oo dear, I know; but never till he came
Had known the leap of joy, the fire of flame
Upon the heart he gave me, Paris the bright,
Whose memory was music and his sight
Fragrance, whose nearness made my footfall dance,
Whose touch was fever, and his burning glance
Faintness and blindness; in whose light my life
Centred; who was the sun, and I, false wife,
The foolish flower that turns whereso he wheels
Over the broad earth's canopy, and steals
Colour from his strong beam, but at the last
Whenas the night comes and the day is past
Droops, burnt at the heart. So loved I him, and so
Waxed bold to dare the deed that brought this woe."
And there she changed, and bitter was her cry:
"Ah, lord, far better had it been to die
Ere I had cast this pain on thee, and shame
On me, and wrought such outrage on our name.
Natheless I live----"
"Ay, and give life!" he said;
"Yet this thing more I'd have thee tell--what led
Thy thought to me? From him, what turned thy troth--
Such troth as there could be?"
She cried, "The oath!
The oath ye sware before the Lords of Heaven,
The sacrifice, the pledges taken and given
When thou and Paris met upon the plain,
And all the host sat down to watch you twain
Do battle, which should have me. For my part,
They took me forth to watch; as in the mart
A heifer feels the giver of the feast
Pinch in her flank, and hears the chaffer twist
This way and that for so much fat or lean--
Even so was I, a queen, child of a queen."
She bit her lip until the blood ran free,
And in her eyes he markt deep injury
Scald as the salt tears welled; but "Listen yet,"
She said: "Ye fought, and Paris fell beset
Under thy spurning heel, yet felt no whit
The bitterness as I must come to it;
For she, his Goddess, hid him up in mists
And brought him beat and broken from the lists
Here to his chamber. But I stood and burned,
Shameful to be by one lost, by one earned,
A prize for games, a slave, a bandied thing--
Since as the oath was made so must I swing
From bed to bed. But while I stood and wept,
Melted in fruitless sorrow, up she crept
For me, his Goddess, gliding like a snake,
Who wreathed her arms and whispering me go make
The nuptial couch, 'What oath binds lov