Achaians were come to take vengeance for the wrongs of
Menelaus. Yet Paris heeded not the prayers of his brethren, that he
should send back Helen; so she tarried by his side in his gilded
chambers, and he went not forth to the battle, till all men reviled
him for his evil love, because he had forsaken the fair Oenone.

So for Paris fell the mighty Hector; for him died the brave Sarpedon;
and the women of Ilion mourned for their husbands who were smitten
down by the Achaian warriors. Fiercer and fiercer grew the strife, for
Here and Athene fought against the men of Troy, and no help came from
the laughter-loving Aphrodite.

Many times the years went round, while yet the Achaians strove to take
the city of Priam, till at last for very shame Paris took from the
wall his spear and shield, and went forth to the battle, but the
strength of his heart and of his arm was gone, and he trembled at the
fierce war-cries, as a child trembles at the roaring of the storm.
Then before the walls of Ilion there was fiercer strife, and the
bodies of the slain lay in heaps upon the battle plain. Faint and
weary, the people of Priam were shut up within the walls, until the
Achaians burst into the gates and gave the city to sword and flame.
Then the cry of men and women went up to the high heaven, and the
blood ran in streams upon the ground. With a mighty blaze rose up the
flames of the burning city, and the dream of Paris was ended.

Fast he fled from the wrath of Menelaus, and he cared not to look back
on the Argive Helen or the slaughter of his kinsfolk and his people.
But the arrow of Philoctetes came hissing through the air, and the
barb was fixed in the side of Paris. Hastily he drew it from the
wound, but the weapons of Herakles failed not to do their work, and
the poison sped through his burning veins. Onwards he hastened to the
pine forests of Ida, but his limbs trembled beneath him, and he sank
down as he drew nigh to the grassy bank where he had tended his flocks
in the former days. "Ah, Oenone," he said, "the evil dream is over,
and thy voice comes back to mine ear, soft and loving as when I wooed
and won thee among the dells of Ida. Thou hearest me not, Oenone, or
else I know that, forgiving all the wrong, thou wouldst hasten to help
me."

And even as he spoke Oenone stood before him, fair and beautiful as in
the days that were past. The glory as of the pure evening time was
shed upon her face, and her eye glistened with th