a great and exceeding bitter cry, she plucked a dagger from her girdle and plunged it into her heart, falling dead upon the breast which had pillowed her head in other years. So died Œnone, faithful to the faithless, the most innocent of all who perished for the sin of Paris, the son of Priam.