THE RAPE OF HELEN 



a city, repelling Hera and indignant Athena. And 

 unha})j>y Paris, yearning with lo\e and pursuing one 

 whom he had not seen, gathered men that were 

 skilled of Atrytone," queen of handicraft, and led 

 them to a shady wood. There the oaks from Ida of 

 many tree-trunks Avere cut and felled by the excel- 

 lent skill of Phereclus,'' source of woe ; who at that 

 time, doing pleasure to his frenzied king, fashioned 

 with the wood-cutting bronze ships for Alexander. 

 On the same day he willed and on the same made 

 the ships : ships which Athena <= neither planned nor 

 wrought. 



And now he had just left the hills of Ida for 

 the deep, and, after with many a sacrifice upon the 

 shore he had besought the favour of Aphrodite that 

 attended him to aid his marriage, he was sailing the 

 Hellespont over the broad back of the sea, when 

 to him there appeared a token of his laborious toils. 

 The dark sea leapt aloft and girdled the heaven 

 with a chain of dusky coils and straightway poured 

 forth rain from the murky air, and the sea was 

 turmoiled as the oarsmen rowed. Then when he 

 had jMissed Dardania and the land of Troy and, 

 coasting along, left behind the mouth of the 

 Ismarian lake,"^ speedily, after the mountains of 

 Thracian Pangaeon,* he saw rising into view the 

 tomb of Phyllis/ that loved her husband and the 



brother Acamas) was on his way home from Troy to Athens 

 he married Pin His. When he left for Athens he promised 

 to return for her soon. As he failed to return, she went nine 

 journeys to the shore to look for his returning ship. Hence 

 the place was called 'Ewia 'OSoi, the site of the later 

 colony of Amphipolis (cf. Aeschin. JJe /ah. leq, 31). Phyllis 

 cursed Demophoon and hanged herself; cf. Ov. Her. 2, 

 Rem. Am. 605. 



557 



