the Aeneid, the pious one finds Helen hiding in the shrine of Vesta,
and determines to slay "the common curse of Troy and of her own
country." There is no glory, he admits, in murdering a woman:-


Extinxisse nefas tamen et sumpsisse merentis
Laudabor poenas, animumqne explesse juvabit
Ultricis flammae, et cineres satiasse meorum.


But Venus appears and rescues the unworthy lover of Dido from the
crowning infamy which he contemplates. Hundreds of years later,
Helen found a worthier poet in Quintus Smyrnaeus, who in a late age
sang the swan-song of Greek epic minstrelsy. It is thus that (in the
fourth century A.D.) Quintus describes Helen, as she is led with the
captive women of Ilios, to the ships of the Achaeans:- "Now Helen
lamented not, but shame dwelt in her dark eyes, and reddened her
lovely cheeks, . . . while around her the people marvelled as they
beheld the flawless grace and winsome beauty of the woman, and none
dared upbraid her with secret taunt or open rebuke. Nay, as she had
been a Goddess they beheld her gladly, for dear and desired was she
in their sight. And as when their own country appeareth to men long
wandering on the sea, and they, being escaped from death and the
deep, gladly put forth their hands to greet their own native place;
even so all the Danaans were glad at the sight of her, and had no
more memory of all their woful toil, and the din of war: such a
spirit did Cytherea put into their hearts, out of favour to fair
Helen and father Zeus." Thus Quintus makes amends for the trivial
verses in which Coluthus describes the flight of a frivolous Helen
with an effeminate Paris.