CHINA. AIL ERIDAY SURI
HELEN OF
IN OF TROY Retold by
NE night Hecuba, the wife of
King Priam of Troy, had a night-mare. She felt her unborn son stirring in her womb; but in the dream it seemed that a burn- ing torch had issued from her, and its flames sweeping ragged- ly in the winds of the Trojan plain crept round the city walls, ran up them and gripped the an- cient streets in a crown of fire.
When Paris was born she hat- ed him because of the destruc- tion threatened by the dream, and King Priam ordered him to be exposed to cold and starva- tion on the slopes of Mount Ida.
The deserted child would have died, but a she-bear, whose cubs had fallen victims to the hunt, sank down beside him, giving him milk and the warmth of her thick fur.
He grew up a shepherd in the mountain: pastures. He was more than the rest, and handsome stronger. His feet were quick and sure. When he guarded the flocks no wolf would show itself, and the robbers never visited the homestead where he slept. They called him Alexandros, the help- er of men.
In Troy, Hecuba and Priam)
came forgotten the dream that before his birth. Now they re- membered only their cruelty in abandoning a helpless child, and to atone for it gave a great festi- val in his honour, praying that his soul might be at peace among the shadows of Hades where they had sent it.
Then Paris came down from Mount Ida and joined the games. His brothers took part with him, but in all the jousts and - lance- throwing and wrestling, it
was
Paris who was the victor. When at last they recognised him, Priam would gladly have taken him back.
But Paris turned away to the pastures of Ida, for he had no love for those who had tried to kill him, and as he climbed the foot- hills to the lower woods his face shone with a strange and solitary beauty.
Wandering there among the trees and streams he came upon Denone, the goddess of healing, child of the river god Kebren.
Oenone was beautiful, but when she wedded Paris her face filled with happiness as well as beauty, for no one in the world. was braver and more, gentle than he, no one was so lithe and tender and loving.
But a dispute had arisen among the gods on Olympus as to who should receive the golden apple destined for the fairest goddess, and in despair Zeus decided that Paris, the fairest of men, should be the judge.
So Paris left his dream of joy on Mount Ida, and came among the gods and sat judgment.
in
First Hera spoke, the wife Zeus. She offered him power to do great deeds among, men that his name would be prai throughout the ages. And Athena offered him wisdom and strength and pure love and the memory of happy days when he was old,
But Aphrodite looked with lightly laughing eyes・・ and came closer to the judgment seat. Her hair brushed his shoulder, and he felt the breath from her red lips as she spoke. “I talk not to thee of my beauty, for it may be thou seest that I am very
fair; but I will give upon thee the fairest of all the daughters of men."
"I need not thy gift," said Paris," "for fairer wife. than Oenone no mortal may hope for. Yet are thou the fairest of all the daughters of the undying gods; and the gift of the fairest is thine.”
And he put the apple in the white pa ̋m of her hand, and her
fingers, closing on it, touched his
so that his heart leapt,
When he returned to
Oenone
he found the happiness had fad- Fed from her face and she was!
pale.
**
In distant Sparta Leda loved a swan, and some said that the swan was Zeus himself, for the girl Leda bore was as beautiful as the bright sea foam. Her name, was Helen and her mother's hus- band was Tyndarens King of Sparta, but while she was still a child, she became a dancer on the cold flags of the temple of Diana Luna.
There she was seen by King Thesus, who was so moved by the grace of her dancing that he car- ried her off to Athens, where he got her with child. While he was away from the city she was rescued by her brothers, but the Athenian warriors pursued them and they would have been drown- ed in the morasses of Eleusis had not Chiron, the man-horse, borne Helen into safety on his back
~ Now Helen was so beautiful that men fell in love when they saw her, and as the story of her rape spread across the length and breadth of Greece to the remotest islands a great host of suitors as- sembled to win her hand. Know- ing, from her beauty, that dan- ger must threaten anyone who gained the swan-child, they swore if need be to defend the victor.
From all the suitors King. Ty darens chose Menelaos, brother of Agamemnon and son of Atreus,; the King of Mycaenae Their wedding took place with great joicing,"
the theus whom Zeus bound on barren mountain of the Caucasus. In Troy he met the godlike Paris-and brought him home to Greece as a guest of honour.
When Parisfirst set eyes on Helen his first thought was: would that Oenone were here to see the wife of Menelaos, før surely there is no one else so fair. on all the earth.”
He remembered the words of Aphrodite, and it seemed to him that Helen and the laughter-lov ing goddess must be sisters, for both of them had stabbed his heart, and in fact they were both
Tangye Lean
the daughters of Zeus,
Soon he had forgotten the fair Oenone, who wandered by her- self, paler and less fair every day, in her loneliness on the slopes of Mount Ida, and at last, when Menelaos was away fighting in Crete, he declared his love to Helen. Smiling like Aphrodite, she agreed to go with him.
They carried her, as if by force, to the Trojan ship, leaving her daughter in tears at the palace, and Helen sailed with him across i the seas until on the third day they saw the towers of Troy ris- ing white above the horizon
Then the enraged Menelaos invoked the oath sworn by the greatest men in Greece as suitors for the hand of white-armed Helen. But nine long years were to pass before they all assembl- ed to avenge her rape and twelve more before Troy fell, a - victim to the guile of Ulysses. 1 And in all that time such was the power of Helen's beauty that while Hecuba's fearful dream was ful- filled on the plains outside the city
harm ever came to her. One day King Priam called her to the walls at the Skalan gates where they could see the raging waves of the battle. "Come hither, dear child, and sit before me, that thou mayest see thy former husband and thy kinsfolk" and thy friends. I hold not thee to blame; nay, I hold the gods" to blame who brought on me the dolorous war of the Achaians.”:
(Continued on Page 8)
Equal to
fine liqueur "
"I can tell
White Horse
joldings and soon afterwards blindfold! And to think that at one.
Halen bore him a Her- minne.
Then famine swept across the time I used simply to ask for whisky-and-soda!
Kingdom of Menelaos, and learnt from the gods that- would not come again until he had brought back from Troy the bones of the children of Prome-
White Horse is just like a fine liqueur !
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