himself had wrought it for Jupiter; Jupiter had given it to Hermes, Hermes to Pelops, and so it had been handed on. It was in some sort the prototype of those more than mortal weapons wielded by the heroes of medieval romance, which were one secret of their invincible prowess, and which had come from the hand of no human armourer; like the sword Dur-entaille, which belonged to Charlemagne, and was by him given to his nephew Roland; like Arthur’s Excalibur; or the marvellous blade Recuite, which passed from the hands of Alexander the Great to Ptolemy, from Ptolemy to Judas Maccabæus, and so, through many intermediate owners, to the Emperor Vespasian. To the monarchs of the house of Pelops, then, belonged in uncommon degree “the divinity that doth hedge a king;” and Agamemnon is recognised, throughout the whole of the Homeric story, as pre-eminently “King of Men.” But a terrible curse rested on the house—a curse connected with a revolting legend, which, as not recognised by Homer, needs no further notice here, but which was to find ample fulfilment in the sequel of Agamemnon’s history.
The royal sons of Atreus take hasty counsel with such of the neighbouring kings and chiefs as they can collect, how they may avenge the wrong. One legend tells us that Tyndarus, the reputed father of Helen, before he gave her in marriage to Menelaus, had pledged all her suitors, among whom were the noblest names of Greece, to avenge any such attempt against the honour of the husband he should choose for her, whichever of them he might be: and that they now redeemed that pledge when called upon by the king of Sparta. Nestor, king of Pylos, and a chief named Palamedes, went
