strangers, her whole surroundings are rather those of an Eastern sultana than of any princess of Spartan race.
Like gold-bowed Dian: and Adraste came
The bearer of her throne's majestic frame;
Her carpet's fine-wrought fleece Alcippe bore,
Phylo her basket bright with silver ore,
Gift of the wife of Polybus, who swayed
When Thebes, the Egyptian Thebes, scant wealth displayed.
His wife Alcandra, from her treasured store,
A golden spindle to fair Helen bore,
And a bright silver basket, on whose round
A rim of burnished gold was closely bound."—(Sotheby.)
These elaborate preparations for her "work"—which is some delicate fabric of wool tinged with the costly purple dye—have little in common with the household loom of Penelope. Here, as in the Iliad, refinement and elegance of taste are the distinctive characteristics of Helen: and they help to explain, though they in no way excuse, the fascination exercised over her by Paris, the accomplished musician and brilliant converser, rich in all the graces which Venus, for her own evil purposes, had bestowed on her favourite. Helen is still, as in the Iliad, emphatically "the lady;" the lady of rank and fashion, as things were in that day, with all the fashionable faults, and all the fashionable good qualities: selfish and luxurious, gracious and fascinating. Her transgressions, and the seemingly lenient view which the poet takes of them, have been discussed sufficiently in the Iliad. They are all now condoned. She has recovered from her miserable infatuation; and if we are inclined to despise Menelaus for his easy
