THE RAPE OF HELEN 



lovely bride, and, instead of kingship, enter thou the 

 bed of Helen. Lacedaemon, after Troy, shall see 

 thee a bridegroom." 



Not yet had she ceased speaking and he gave her 

 the splendid apple, beauty's offering, the great 

 treasure of Aphrogeneia,* a plant of war, of war an 

 evil seed. And she, holding the apple in her hand, 

 uttered her voice and spake in mockery of Hera and 

 manly Athena : 



" Yield to me, accustomed as ye be to war, yield 

 me the victory. Beauty have I loved and beauty 

 follows me. They say that thou, mother of Ares, 

 didst with travail bear the holy choir of the fair- 

 tressed Graces.* But to-day they have all denied 

 thee and not one hast thou found to help thee. 

 Queen but not of shields and nurse but not of fire, 

 Ares hath not holpen thee, though Ares rages with 

 the spear : the Hames of Hephaestus have not 

 holpen thee, though he brings to birth the breath of 

 fire. And how vain is thy vaunting, Atrytone <^ ! 

 whom marriage sowed not nor mother bare, but 

 cleaving of iron and root of iron made thee spring 

 without bed of birth from the head of thy sire. And 

 how, covering thy body in brazen robes, thou dost 

 flee from love and pursuest the works of Ares, 

 untaught of harmony and wotting not of concord. 

 Knowest thou not that such Athenas as thou are the 

 more unvaliant — exulting in glorious wars, with 

 limbs at feud, neither men nor women .'' " <^ 



Thus spake Cypris and mocked Athena. So she 

 got the prize of beauty that should work the ruin of 



her birth had swallowed her mother Metis) when it was cleft 

 by the axe of Hephaestus or Prometheus (Hes. Th. 924, 

 Horn. //. 28, Piud. 0. vii. 35, Apollod. i. 3. 6), 

 ' Cf. 302 flF. 



555 



