Greeks as fighting to avenge
"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 ac