Helen of Troy [31]
never go." But this anger of Helen is soon overcome by
fear, when the Goddess, in turn, waxes wrathful, and Helen is
literally driven by threats--"for the daughter of Zeus was afraid,"--
into the arms of Paris. Yet even so she taunts her lover with his
cowardice, a cowardice which she never really condones. In the sixth
book of the Iliad she has been urging him to return to the war. She
then expresses her penitence to Hector, "would that the fury of the
wind had borne me afar to the mountains, or the wave of the roaring
sea--ere ever these ill deeds were done!" In this passage too, she
prophesies that her fortunes will be [Greek text] famous in the
songs, good or evil, of men unborn. In the last book of the Iliad we
meet Helen once more, as she laments over the dead body of Hector.
"'Never, in all the twenty years since I came hither, have I heard
from thee one taunt or one evil word: nay, but if any other rebuked
me in the halls, any one of my husband's brothers, or of their
sisters, or their wives, or the mother of my husband (but the king
was ever gentle to me as a father), then wouldst thou restrain them
with thy loving kindness and thy gentle speech.' So spake she;
weeping."
In the Odyssey, Helen is once more in Lacedaemon, the honoured but
still penitent wife of Menelaus. How they became reconciled (an
extremely difficult point in the story), there is nothing in Homer to
tell us.
Sir John Lubbock has conjectured that in the morals of the heroic age
Helen was not really regarded as guilty. She was lawfully married,
by "capture," to Paris. Unfortunately for this theory there is
abundant proof that, in the heroic age, wives were nominally BOUGHT
for so many cattle, or given as a reward for great services. There
is no sign of marriage by capture, and, again, marriage by capture is
a savage institution which applies to unmarried women, not to women
already wedded, as Helen was to Menelaus. Perhaps the oldest
evidence we have for opinion about the later relations of Helen and
Menelaus, is derived from Pausanias's (174. AD.) description of the
Chest of Cypselus. This ancient coffer, a work of the seventh
century, B.C, was still preserved at Olympia, in the time of
Pausanias. On one of the bands of cedar or of ivory, was represented
(Pausanias, v. 18), "Menelaus with a sword in his hand, rushing on to
kill Helen--clearly at the sacking of Ilios." How Menelaus passed
from a desire to kill Helen to his absolute complacency in the
Odyssey, Homer does not tell us. According to a statement attributed
to Stesichorus (635, 554, B.C.?), the army of the Achaeans purposed
to stone Helen, but was overawed and compelled to relent by her
extraordinary beauty: "when they beheld her, they cast down their
stones on the ground." It may be conjectured that the reconciliation
followed this futile attempt at punishing a daughter of Zeus. Homer,
then, leaves us without information about the adventures of Helen,
between the sack of Tiny and the reconciliation with Menelaus. He
hints that she was married to Deiphobus, after the death of Paris,
and alludes to the tradition that she mimicked the voices of the
wives of the heroes, and so nearly tempted them to leave their ambush
in the wooden horse. But in the fourth book of the Odyssey, when
Telemachus visits Lacedaemon, he finds Helen the honoured wife of
Menelaus, rich in the marvellous gifts bestowed on her, in her
wanderings from Troy, by the princes of Egypt.
"While yet he pondered these things in his mind and in his heart,
Helen came forth from her fragrant vaulted chamber, like Artemis of
the golden arrows; and with her came Adraste and set for her the
well-wrought chair, and Alcippe bare a rug of soft wool, and Phylo
bare a silver basket which Alcandre gave her, the wife of Polybus,
who dwelt in Thebes of Egypt, where is the chiefest store of wealth
in the houses. He gave two silver baths to Menelaus, and tripods
twain, and ten talents of gold. And besides all this, his wife
bestowed on Helen lovely
fear, when the Goddess, in turn, waxes wrathful, and Helen is
literally driven by threats--"for the daughter of Zeus was afraid,"--
into the arms of Paris. Yet even so she taunts her lover with his
cowardice, a cowardice which she never really condones. In the sixth
book of the Iliad she has been urging him to return to the war. She
then expresses her penitence to Hector, "would that the fury of the
wind had borne me afar to the mountains, or the wave of the roaring
sea--ere ever these ill deeds were done!" In this passage too, she
prophesies that her fortunes will be [Greek text] famous in the
songs, good or evil, of men unborn. In the last book of the Iliad we
meet Helen once more, as she laments over the dead body of Hector.
"'Never, in all the twenty years since I came hither, have I heard
from thee one taunt or one evil word: nay, but if any other rebuked
me in the halls, any one of my husband's brothers, or of their
sisters, or their wives, or the mother of my husband (but the king
was ever gentle to me as a father), then wouldst thou restrain them
with thy loving kindness and thy gentle speech.' So spake she;
weeping."
In the Odyssey, Helen is once more in Lacedaemon, the honoured but
still penitent wife of Menelaus. How they became reconciled (an
extremely difficult point in the story), there is nothing in Homer to
tell us.
Sir John Lubbock has conjectured that in the morals of the heroic age
Helen was not really regarded as guilty. She was lawfully married,
by "capture," to Paris. Unfortunately for this theory there is
abundant proof that, in the heroic age, wives were nominally BOUGHT
for so many cattle, or given as a reward for great services. There
is no sign of marriage by capture, and, again, marriage by capture is
a savage institution which applies to unmarried women, not to women
already wedded, as Helen was to Menelaus. Perhaps the oldest
evidence we have for opinion about the later relations of Helen and
Menelaus, is derived from Pausanias's (174. AD.) description of the
Chest of Cypselus. This ancient coffer, a work of the seventh
century, B.C, was still preserved at Olympia, in the time of
Pausanias. On one of the bands of cedar or of ivory, was represented
(Pausanias, v. 18), "Menelaus with a sword in his hand, rushing on to
kill Helen--clearly at the sacking of Ilios." How Menelaus passed
from a desire to kill Helen to his absolute complacency in the
Odyssey, Homer does not tell us. According to a statement attributed
to Stesichorus (635, 554, B.C.?), the army of the Achaeans purposed
to stone Helen, but was overawed and compelled to relent by her
extraordinary beauty: "when they beheld her, they cast down their
stones on the ground." It may be conjectured that the reconciliation
followed this futile attempt at punishing a daughter of Zeus. Homer,
then, leaves us without information about the adventures of Helen,
between the sack of Tiny and the reconciliation with Menelaus. He
hints that she was married to Deiphobus, after the death of Paris,
and alludes to the tradition that she mimicked the voices of the
wives of the heroes, and so nearly tempted them to leave their ambush
in the wooden horse. But in the fourth book of the Odyssey, when
Telemachus visits Lacedaemon, he finds Helen the honoured wife of
Menelaus, rich in the marvellous gifts bestowed on her, in her
wanderings from Troy, by the princes of Egypt.
"While yet he pondered these things in his mind and in his heart,
Helen came forth from her fragrant vaulted chamber, like Artemis of
the golden arrows; and with her came Adraste and set for her the
well-wrought chair, and Alcippe bare a rug of soft wool, and Phylo
bare a silver basket which Alcandre gave her, the wife of Polybus,
who dwelt in Thebes of Egypt, where is the chiefest store of wealth
in the houses. He gave two silver baths to Menelaus, and tripods
twain, and ten talents of gold. And besides all this, his wife
bestowed on Helen lovely