So true to her fame?
Does a Providence rule in the fate of a word?
Sways there in heaven a viewless power
O'er the chance of the tongue in the naming hour?
Who gave her a name,
This daughter of strife, this daughter of shame,
The spear-wooed maid of Greece!
Helen the taker! 'tis plain to see,
A taker of ships, a taker of men,
A taker of cities is she!
From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled,
By the breath of giant Zephyr sped,
And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array
Hounded her flight o'er the printless way,
Where the swift-flashing oar
The fair booty bore
To swirling Sim'o-is' leafy shore,
And stirred the crimson fray.
--Trans. by BLACKIE.

According to Homer, the principal Greek heroes engaged in the
siege of Troy, aside from Agamemnon, were Menelaus, Achilles,
Ulysses, Ajax (the son of Tel'amon), Di'omed, Patro'clus, and
Palame'des; while among the bravest of the defenders of Troy
were Hector, Sarpe'don, and AEne'as.

The poet's story opens, in the tenth year of the siege, with an
account of a contentious scene between two of the Grecian chiefs
--Achilles and Agamemnon--which resulted in the withdrawal of
Achilles and his forces from the Grecian army. The aid of the