Again, the belief that different families of mankind descend from
animals, as from the Swan, or from gods in the shape of animals, is
found in every quarter of the world, and among the rudest races.
Many Australian natives of to-day claim descent, like the royal house
of Sparta, from the Swan. The Greek myths hesitated as to whether
Nemesis or Leda was the bride of the Swan. Homer only mentions Leda
among "the wives and daughters of mighty men," whose ghosts Odysseus
beheld in Hades: "And I saw Leda, the famous bedfellow of Tyndareus,
who bare to Tyndareus two sons, hardy of heart, Castor, tamer of
steeds, and the boxer Polydeuces." These heroes Helen, in the Iliad
(iii. 238), describes as her mother's sons. Thus, if Homer has any
distinct view on the subject, he holds that Leda is the mother of
Helen by Zeus, of the Dioscuri by Tyndareus.

Greek ideas as to the character of Helen varied with the various
moods of Greek literature. Homer's own ideas about his heroine are
probably best expressed in the words with which Priam greets her as
she appears among the assembled elders, who are watching the Argive
heroes from the wall of Troy: --"In nowise, dear child, do I blame
thee; nay, the Gods are to blame, who have roused against me the
woful war of the Achaeans." Homer, like Priam, throws the guilt of
Helen on the Gods, but it is not very easy to understand exactly what
he means by saying "the Gods are to blame." In the first place,
Homer avoids the psychological problems in which modern poetry
revels, by attributing almost all changes of the moods of men to
divine inspiration. Thus when Achilles, in a famous passage of the
first book of the Iliad, puts up his half-drawn sword in the sheath,
and does not slay Agamemnon, Homer assigns his repentance to the
direct influence of Athene. Again, he says in the Odyssey, about
Clytemnestra, that "she would none of the foul deed;" that is of the