Helen of Troy [33]
learn both from Herodotus (vi. 61) and from
Isocrates, that Helen was worshipped in Therapnae. In the days of
Ariston the king, a deformed child was daily brought by her nurse to
the shrine of Helen. And it is said that, as the nurse was leaving
the shrine, a woman appeared unto her, and asked what she bore in her
arms, who said, "she bore a child." Then the woman said, "show it to
me," which the nurse refused, for the parents of the child had
forbidden that she should be seen of any. But the woman straitly
commanding that the child should be shown, and the other beholding
her eagerness, at length the nurse showed the child, and the woman
caressed its face and said, "she shall be the fairest woman in
Sparta." And from that day the fashion of its countenance was
changed, "and the child became the fairest of all the Spartan women."
It is a characteristic of Greek literature that, with the rise of
democracy, the old epic conception of the ancient heroes altered. We
can scarcely recognize the Odysseus of Homer in the Odysseus of
Sophocles. The kings are regarded by the tragedians with some of the
distrust and hatred which the unconstitutional tyrants of Athens had
aroused. Just as the later chansons de geste of France, the poems
written in an age of feudal opposition to central authority, degraded
heroes like Charles, so rhetorical, republican, and sophistical
Greece put its quibbles into the lips of Agamemnon and Helen, and
slandered the stainless and fearless Patroclus and Achilles.
The Helen of Euripides, in the "Troades," is a pettifogging sophist,
who pleads her cause to Menelaus with rhetorical artifice. In the
"Helena," again, Euripides quite deserts the Homeric traditions, and
adopts the late myths which denied that Helen ever went to Troy. She
remained in Egypt, and Achaeans and Trojans fought for a mere shadow,
formed by the Gods out of clouds and wind. In the "Cyclops" of
Euripides, a satirical drama, the cynical giant is allowed to speak
of Helen in a strain of coarse banter. Perhaps the essay of
Isocrates on Helen may be regarded as a kind of answer to the attacks
of several speakers in the works of the tragedians. Isocrates
defends Helen simply on the plea of her beauty: "To Heracles Zeus
gave strength, to Helen beauty, which naturally rules over even
strength itself." Beauty, he declares, the Gods themselves consider
the noblest thing in the world, as the Goddesses showed when they
contended for the prize of loveliness. And so marvellous, says
Isocrates, was the beauty of Helen, that for her glory Zeus did not
spare his beloved son, Sarpedon; and Thetis saw Achilles die, and the
Dawn bewailed her Memnon. "Beauty has raised more mortals to
immortality than all the other virtues together." And that Helen is
now a Goddess, Isocrates proves by the fact that the sacrifices
offered to her in Therapnae, are such as are given, not to heroes,
but to immortal Gods.
When Rome took up the legends of Greece, she did so in no chivalrous
spirit. Few poets are less chivalrous than Virgil; no hero has less
of chivalry than his pious and tearful Aeneas. In the second book of
the Aeneid, the pious one finds Helen hiding in the shrine of Vesta,
and determines to slay "the common curse of Troy and of her own
country." There is no glory, he admits, in murdering a woman:-
Extinxisse nefas tamen et sumpsisse merentis
Laudabor poenas, animumqne explesse juvabit
Ultricis flammae, et cineres satiasse meorum.
But Venus appears and rescues the unworthy lover of Dido from the
crowning infamy which he contemplates. Hundreds of years later,
Helen found a worthier poet in Quintus Smyrnaeus, who in a late age
sang the swan-song of Greek epic minstrelsy. It is thus that (in the
fourth century A.D.) Quintus describes Helen, as she is led with the
captive women of Ilios, to the ships of the Achaeans:- "Now Helen
lamented not, but shame dwelt in her dark eyes, and reddened her
lovely cheeks, . . . while around her the people marvelled as they
beheld
Isocrates, that Helen was worshipped in Therapnae. In the days of
Ariston the king, a deformed child was daily brought by her nurse to
the shrine of Helen. And it is said that, as the nurse was leaving
the shrine, a woman appeared unto her, and asked what she bore in her
arms, who said, "she bore a child." Then the woman said, "show it to
me," which the nurse refused, for the parents of the child had
forbidden that she should be seen of any. But the woman straitly
commanding that the child should be shown, and the other beholding
her eagerness, at length the nurse showed the child, and the woman
caressed its face and said, "she shall be the fairest woman in
Sparta." And from that day the fashion of its countenance was
changed, "and the child became the fairest of all the Spartan women."
It is a characteristic of Greek literature that, with the rise of
democracy, the old epic conception of the ancient heroes altered. We
can scarcely recognize the Odysseus of Homer in the Odysseus of
Sophocles. The kings are regarded by the tragedians with some of the
distrust and hatred which the unconstitutional tyrants of Athens had
aroused. Just as the later chansons de geste of France, the poems
written in an age of feudal opposition to central authority, degraded
heroes like Charles, so rhetorical, republican, and sophistical
Greece put its quibbles into the lips of Agamemnon and Helen, and
slandered the stainless and fearless Patroclus and Achilles.
The Helen of Euripides, in the "Troades," is a pettifogging sophist,
who pleads her cause to Menelaus with rhetorical artifice. In the
"Helena," again, Euripides quite deserts the Homeric traditions, and
adopts the late myths which denied that Helen ever went to Troy. She
remained in Egypt, and Achaeans and Trojans fought for a mere shadow,
formed by the Gods out of clouds and wind. In the "Cyclops" of
Euripides, a satirical drama, the cynical giant is allowed to speak
of Helen in a strain of coarse banter. Perhaps the essay of
Isocrates on Helen may be regarded as a kind of answer to the attacks
of several speakers in the works of the tragedians. Isocrates
defends Helen simply on the plea of her beauty: "To Heracles Zeus
gave strength, to Helen beauty, which naturally rules over even
strength itself." Beauty, he declares, the Gods themselves consider
the noblest thing in the world, as the Goddesses showed when they
contended for the prize of loveliness. And so marvellous, says
Isocrates, was the beauty of Helen, that for her glory Zeus did not
spare his beloved son, Sarpedon; and Thetis saw Achilles die, and the
Dawn bewailed her Memnon. "Beauty has raised more mortals to
immortality than all the other virtues together." And that Helen is
now a Goddess, Isocrates proves by the fact that the sacrifices
offered to her in Therapnae, are such as are given, not to heroes,
but to immortal Gods.
When Rome took up the legends of Greece, she did so in no chivalrous
spirit. Few poets are less chivalrous than Virgil; no hero has less
of chivalry than his pious and tearful Aeneas. In the second book of
the Aeneid, the pious one finds Helen hiding in the shrine of Vesta,
and determines to slay "the common curse of Troy and of her own
country." There is no glory, he admits, in murdering a woman:-
Extinxisse nefas tamen et sumpsisse merentis
Laudabor poenas, animumqne explesse juvabit
Ultricis flammae, et cineres satiasse meorum.
But Venus appears and rescues the unworthy lover of Dido from the
crowning infamy which he contemplates. Hundreds of years later,
Helen found a worthier poet in Quintus Smyrnaeus, who in a late age
sang the swan-song of Greek epic minstrelsy. It is thus that (in the
fourth century A.D.) Quintus describes Helen, as she is led with the
captive women of Ilios, to the ships of the Achaeans:- "Now Helen
lamented not, but shame dwelt in her dark eyes, and reddened her
lovely cheeks, . . . while around her the people marvelled as they
beheld