autiful, but sad with grief and with an ancient shame.
Then he remembered how once he had stolen into Troy town from the camp
of the Achaeans, and how he had crept in a beggar's rags within the house
of Priam to spy upon the Trojans, and how Helen, the fairest of women,
had bathed him, and anointed him with oil, and suffered him to go in
peace, all for the memory of the love that was between them of old. As
he gazed, that picture faded and melted in the mist, and again he bowed
his head, and kneeled by the golden altar of the Goddess, crying:

"Where beneath the sunlight dwells the golden Helen?" For now he had
only one desire: to look on Helen again before he died.

Then the voice of the Goddess seemed to whisper in his ear:

"Did I not say truth, Odysseus? Wast not thou my servant for one hour,
and did not Love save thee in the city of the Trojans on that night when
even Wisdom was of no avail?"

He answered: "Yea, O Queen!"

"Behold then," said the voice, "I would again have mercy and be kind to
thee, for if I aid thee not thou hast no more life left among men. Home,
and kindred, and native land thou hast none; and, but for me, thou
must devour thine own heart and be lonely till thou diest. Therefore
I breathe into thy heart a sweet forgetfulness of every sorrow, and I
breathe love into thee for her who was thy first love in the beginning
of thy days.

"For Helen is living yet upon the earth. And I will send thee on the
quest of Helen, and thou shalt again take joy in war and wandering. Thou
shalt find her in a strange land, among a strange people, in a strife of
gods and men; and the wisest and bravest of man shall sleep at last in
the arms of the fairest of women. But learn this, Odysseus; thou must
set thy heart on no other woman, but only on Helen.

"And I give thee a sign to know her by in a land of magic, and among
women that deal in sorceries.

"_On the breast of Helen a jewel shines, a great star-stone, the gift I
gave her on her wedding-night when she was bride to Menelaus. From that
stone fall red drops like blood, and they drip on her vestment, and
there vanish, and do not stain it._

"By the Star of Love shalt thou know her; by the star shalt thou swear
to her; and if thou knowest not the portent of the Bleeding Star, or if
thou breakest that oath, never in this life, Odysseus, shalt thou win
the golden Helen! And thine own death shall come from the water--the
swiftest death--that the saying of