k 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.

To follow the fortunes of Helen through the middle ages would demand much
space and considerable research. The poets who read Dares Phrygius
believed, with the scholar of Dr. Faustus, that "Helen of Greece was the
admirablest lady that ever lived." When English poetry first found the
secret of perfect music, her sweetest numbers were offered by Marlowe at
the shrine of Helen. The speech of Faustus is almost too hackneyed to be
quoted, and altogether too beautiful to be omitted:--

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium!
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul! see where it flies;
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again;
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in those lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.

* * * * *

Oh thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

The loves of Faustus and Helen are readily allegorized into the passion
of the Renaissance for classical beauty, the passion to which all that is
not beauty seemed very dross. This is the idea of the second part of
"Faust," in which Helen once more became, as she prophesied in the Iliad,
a song in the mouths of later men. Almost her latest apparition in
English poetry, is in the "Hellenics" of Landor. The sweetness of the
character of Helen; the tragedy of the death of Corythus by the hand of
his father Paris; and the omnipotence of beauty and charm which triumph
over the wrath of Menelaus, are the subjects of Landor's verse. But
Helen, as a woman, has hardly found a n