the field. In the palace, to his indignation, he finds Paris dallying with Helen, and polishing his armour instead of joining the fight. Hector upbraids him sharply: and Helen, in a speech full of self-abasement, laments the unworthiness of her paramour. Hector speaks no word of reproach to her, though he gently declines her invitation to rest himself also a while from the battle. Paris promises to follow him at once to the field; and Hector moves on to his own wife's apartments, to see her and his child once more before he goes back to the combat which he has a half-foreboding will end fatally for himself, whatever be the fortunes of Troy.
And now we are introduced to the second female character in the poem, standing in the strongest possible contrast with that of Helen, but of no less admirable conception. It is remarkable how entirely Homer succeeds in interesting us in his women, without having recourse to what might seem to us the very natural expedient of dwelling on their personal charms; especially when it is taken into account that, in his simple narrative, he has not the resources of the modern novelist, who can make even the plainest heroine attractive by painting her mental perfections, or setting before us the charms of her conversation. It has been said that he rather assumes than describes the beauty of Helen: in the case of Andromache, it has been remarked that he never once applies to her any epithet implying personal attractions, though all his translators, Lord Derby included, have been tempted to do so. It is as the wife and mother that Andromache charms us. We readily assume that she is comely, graceful—all that a woman should be; but it is simple grace of
