"the longings and the groans of Helen"; and in subtly suggesting how
inevitable are the chains with which Aphrodite has bound her, the poet
wins for her our sympathy and admiration. Homer nowhere tells us of the
reconciliation of Menelaus and Helen, after the fall of Troy; but in the
Odyssey he presents a beautiful picture of Helen in Sparta, a queen once
more, beloved of husband and attendants, and presiding over her palace
with courtly grace and dignity; and in the prophecy of Proteus, the Old
Man of the Sea, the destiny of the fair queen is suggested in that of
her faithful spouse: "But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art not ordained
to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the pasture land of horses; for the
deathless gods will convey thee to the Elysian plains and to the world's
end, where is Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for
men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain, but always
ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill blast to blow cool on men;
yea, for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee son to
Zeus."
Thus, because wedded to Zeus-begotten Helen, Menelaus himself is
deathless and immortal, and Homer meant, no doubt, to picture the royal
couple passing together in the Isles of the Blest the aeons of eternity.
Homer provided the literary types for all succeeding Greek poets, and it
is but natural that so bewitching a conception as Helen should be
frequently portrayed and adopted. But with the change in form of
government from monarchy to oligarchy, and from oligarchy to democracy,
the old epic conception of heroes and heroines frequently suffers
disparagement. In later periods, men began to meditate on moral
questions, and poets who sought to weigh the problems of human life and
destiny saw in Helen's career the old, old story of sin and sufering,
and they could not with Homeric chivalry gloze over that fatal step
which caused the wreck of empires and brought infinite woes to men.
Stesichorus was the first poet to charge Helen with all the guilt and
suffering of Hellas and of Troy; but for this offence against the
daughter of Zeus, says tradition, he was smitten with blindness, and did
not recover his sight until he had written the recantation beginning:
"Not true is that tale; nor didst thou journey in benched ships, nor
come to town of Troy,"--in which he adopted the theory that the real
Helen remained in Egypt, while a phantom accompanied Paris to Troy.
AEschylus searches into the dire consequences of Helen's sin, and on her
shoulders lays all the sufferings of Agamemnon and his descendants.
"Rightly is she called Helen," says he; "a hell of ships, hell of men,
hell of cities." He regards her as the very incarnation of evil, the
curse of two great nations. Yet even stern AEschylus yields due reverence
to her all-conquering beauty:
"Ah! silent, see she stands;
Each glowing tint, each radiant grace, That charm th' enraptur'd eye, we trace; And still the blooming form commands,
Still honor'd, still ador'd,
Though careless of her former loves,
Far o'er the rolling sea the wanton roves."
He also represents her forsaken husband ever dreaming of her, enraptured
of her beauty:
"Oft as short slumbers close his eyes, His sad soul sooth'd to rest,
The dream-created visions rise
With all her charms imprest:
But vain th' ideal scene that smiles
With rapt'rous love and warm delight;
Vain his fond hopes; his eager arms
The fleeting form beguiles,
On sleep's quick pinions passing light."
AEschylus is not the only one of the early dramatists to whom Helen
furnished a worthy theme; the titles of four lost plays show that
Sophocles wrote of the Argive queen. There is no means of knowing,
however, how this master dealt with the romance. Judging from his
treatment of the Antigone legend, it is probable that Sophocles treated
Helen as a woman of rare beauty and power, more sinned against than
sinning, and subjected her character to the most profound analysis.
While AEschylus deprived Helen of something of the delicacy and charm
with which Homer had invested her, Euripides, in a number of his plays,
goes even further, and brings her down to the level of common life. Upon
her beautiful head were heaped the reproaches of the unfortunate maidens
and matrons of Greece and Troy for the woes they had to suffer, and we
must not always take the sentiments of a Hecuba or a Clytemnestra as
expressing the poet's own convictions. In the _Daughters of Troy_, he
represents her in violent debate with her mother-in-law, Hecuba, before
Menelaus, leaving with the reader the impression that she is a guilty,
wilful woman of ignoble traits, and in other plays he lays on her the
load of guilt for all the dire consequences of her act; yet in his
treatment of Helen there is always an ethereal element, hard to define,
but recognizable. She causes ruin and destruction, she is roundly abused
and reproached, yet she herself does not deal in invective and is proof
against all physical ill, being finally deified as the daughter of Zeus,
while suffering is invariably the fate of those who abuse and censure
her. And, like Stesichorus, Euripides in his old age makes a
recantation. In the _Helen_, he follows the Stesichorean version, and
dramatizes the legend that, after she was promised to Paris by
Aphrodite, Hera in revenge fashioned like to Queen Helen a breathing
phantom out of cloud land wrought for Priam's princely son; while Hermes
caught her away and transferred her to the halls of Proteus, King of
Egypt, to keep her pure for Menelaus. Thus it was for a phantom Helen
that Greek and Trojan fought at Troy; while the real Helen passed her
days amid the palm gardens of Egypt, eagerly awaiting the return of
Menelaus, and bewailing her ill name, though she was clean of sin. After
the war, she is happily reunited with her lord.
It is hard, however, to besmirch a conception of ideal beauty, and later
writers, casting aside the imputations of the dramatists, returned to
the Homeric type. The Greek rhetoricians found in Helen a fruitful
subject for panegyric, and made her synonymous with the Greek ideal of
beauty and feminine perfection. Isocrates praises her as the incarnation
of ideal loveliness and grace; beauty is all powerful, he says, and the
Helen legend shows how beauty is the most desirable of all human gifts.
Theocritus, in his exquisite _Epithalamium_, pays an unalloyed tribute
to her beauty and goodness. She is "peerless among all Achaean women that
walk the earth;--rose-red Helen, the glory of Lacedaemon;--no one is so
gifted as she in goodly handiwork;--yea, and of a truth, none other
smites the lyre, hymning Artemis and broad-breasted Athena, with such
skill as Helen, within whose eyes dwell all the Loves."
Quintus Smyrnaeus, of the fourth century of our era, who wrote a
_Post-Homerica_, emphasizes the demonic influence that controlled the
fate of Helen, and lays her frailty to the charge of Aphrodite. He gives
a beautiful picture of the queen as she is being led to the ships of the
Achaeans: "Now, Helen lamented not, but shame dwelt in her dark eyes and
reddened her lovely cheeks ... while round her the people marvelled as
they beheld the flawless grace and winsome beauty of the woman, and none
dared upbraid her with secret taunt or open rebuke. Nay, as she had been
a goddess, they beheld her gladly, for dear and desired was she in their
sight."
Thus the Helen legend became the allegory of Greek beauty, and so
exquisite an ideal, uplifting the spirit and satisfying one's longing
for higher things, strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of lovers of
beauty in every clime. The romance of Helen, after lying dormant for
centuries, came to life again in the legend of Faust.
Marlowe treated
merely the external phases of the Faust legend; Goethe allegorized the
whole, and in the loves of Faust and Helen symbolized the passion of the
Renaissance for the Greek ideal of beauty; the fruit of the union of the
two is Euphorion, the genius of romantic art. Nor has Helen exerted less
influence on modern English poets. Landor, in numerous poems, portrays
the sweetness of her character and the omnipotence of her beauty and
charm; Swinburne dwells on the innocence and joyfulness of her
childhood; Tennyson speaks of her as
"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair;"
and Andrew Lang has written a lengthy poem on the Helen legend, in which
he ascribes her frailty to the irresistible power of Aphrodite. Thus
Homer and the Homeric Age are inextricably entwined about the name of
Helen. It is significant in the study of Greek women that at the very
dawn of Greek civilization we should find such an ideal conception of
womanhood--one that universally captivates the fancy and has exerted an
influence through all succeeding ages.
Let us now pause a moment to contemplate the most lovable of all the
women of Homer, Hector's spouse, white-armed Andromache.
Homer does not
devote much space to her--only the famous parting scene and the two
lamentations which she utters over her fallen husband.
Yet, as the ideal
type of the soldier's wife, the loving mother, she has taken a hold on
the modern imagination and is the best known of all the female
characters of Greek epos. We know that she must have been beautiful,
though Homer uses only one epithet to describe her; we know that she
must have been brave and devoted and domestic, for Homer has painted for
us an ideal picture which portrays her with all these and many other
lovable attributes. Andromache is neither Trojan nor Greek; she is
universal; and wherever there are scenes of husband parted from wife, of
uncertainty as to the issue of the combat and the destiny of the
children, Andromache will be the great prototype.
Andromache feels in
her heart that sacred Ilium is doomed, and, in those cruel times when
might was right, she knew but too well what was to be the fate of
herself and the lad Astyanax. Euripides tells us how the forebodings of
Andromache came true, and dwells on those sad days for the daughters of
Troy when the mailed hand of the Achaeans carried them off captive after
the fall of the city and determined their destiny by lot.
Andromache was apportioned to Neoptolemus, Achilles's valiant son, and
in Euripides's _Daughters of Troy_ she reappears, with her child in her
arms, haled forth to her new bondage. Sadly she bewails her lost Hector,
who could have warded off from her the curse of thraldom. The Greek
herald, Talthybius, demands from her the lad Astyanax, whom the Greeks
have decided to hurl from the battlements of Troy. The child is
ruthlessly torn from his mother's embrace, and she is led off to the
hollow ships. Neoptolemus takes her over sea to his home in Thessaly,
and loves her and treats her with a kindness and consideration that are
sweetly perfect. To him she bears a son in her captivity; but not of her
own will does she share his couch, for her heart is true to the memory
of Hector. After many years, Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of
Menelaus and Helen, a princess of Sparta. To them no child is born, and
Hermione's heart is filled with anger and jealousy toward the thrall,
whom her husband still treats tenderly. With her father, Menelaus,
Hermione, during Neoptolemus's absence, plots the destruction of
Andromache and her boy, but the aged Peleus protects the defenceless
ones. Neoptolemus is slain at Delphi, and Thetis, who appears at the
close of the _Andromache_, thus solves the problem of fate:
"And that war-captive dame, Andromache, In the Molossian land must find a home In lawful wedlock joined to Helenus,
With that child who alone is left alive Of AEacus' line. And kings Molossian
From him one after other long shall reign In bliss."
Readers of Virgil will recall how AEneas found Andromache in the
Molossian land, and how her heart yearned for the lad Ascanius, who
reminded her of the lost Astyanax. Euripides has been true, in the main,
to the Homeric conception of Andromache, and endows her in her captivity
with the same womanliness and domestic traits that won our hearts in the
Iliad; nevertheless, there is about her the infinite sadness that is
natural to one who has lost all that life holds dear.
Yet Euripides
falls so infinitely below the master that the picture which will abide
longest in the memory is the parting scene in the Iliad.
Homer endows his minor characters with an interest that is no less real
to us than that given to Helen and Andromache. Of these lesser
characters, a few stand out insistent of our notice. At the threshold of
the story, Chryseis and Briseis appear as the innocent causes of the
quarrel of the chieftains. Chryseis is still a maiden, as far as can be
inferred, and had not lost kindred and friends when taken captive; for
her father, the priest of sacred Chryse, comes to beg her release, with
boundless ransoms. Hence her day of captivity is brief, and the aged
father joyously welcomes his beloved daughter. She must have been
beautiful and clever, for Agamemnon prized her far above Clytemnestra.
The story of Briseis is a much sadder one, and graphically illustrates
the fate of a gentlewoman who fell into the hands of the foe. She was a
captive widow, husband and kindred having been slain by Achilles. But
her captor loved her devotedly, and to him she was a wife in all but in
name; and Patroclus had promised her that she should in time become the
wedded wife of Achilles. The young warrior weeps bitterly when she is
taken from him, but at the close of the Iliad we see them happily
reunited. She is remembered because of the great passions that gathered
about her.
Homer presents two pictures of heroic motherhood in sorrow,--Hecuba and
Thetis; for the latter, though a goddess, is perfectly human in her
devotion to her fated son, Achilles. To her he goes for comfort, and she
is ever resourceful in responding to his wants. She weeps over his
destiny, but, since he has chosen the better part, she nobly supports
him in every struggle. Hecuba is truly the companion of her husband,
King Priam, associated with him in his projects, and sharing his
counsels. She has borne him nineteen children, and these she has seen
slain, one after another, by the hand of the foe. Hector is her favorite
son, in whose courage she recognizes the bulwark of Ilium. When she sees
him exposed to certain death, her anxiety overcomes her pride and she
beseeches him to come within the walls; and when at last her son has
succumbed, we find in her the same mingling of grief and of pride. Her
wild despair seems to be assuaged by the thought that her son died
gloriously. This heroic sentiment sustains her before the corpse of
Hector, and even in her lamentation she voices her calm courage.
IV
WOMEN OF THE ODYSSEY
Ten years have passed since the fall of Ilium, and the various heroes of
the Greeks have met with diverse fortunes. Agamemnon, king of men, has
returned to his fatherland, but merely to find treason and death at the
hands of AEgisthus, the new lord of Clytemnestra, his wife. Menelaus,
after long wanderings, especially in Egypt, has reestablished his
kingdom in Sparta, with Helen as his queen. Odysseus, King of Ithaca,
had the longest and most perilous voyage homeward, and, after meeting
with various misadventures, has been detained for nearly eight long
years, consuming his own heart, in the island paradise of Calypso,
Meanwhile, on his own island, Ithaca, things have begun to go amiss. The
island chiefs, men of the younger generation, begin to woo Penelope and
to harass her son, Telemachus. The wooers, after being rebuffed for
years by the fair queen, are becoming insolent, quartering themselves
upon her, and devouring her substance. At this time the action of the
Odyssey begins.
The determined time has now arrived when, by the counsels of the gods,
Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house, to avenge himself on
the wooers, and to recover his kingdom, Pallas Athena is the chief
agent in the restoration of Odysseus to his fatherland.
She beseeches
Zeus that he may be delivered, and in accordance with this prayer Hermes
is sent to Calypso to bid her release Odysseus.
Meanwhile, the goddess,
in human form, visits Telemachus in Ithaca, and urges the young prince
to withstand the suitors who are devastating his house, and to go in
search of his father. Touched by the words of the goddess, youth rapidly
gives way to manhood, and Telemachus determines to assert his rights and
to find his father.
After the departure of the goddess, the prince enters the court where
the suitors are gathered, listening to the singing of the renowned
minstrel Phemius; and his song was of the pitiful return of the Achaeans.
We now have our first vision of discreet Penelope. From her upper
chamber she hears the glorious strain, and she descends the high stairs
from her apartments, accompanied by two of her handmaids. "Now, when the
fair lady had come unto the wooers, she stood by the doorpost of the
well-builded roof, holding up her glistening tire before her face; and a
faithful maiden stood on either side of her." She begs Phemius to cease
from this sorrowful strain, which wastes her heart within her breast,
since to her, above all women, hath come a sorrow comfortless, because
she holds in constant memory so dear a head,--even that man whose fame
is noised abroad from Hellas to mid-Argos. Telemachus gently rebukes his
mother for interrupting the song of the minstrel, and bids her return to
her chamber and to her own housewiferies, the loom and distaff, and bid
the handmaids ply their tasks. Then in amaze she goes back to her
chamber, for she lays up the wise saying of her son in her heart. She
ascends to the upper chamber with the women, her handmaids, and there
bewails Odysseus, her dear lord, till gray-eyed Athena casts sweet sleep
upon her eyelids.
Telemachus begins to assert himself before the violent suitors. When
night falls and each goes to his own house to lie down to rest, the
young prince is attended to his chamber by the aged Euryclea, who had
nursed him when a little one. She bears the burning torches, and
prepares the chamber for her young master; and when he takes off his
soft doublet, she folds and smooths it and hangs it on a pin by the
jointed bedstead. Then she goes forth from the room, and there, all
night long, wrapped in a fleece of wool, Telemachus meditates in his
heart upon the journey that Athena has shown him.
The next day, after a stormy meeting of the assembly, Telemachus
secretly sets sail for Pylus, accompanied by the goddess Athena, in the
form of Mentor. Only Euryclea, the youth's faithful nurse, knows of his
journey, and she has taken a great oath not to reveal it to his mother
till the eleventh or twelfth day. Nestor graciously receives Telemachus
at Pylus, and, as he himself has no news of Odysseus, sends him on to
Sparta, to King Menelaus, in the company of his own son, Pisistratus.
The young men are graciously received by Menelaus and Helen, and
Telemachus learns that Odysseus was a captive on an island of the deep
in the halls of the nymph Calypso.
Meanwhile, the suitors in Ithaca learn of Telemachus's departure and lay
an ambush to intercept him on his return. Discreet Penelope, too, learns
by chance of his absence, and of the plots of the wooers, and her heart
melts within her at the thought of danger to her child.
The good nurse
Euryclea tells her of Telemachus's plan, and lulls her queen's grief.
Penelope returns to her chamber and prays to Athena to save her dear son
and ward off from him the malice of the suitors. As she lies there in
her upper chamber, fasting, and tasting neither meat nor drink, and
musing over the fate of her dear son, gray-eyed Athena makes a phantom
in the likeness of Penelope's sister, Iphthime, and sends her to comfort
Penelope amid her sorrow and lamenting. Reassured by the phantom
concerning her son, the devoted matron begs for news of her husband,
pleading to know whether he be alive or dead, but this information is
denied her. Yet the heart of the disconsolate wife and mother is
cheered, so sweet was the vision that came to her in the dead of night.
Homer now transports us to an assembly of the gods.
Athena tells the
tale of the many woes of Odysseus, and Zeus commands Hermes, the
messenger god, to bid Calypso release Odysseus and start him on his
voyage to the Phaeacians, who are destined to return the wanderer to his
own dear country. Hermes quickly reaches the far-off isle of Ogygia,
where was the grotto of the nymph of the braided tresses. The fair
goddess at once knows him, and, after giving him entertainment, inquires
his message. Calypso regretfully and well-nigh rebelliously receives the
command of Zeus, and complains of the jealousy of the gods, who forbid
goddesses openly to mate with men. Yet, as none can make void the
purpose of Zeus, she will obey the command. Hermes departs, and the
nymph goes on her way to the great-hearted Odysseus. She finds him
sitting on the shore; his eyes were never dry of tears, his sweet life
was ebbing away as he mourned for his return, and through his tears he
looked wistfully over the unharvested deep. Calypso bids him sorrow no
more, for she will send him away, and directs him how to prepare a barge
on which to make the voyage. Four days are devoted to the making of the
barge, and on the fifth the goddess sends him on his way, providing him
with food and drink for his journey, and causing a gentle wind to blow.
Goodly Odysseus joyously sets his sail to the breeze, and keeps his eye
on the star Orion, which the fair goddess had bidden him to keep ever on
his left as he traverses the deep.
Seventeen days he sails placidly along, and on the eighteenth appear the
shadowy hills of the land of the Phaeacians, whither he is bound. Then
spies him his old enemy, Poseidon, and the earth shaker gathers the
clouds and rouses the storms, and down speeds night from heaven. The
great waves smite down upon Odysseus, and he loses the helm from his
hand and the mast is broken. He is thrown from his raft; but, again
clutching it, clambers upon it, avoiding grim death.
Woman is again
destined to be the means of salvation for the hero. Ino of the fair
ankles, daughter of Cadmus, in time past a mortal maiden, but now a sea
nymph, Leucothea, marks his dire straits and takes pity upon him, and
gives him her veil to wind about him when he throws himself into the
deep. When his raft is at last broken asunder, he wraps the veil about
him; and for two days and nights it bears him up until at length he
makes the rugged shore. Throwing the veil into the stream, to be wafted
back to fair-ankled Ino, Odysseus, bruised and battered, clambers among
the reeds on the bank. He finds a resting place underneath two olive
trees, and Athena