hee," and the last scene of the play).

This last religion, faint and shattered by doubt as it is, represents a
return to the most primitive "Pelasgian" beliefs, a worship of the Dead
which existed long before the Olympian system, and has long outlived it.

[38] The fire-brand's image.]--Hecuba, just before Paris' birth, dreamed
that she gave birth to a fire-brand. The prophets therefore advised that
the babe should be killed; but Priam disobeyed them.

[39] Three Crowns of Life.]--On the Judgment of Paris see Miss Harrison,
_Prolegomena_. pp. 292 ff. Late writers degrade the story into a beauty
contest between three thoroughly personal goddesses--and a contest
complicated by bribery. But originally the Judgment is rather a Choice
between three possible lives, like the Choice of Heracles between Work
and Idleness. The elements of the choice vary in different versions: but
in general Hera is royalty; Athena is prowess in war or personal merit;
Aphrodite, of course, is love. And the goddesses are not really to be
distinguished from the gifts they bring. They are what they give, and
nothing more. Cf. the wonderful lyric _Androm_. 274 ff., where they come
to "a young man walking to and fro alone, in an empty hut in the
firelight."

There is an extraordinary effect in Helen herself _being_ one of the
Crowns of Life--a fair equivalent for the throne of the world.

[40] Alexander ... Paris.]--Two plays on words in the Greek.

[41] The old Gate-Warden.]--He and the Watchers are, of course, safely
dead. But on the general lines of the tradition it may well be that
Helen is speaking the truth. She loved both Menelaus and Paris; and,
according to some versions, hated Deiphobus, the Trojan prince who
seized her after Paris' death. There is a reference to Deiphobus in the
MSS. of the play here, but I follow Wilamowitz in thinking it spurious.

[42] Chorus.]--On the Trojan Zeus see above, on p. 11. Mount Ida caught
the rays of the rising sun in some special manner and distributed them
to the rest of the world; and in this gleam of heavenly fire the God had
his dwelling, which is now the brighter for the flames of his City going
up like incense!

Nothing definite is known of the Golden Images and the Moon-Feasts.

[43] Towers of the Giants.]--The pre-historic castles of Tiryns and
Mycenae.

[44] May Helen be there.]--(Cf. above.) Pitane was one of the five
divisions of Sparta. Athena had a "Bronzen House" on the acropolis of