Helen only." In Homer, then, Helen is the daughter of Zeus, but
Homer says nothing of the famous legend which makes Zeus assume the form
of a swan to woo the mother of Helen. Unhomeric as this myth is, we may
regard it as extremely ancient. Very similar tales of pursuit and
metamorphosis, for amatory or other purposes, among the old legends of
Wales, and in the "Arabian Nights," as well as in the myths of
Australians and Red Indians. Again, the belief that different families
of mankind descend from animals, as from the Swan, or from gods in the
shape of animals, is found in every quarter of the world, and among the
rudest races. Many Australian natives of to-day claim descent, like the
royal house of Sparta, from the Swan. The Greek myths hesitated as to
whether Nemesis or Leda was the bride of the Swan. Homer only mentions
Leda among "the wives and daughters of mighty men," whose ghosts Odysseus
beheld in Hades: "And I saw Leda, the famous bedfellow of Tyndareus, who
bare to Tyndareus two sons, hardy of heart, Castor, tamer of steeds, and
the boxer Polydeuces." These heroes Helen, in the Iliad (iii. 238),
describes as her mother's sons. Thus, if Homer has any distinct view on
the subject, he holds that Leda is the mother of Helen by Zeus, of the
Dioscuri by Tyndareus.

Greek ideas as to the character of Helen varied with the various moods of
Greek literature. Homer's own ideas about his heroine are probably best
expressed in the words with which Priam greets her as she appears among
the assembled elders, who are watching the Argive heroes from the wall of
Troy:--"In nowise, dear child, do I blame thee; nay, the Gods are to
blame, who have roused against me the woful war of the Achaeans." Homer,
like Priam, throws the guilt of Helen on the Gods, but it is not very
easy to understand exactly what he means by saying "the Gods are to
blame." In the first place, Homer avoids the psychological problems in
which modern poetry revels, by attributing almost all changes of the
moods of men to divine inspiration. Thus when Achilles, in a famous
passage of the first book of the Iliad, puts up his half-drawn sword in
the sheath, and does not slay Agamemnon, Homer assigns his repentance to
the direct influence of Athene. Again, he says in the Odyssey, about
Clytemnestra, that "she would none of the foul deed;" that is of the love
of Aegisthus, till "the doom of the Gods bound her to her ruin." So far
the same excuse is