'could fall into the gross error of looking upon her as a type ' of depraved character;' but even he has, I think, hardly done justice. He continues as follows:

'Her fall once incurred, she finds herself bound by the iron chain of circumstance, from which she can obtain no extrication. But to the world, beneath whose standard of 'morality she has sunk, she makes at least this reparation, that the sharp condemnation of herself is ever in her mouth, and 'that she does not seek to throw off the burden of her shame on her more guilty partner. Nay, more than this, her selfdebasing and self-renouncing humility come nearer, perhaps, 'than any other heathen example to the type of Christian 'penitence.'

Other writers have felt the same difficulty. Maclaurin, for instance, says: What is most astonishing of all is, that they '(the Trojans) did not restore her upon the death of Paris, but married her to his brother Deiphobus. Here Chrysostom argues, and with great plausibility, that this is perfectly in'credible, upon the supposition that Paris had possessed him'self of her by a crime.'

We must, however, judge Helen by the customs of the time, and it has been clearly shown that among the lower races of man, marriage by capture was a recognised custom. Hers seems to me a case of this kind. It will be observed that she is always spoken of as Paris' wife. Thus, speaking of Paris,

she says

and again

2

Would that a better man had called me wife; *

Godlike Paris claims me as his wife.

Paris himself speaks of her as his wife

Yet hath my wife, e'en now, with soothing words
Urged me to join the battle.

So also Hector, though he regarded Paris with great contempt, and reproached him in strong language, addresses him as married.

1 Dissertation to prove that Troy was not taken by the Greeks. By John Maclaurin, Esq.

2 VI. 402. Lord Derby's Trans. 3 L. c. xxiv. 892.

4 VI. 394.

NOTES.

Thou wretched Paris, though in form so fair,

Thou slave of woman, manhood's counterfeit !

Would thou had'st ne'er been born, or died at least
Unwedded!!

513

and speaks to Helen with kindness and affection; as, for instance, in the VIth Book he says:

Though kind thy wish, yet, Helen, ask me not

To sit or rest; I cannot yield to thee,

For burns e'en now my soul to aid our friends,
Who feel my loss, and sorely need my arm.
But thou thy husband rouse, and let him speed,
That he may find me still within the walls.2

The aged Priam, even when grieving over the fatal war, is careful to assure Helen that he does not complain of her:

Not thee I blame,

But to the Gods I owe this woful war.3

These were no exceptional cases.

On the contrary, in her

touching lament over Hector's corpse, Helen says:

Hector, of all my brethren dearest thou!
True, Godlike Paris claims me as his wife,
Who bore me hither-would I then had died!
But twenty years have pass'd since here I
came,
And left my native land; yet ne'er from thee
I heard one scornful, one degrading word;
And when from others I have borne reproach,
Thy brothers, sisters, or thy brothers' wives,
Or mother (for thy sire was ever kind

E'en as a father), thou hast check'd them still
With tender feeling, and with gentle words.

For thee I weep, and for myself no less;

For, through the breadth of Troy, none love me now,
None kindly look on me, but all abhor.

Weeping she spoke, and with her wept the crowd.

Even in that hour of sorrow, the people pitied, but did not upbraid her. It is true that she reproaches herself; not, however, apparently for her marriage with Paris, but on account of the misfortunes which she had been the means of bringing on Troy.

I dwell on these considerations, because unless we realise the fact that marriage by capture was a recognised form of

III. 43.

2 VI. 419.

L L

L. c. iii. 195.

matrimony, involving, according to the ideas of the time, no disgrace, at any rate to the woman, it seems to me that we cannot understand the character of Helen, or properly appreciate the Iliad' itself. If Helen was a faithless wife, an abandoned and guilty wretch, the terms in which she is described by Homer would be, to say the least, misplaced: he would have condoned vice when clad in the garb of beauty.

Yet his treatment of Venus shows how little likely he was so to err, and we must, I think, on the whole, conclude that according to the ideas of the time Helen was legally married to Paris, and was guilty of no crime.

PAGE 344.

The Multiplicity of Rules in Australia.

It seems at first sight remarkable that a race so low as the Australians should have such stringent laws and apparently complex rules. In fact, however, they are merely customs to which antiquity has gradually given the force of law; and it is obvious that when a race has long remained stationary we may naturally expect to find many customs thus crystallised, as it were, by age.

INDEX.

INDEX.