Œnone and went to the funeral games at Troy. He intended, perhaps, to
return sometime, but it was many years before he saw the fair nymph of
Mount Ida again,--not until he was about to die of a wound received from
one of the Greeks in the Trojan War. Œnone knew what was to happen, for
Apollo had conferred upon her the gift of prophecy, and she warned Paris
that if he should go away from her he would bring ruin on himself and
his country, telling him also that he would seek for her help when it
would be too late to save him. These predictions, as we shall see, were
fulfilled. Œnone's grief and despair in her loneliness after the
departure of Paris are touchingly described in Tennyson's poem:

"O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die."

At the athletic games in Troy everybody admired the noble appearance of
Paris, but nobody knew who he was. In the competitions he won all the
first prizes, for Venus had given him godlike strength and swiftness. He
defeated even Hector, who was the greatest athlete of Troy. Hector,
angry at finding himself and all the highborn young men of the city
beaten by an unknown stranger, resolved to put him to death, and Paris
would probably have been killed, had he not fled for safety into the
temple of Jupiter. Cassandra, who happened to be in the temple at the
time, noticed Paris closely, and observing that he bore a strong