There
she stands, in raiment of silvery white, her heart yearning for her old
love and her own city. Already her thought is far from Paris. Was her
heart ever with Paris? That is her secret. A very old legend, mentioned
by the Bishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius, tells us that Paris magically
beguiled her, disguised in the form of Menelaus, her lord, as Uther
beguiled Ygerne. She sees the son of Priam play the dastard in the
fight; she turns in wrath on Aphrodite, who would lure her back to his
arms; but to his arms she must go, "for the daughter of Zeus was afraid."
Violence is put upon beauty; it is soiled, or seems soiled, in its way
through the world. Helen urges Paris again into the war. He has a heart
invincibly light and gay; shame does not weigh on him. "Not every man is
valiant every day," he says; yet once engaged in battle, he bears him
bravely, and his arrows rain death among the mail-clad Achaeans.
What Homer thinks of Paris we can only guess. His beauty is the bane of
Ilios; but Homer forgives so much to beauty. In the end of the "Iliad,"
Helen sings the immortal dirge over Hector, the stainless knight, "with
thy loving kindness and thy gentle speech."
In the "Odyssey," she is at home again, playing the gracious part of
hostess to Odysseus's wandering son, pouring into the bowl the magic herb
of Egypt, "which brings forgetfulness of sorrow." The wandering son of
Odysseus departs with a gift for his bride, "to wear upon the day of her
desire, a memorial of the hands of Helen," the beautiful hands, that in
Troy or Argos were never idle.
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