Page:Homer The Iliad.djvu/67

Rh history, "sits in the gate" surrounded by the elders of his city. It is the "Scæan," or "left-hand" gate, which opens towards the camp of the enemy, and commands a view of their lines. We have had no word as yet of the marvellous beauty of Helen. There is no attempt to describe it throughout the whole of the poem. But here, in a few masterly touches, introduced in the simplest and most natural manner, Homer does more than describe it, when he tells us its effects. The old men break off their talk as the beautiful stranger draws near. They had seen her often enough before; the fatal face and form must have been well known in the streets and palaces of Troy, however retired a life Helen might well have thought it becoming in her unhappy position to lead. But the fair vision comes upon their eyes with a new and ever-increasing enchantment. They say each to the other as they look upon her, "It is no blame to Greeks or Trojans to fight for such a woman—she is worth all the ten years of war; still, let her embark and go home, lest we and our children suffer more for her." Even the earliest critics, when the finer shades of criticism were little understood, were forcibly struck with the art of the poet in selecting his witnesses for the defence. The Roman Quintilian had said nearly all that modern taste has since confirmed. He bids the reader mark who gives this testimony to Helen's charms. Not the infatuated Paris, who has set his own honour and his country's welfare at nought for the sake of an unlawful passion; not some young Trojan, who might naturally be ready to vow "the world well lost" for such a woman; nor yet any of the vulgar crowd, easily impressed, and always extravagant in its praise or blame; but these