Ho there! thou that with
fearful effort seekest to reach the
basement of the tomb and the pillars of burnt sacrifice, stay thee.
Wherefore art flying? Ah! with what
speechless amaze the sight of thee
affects me!
HELEN
O friends! I am being ill-treated. This man is keeping me from the
tomb, and is eager to take and give me to his master, whose wooing I
was seeking to avoid.
MENELAUS
No
robber I, or
minister of evil.
HELEN
At any rate the garb
wherein thou art clad is unseemly.
MENELAUS
Stay thy hasty
flight; put fear aside.
HELEN
I do so, now that I have reached this spot.
MENELAUS
Who art thou? whom do I behold in thee, lady?
HELEN
Nay, who art thou? The self-same reason prompts us both.
MENELAUS
never saw a closer resemblance.
HELEN
Great God! Yea, for to recognize our friends is of God.
MENELAUS
Art thou from Hellas, or a native of this land?
HELEN
From Hellas; but I would learn thy story too.
MENELAUS
Lady, in thee I see a
wondrouslikeness to Helen.
HELEN
And I in thee to Menelaus; I know not what to say.
MENELAUS
Well, thou hast recognized aright a man of many sorrows.
HELEN
Hail! to thy wife's arms restored at last!
MENELAUS
Wife indeed! Lay not a finger on my robe.
HELEN
The wife that Tyndareus, my father, gave thee.
MENELAUS
O Hecate, giver of light, send thy visions favourably!
HELEN
In me thou beholdest no spectre of the night,
attendant on the
queen of
phantoms.
MENELAUS
Nor yet am I in my single person the husband of two wives.
HELEN
What other woman calls thee lord?
MENELAUS
The
inmate of yonder cave, whom I from Troy convey.
HELEN
Thou hast none other wife but me.
MENELAUS
Can it be my mind is wandering, my sight failing?
HELEN
Dost not believe thou seest in me thy wife?
MENELAUS
Thy form resembles her, but the real truth robs me of this
belief.
HELEN
Observe me well; what need hast thou of clearer proof?
MENELAUS
Thou art like her; that will I never deny.
HELEN
Who then shall teach thee, unless it be thine own eyes?
MENELAUS
Herein is my dilemma; I have another wife.
HELEN
To Troy I never went; that was a
phantom.
MENELAUS
Pray, who fashions living bodies?
HELEN
The air,
whence thou hast a wife of heaven's workmanship.
MENELAUS
What god's handiwork? Strange is the tale thou tellest.
HELEN
Hera made it as a
substitute, to keep me from Paris.
MENELAUS
How then
couldst thou have been here, and in Troy, at the same
time?
HELEN
The name may be in many a place at once, though not the body.
MENELAUS
Unhand me! the sorrows I brought with me suffice.
HELEN
What! wilt leave me, and take that
phantom bride away?
MENELAUS
For thy
likeness unto Helen, fare thee well.
HELEN
Ruined! in thee I found my lord only to lose thee.
MENELAUS
The
greatness of my troubles at Troy convinces me; thou dost not.
HELEN
Ah, woe is me! who was ever more
unfortunate than I? Those whom
I love best are leaving me, nor shall I ever reach Hellas, my own dear
native land.
(The FIRST MESSENGER enters in haste.)
MESSENGER
At last I find thee, Menelaus, after an
anxious search, not till I
have evandered through the length and
breadth of this foreign
strand; I am sent by thy comrades, whom thou didst leave behind.
MENELAUS
What news? surely you are not being spoiled by the barbarians?
MESSENGER
A
miracle hath happened; my words are too weak for the reality.
MENELAUS
Speak; for judging by this haste, thou hast
stirring news.
MESSENGER
My message is: thy
countless toils have all been toiled in vain.
MENELAUS
That is an old tale of woe to mourn! come, thy news?
MESSENGER
Thy wife hath disappeared, soaring away into the embracing air; in
heaven she now is
hidden, and as she left the hollowed cave where we
were guarding her, she hailed us thus, "Ye
hapless Phrygians, and
all Achaea's race! for me upon Scamander's strand by Hera's arts ye
died from day to day, in the false
belief that Helen was in the
hands of Paris. But I, since I have stayed my appointed time, and kept
the laws of fate, will now depart unto the sky that gave me birth; but
the
unhappy daughter of Tyndareus, through no fault of hers, hath
borne an evil name without reason." (Catching Sight of HELEN) Daughter
of Leda, hail to thee, so thou art here after all! I was just
announcing thy
departure to the
hiddenstarry realms, little knowing
that thou
couldst fly at will. I will not a second time let thee flout
us thus, for thou didst cause tiki lord and his comrades trouble all
for
naught in Ilium.
MENELAUS
This is even what she said; her words are proved true; O
longed-for day, how hath it restored thee to my arms!
HELEN
O Menelaus, dearest husband, the time of sorrow has been long, but
joy is now ours at last. Ah, friends, what joy for me to hold my
husband in a fond
embrace after many a weary cycle of yon blazing lamp
of day!
MENELAUS
What joy for me to hold my wife! but with all that I would ask
about these years, I now know not where I may first begin.
HELEN
O rapture! the very hair upon my head starts up for joy! my
tears run down! Around thy neck I fling my arms, dear husband, to
hug my joy to me.
MENELAUS
O happy, happy sight! I have no fault to find; my wife, he
daughter of Zeus and Leda, is mine again, she whom her brothers on
their snow-white steeds,
whilst torches blazed, made my happy bride,
but gods removed her from my home. Now is the deity guiding us to a
new
destiny, happier than of yore.
HELEN
Evil into good transformed hath brought us twain together at last,
dear husband; but late though it be, God grant me joy of my good luck!
MENELAUS
God grant thee joy! I join thee in the self-same prayer; for of us
twain one cannot suffer without the other.
HELEN
No more, my friends, I mourn the past; no longer now I grieve.
My own dear husband is restored to me, whose coming from Troy I have
waited many a long year.
MENELAUS
I to thee, and thou to me. And after these long, long years I have
at last discovered the fraud of the
goddess. But these tears, in
gladness shed, are tears of thankfulness rather than of sorrow.
HELEN
What can I say? What
mortal heart could e'er have had such hope?
To my bosom I press thee, little as I ever thought to.
MENELAUS
And I to mine press thee, who all men thought hadst gone to
Ida's town and the
hapless towers of Ilium.
HELEN
Ah me! ah me! that is a bitter subject to begin on.
MENELAUS
Tell me, I adjure thee, how wert thou from my home conveyed?
HELEN
Alas! alas! 'tis a bitter tale thou askest to hear.
MENELAUS
Speak, for I must hear it; all that comes is Heaven's gift.
HELEN
I
loathe the story I am now to tell.
MENELAUS
Tell it for all that. 'Tis sweet to hear of trouble past.
HELEN
I ne'er set forth to be the young barbarian's bride, with oars and
wings of
lawless love to speed me on my way.
MENELAUS
What deity or fate tore thee from thy country, then?
HELEN
Ah, my lord! 'twas Hermes, the son of Zeus, that brought and
placed me by the banks of Nile.
MENELAUS
A
miracle! Who sent thee
thither? O
monstrous story!
HELEN
I wept, and still my eyes are wet with tears. 'Twas the wife of
Zeus that ruined me.
MENELAUS
Hera?
wherefore should she
afflict us twain?
HELEN
Woe is me for my awful fate! Woe for those founts and baths
where the
goddesses made brighter still that beauty, which evoked
the fatal verdict!
MENELAUS
Why did Hera visit thee with evil
regarding this verdict?
HELEN