Come, let me share thy story: to the loyal
Thou wilt reveal it, to the true and tried
Whom, at thy bridal, with the dower royal
Tyndareus sent to wait upon thy bride.
Agamemnon.
Three daughters Leda, child of Thestius, bare,
Phœbê, and Klytemnestra mine own wife, 50
And Helen. Wooing this last, princes came
In fortune foremost in all Hellas-land.
With fearful threatenings breathed they murder, each
Against his rivals, if he won her not.
Then sore perplexed was Tyndareus her sire, 55
How, giving or refusing, he should 'scape
Shipwreck:[1] and this thing came into his mind,
That each to each the suitors should make oath,
And clasp right hands, and with burnt sacrifice
Should pour drink-offerings, and swear to this:— 60
Whose wife soever Tyndareus' child should be,
Him to defend: if any from her home
Stole her and fled, and thrust her lord aside,
To march against him, and to raze his town,
Hellene or alien, with their mailed array. 65
So when they had pledged them thus, and cunningly
Old Tyndareus had by craft outwitted them,
He let his daughter midst the suitors choose
Him unto whom[2] Love's sweet winds wafted her.
She chose—O had she never chosen him!— 70
Menelaus. Then from Phrygia he who judged
The Goddesses, as Argive legend tells,
