she is being led off to execution, when the aged Peleus, the father of Achilles, and great-grandsire of Andromache's son, the little Molossus, enters and releases her. In the part of Molossus, as in that of the infant Orestes in the "Iphigenia at Aulis," we have a specimen of the manner in which Euripides availed himself of children in his scenes. Peleus says to the guards who are in charge of their prisoner:—
"Stand from her, slaves, that I may know who dares
Oppose me, while I free her hands from chains.
. . . .Come hither, child;
Beneath my arms unbind thy mother's chains;
In Phthia will I nurture thee.
. . . . . . .
Go forward, child, beneath my sheltering arms,
And thou, unhappy dame: the raging storm
Escaped, in harbour thou art now secure."
The "Helen" can scarcely be said to form part of the dramatic Tale of Troy, even although Menelaus and his wife are among its dramatis personæ. It is a kind of offshoot from that world-wide legend. Perhaps Euripides, like the lyric poet Stesichorus, thought that some apology was due from him to "the fairest and most loving wife in Greece." In his "Hecuba" and "Trojan Women" Helen comes in for her full share of hard words. In the "Orestes" she is represented as greedy of gain, and making an inventory of the goods and chattels of Electra and her brother even before they were condemned to death. In the play last surveyed, Menelaus is rated for taking her again to his bosom, instead of cutting her throat. The lovely
