of the Trojan war, disastrous alike to victors and vanquished?
According to Virgil, [Footnote: AEneid, B. VI.] after the death
of Paris she married the Trojan hero, De-iph'o-bus, and on the
night after the city was taken betrayed him to Menela'us, to
whom she became reconciled, and whom she accompanied, as Homer
relates, [Footnote: Odyssey B. IV.] during the eight years of
his wandering, on his return to Greece. LANDOR, in one of his
Hellen'ics, represents Menelaus, after the fall of Troy, as
pursuing Helen up the steps of the palace, and threatening her
with death. He thus addresses her:

"Stand, traitress, on that stair--
Thou mountest not another, by the gods!
Now take the death thou meritest, the death,
Zeus, who presides over hospitality--
And every other god whom thou has left,
And every other who abandons thee
In this accursed city--sends at last.
Turn, vilest of vile slaves! turn, paramour
Of what all other women hate, of cowards;
Turn, lest this hand wrench back thy head, and toss
It and its odors to the dust and flames."

Helen penitently receives his reproaches, and welcomes the
threatened death; and when he speaks of their daughter, Hermi'o-ne,
whom, an infant, she had so cruelly deserted, she exclaims:

"O my child!
My only one! thou livest: 'tis enough;
Hate me, abhor me, curse me--these are duties--