(HELEN enters the palace and MENELAUS withdraws into the background.)CHORUS (singing)strophe 1
Thee let me invoke, tearful Philomel, lurking 'neath the leafy covert in thy place of song, most tuneful of all feathered songsters, oh! come to aid me in my dirge, trilling through thy tawny throat, as I sing the piteous woes of Helen, and the tearful fate of Trojan dames made subject to Achaea's spear, on the day that there came to their plains one who sped with foreign oar across the dashing billows, bringing to Priam's race from Lacedaemon thee his hapless bride, Helen,-even Paris, luckless bridegroom, by the guidance of Aphrodite.
antistrophe 1
And many an Achaean hath breathed his last amid the spearmen's thrusts and hurtling hail of stones, and gone to his sad end; for these their wives cut off their hair in sorrow, and their houses are left without a bride; and one of the Achaeans, that had but a single ship, did light a blazing beacon on sea-girt Euboea, and destroy full many of them, wrecking them on the rocks of Caphareus and the shores that front the Aegean main, by the treacherous gleam he kindled; when thou, O Menelaus, from the very day of thy start, didst drift to harbourless hills, far from thy country before the breath of the storm, bearing on thy ship a prize that was no prize, but a phantom made by Hera out of cloud for the Danai to struggle over.
strophe 2
What mortal claims, by searching to the utmost limit, to have found out the nature of God, or of his opposite, or of that which comes between, seeing as he doth this world of man tossed to and fro by waves of contradiction and strange vicissitudes? Thou, Helen, art the daughter of Zeus; for thy sire was the bird that nestled in Leda's bosom; and yet for all that art thou become a by-word for wickedness, through the length and breadth of Hellas, as faithless, treacherous wife and godless woman; nor can I tell what certainty is, whatever may pass for it amongst men. That which gods pronounce have I found true.
antistrophe 2
O fools! all ye who try to win the meed of valour through war and serried ranks of chivalry, seeking thus to still this mortal coil, in senselessness; for if bloody contests are to decide, there will never be any lack of strife in the towns of men; the maidens of the land of Priam left their bridal bowers, though arbitration might have put thy quarrel right, O Helen. And now Troy's sons are in Hades'
keeping in the world below, and fire hath darted on her walls, as darts the flame of Zeus, and thou art bringing woe on woe to hapless sufferers in their misery.
(THEOCLYMENUS and his hunting attendants enter.)THEOCLYMENUSAll hail, my father's tomb! I buried thee, Proteus, at the place where men go out, that I might often greet thee; and so, ever as Igo out and in, I, thy son Theoclymenus call on thee, father. Ho!
servants, to the palace take my hounds and hunting nets! How often have I blamed myself for never punishing those miscreants with death! I have just heard that son of Hellas has come openly to my land, escaping the notice of the guard, a spy maybe or a would-be thief of Helen; death shall be his lot if only I can catch him. Ha!
I find all my plans apparently frustrated, the daughter of Tyndareus has deserted her seat at the tomb and sailed away from my shores.
Ho! there, undo the bars, loose the horses from their stalls, bring forth my chariot, servants, that the wife, on whom my heart is set, may not get away from these shores unseen, for want of any trouble Ican take. Yet stay; for I see the object of my pursuit is still in the palace, and has not fled. (HELEN enters from the palace, clad in the garb of mourning.) How now, lady, why hast thou arrayed thee in sable weeds instead of white raiment, and from thy fair head hast shorn thy tresses with the steel, bedewing thy cheeks the while with tears but lately shed? Is it in response to visions of the night that thou art mourning, or, because thou hast heard some warning voice within, art thus distraught with grief?
HELEN
My lord,-for already I have learnt to say that name,--I am undone;my luck is gone; I cease to be.
THEOCLYMENUS
In what misfortune art thou plunged? What hath happened?
HELEN
Menelaus, ah me! how can I say it? is dead, my husband.
THEOCLYMENUS
How knowest thou? Did Theonoe tell thee this?
HELEN
Both she, and one who was there when he perished.
THEOCLYMENUS
What! hath one arrived who actually announces this for certaint?
HELEN
One hath; oh may he come e'en as I wish him to!
THEOCLYMENUS
Who and where is he? that I may learn this more surely.
HELEN
There he is, sitting crouched beneath the shelter of this tomb, THEOCLYMENUSGreat Apollo! how clad in unseemly rags!
HELEN
Ah me! methinks my own husband too is in like plight.
THEOCLYMENUS
From what country is this fellow? whence landed he here?
HELEN
From Hellas, one of the Achaeans who sailed with my husband.
THEOCLYMENUS
What kind of death doth he declare that Menelaus died?
HELEN
The most piteous of all; amid the watery waves at sea.
THEOCLYMENUS
On what part of the savage ocean was he sailing?
HELEN
Cast up on the harbourless rocks of Libya.
THEOCLYMENUS
How was it this man did not perish if he was with him aboard?
HELEN
There are times when churls have more luck than their betters.
THEOCLYMENUS
Where left he the wreck, on coming hither?
HELEN
There, where perdition catch it, but not Menelaus!
THEOCLYMENUS
He is lost; but on what vessel came this man?
HELEN
According to his story sailors fell in with him and picked him up.
THEOCLYMENUS
Where then is that ill thing that was sent to Troy in thy stead?
HELEN
Dost mean the phantom-form of cloud? It hath passed into the air.
THEOCLYMENUS
O Priam, and thou land of Troy, how fruitless thy ruin!
HELEN
I too have shared with Priam's race their misfortunes.
THEOCLYMENUS
Did this fellow leave thy husband unburied, or consign him to the grave?
HELEN
Unburied; woe is me for my sad lot!
THEOCLYMENUS
Wherefore hast thou shorn the tresses of thy golden hair?
HELEN
His memory lingers fondly in this heart, whate'er his fate.
THEOCLYMENUS
