venth century, B.C., was still preserved
at Olympia, in the time of Pausanias. On one of the bands of cedar or of
ivory, was represented (Pausanias, v. 18), "Menelaus with a sword in his
hand, rushing on to kill Helen--clearly at the sacking of Ilios." How
Menelaus passed from a desire to kill Helen to his absolute complacency
in the Odyssey, Homer does not tell us. According to a statement
attributed to Stesichorus (635, 554, B.C.?), the army of the Achaeans
purposed to stone Helen, but was overawed and compelled to relent by her
extraordinary beauty: "when they beheld her, they cast down their stones
on the ground." It may be conjectured that the reconciliation followed
this futile attempt at punishing a daughter of Zeus. Homer, then, leaves
us without information about the adventures of Helen, between the sack of
Tiny and the reconciliation with Menelaus. He hints that she was married
to Deiphobus, after the death of Paris, and alludes to the tradition that
she mimicked the voices of the wives of the heroes, and so nearly tempted
them to leave their ambush in the wooden horse. But in the fourth book
of the Odyssey, when Telemachus visits Lacedaemon, he finds Helen the
honoured wife of Menelaus, rich in the marvellous gifts bestowed on her,
in her wanderings from Troy, by the princes of Egypt.

"While yet he pondered these things in his mind and in his heart, Helen
came forth from her fragrant vaulted chamber, like Artemis of the golden
arrows; and with her came Adraste and set for her the well-wrought chair,
and Alcippe bare a rug of soft wool, and Phylo bare a silver basket which
Alcandre gave her, the wife of Polybus, who dwelt in Thebes of Egypt,
where is the chiefest store of wealth in the houses. He gave two silver
baths to Menelaus, and tripods twain, and ten talents of gold. And
besides all this, his wife bestowed on Helen lovely gifts; a golden
distaff did she give, and a silver basket with wheels beneath, and the
rims thereof were finished with gold. This it was that the handmaid
Phylo bare and set beside her, filled with dressed yarn, and across it
was laid a distaff charged with wool of violet blue. So Helen sat her
down in the chair, and beneath was a footstool for the feet."

When the host and guests begin to weep the ready tears of the heroic age
over the sorrows of the past, and dread of the dim future, Helen comforts
them with a magical potion.

"Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, turned to new