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58 well he may—a leader like Saul, "taller by the head and shoulders than the rest of the people"—and he asks Helen to name him also. This is Ajax of Crete, son of Telamon, a giant chieftain, "the bulwark of the Greeks," represented here in the Iliad as easy-tempered and somewhat heavy, as it is the wont of giants to be, degraded by medieval and modern poets into a mere bulk without brains. "Mars' idiot," Shakespeare calls him, "who has not so much wit as would stop the eye of Helen's needle." Shirley, in his 'Ajax and Ulysses,' carries out the same popular notion:—

By the side of Ajax Helen also marks King Idomeneus of Crete, a frequent guest in the palace of Menelaus in happier times; for the court of Sparta, as will be seen hereafter in the Odyssey, was in these heroic days a centre of civilisation and refinement. Two chiefs Helen's anxious eyes vainly try to discern amongst the crowd of her countrymen,—

Helen's self-reproachful surmises have not reached he truth. The "Great Twin Brethren," who had once