Man of the Sea, the destiny of the fair queen is suggested in that of her faithful spouse: "But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art not ordained to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the pasture land of horses; for the deathless gods will convey thee to the Elysian plains and to the world's end, where is Rhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill blast to blow cool on men; yea, for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee son to Zeus." Thus, because wedded to Zeus-begotten Helen, Menelaus himself is deathless and immortal, and Homer meant, no doubt, to picture the royal couple passing together in the Isles of the Blest the aeons of eternity. Homer provided the literary types for all succeeding Greek poets, and it is but natural that so bewitching a conception as Helen should be frequently portrayed and adopted. But with the change in form of government from monarchy to oligarchy, and from oligarchy to democracy, the old epic conception of heroes and heroines frequently suffers disparagement. In later periods, men began to meditate on moral questions, and poets who sought to weigh the problems of human life and destiny saw in Helen's career the old, old story of sin and sufering, and they could not with Homeric chivalry gloze over that fatal step which caused the wreck of empires and brought infinite woes to men. Stesichorus was the first poet to charge Helen with all the guilt and suffering of Hellas and of Troy; but for this offence against the daughter of Zeus, says tradition, he was smitten with blindness, and did not recover his sight until he had written the recantation beginning: "Not true is that tale; nor didst thou journey in benched ships, nor come to town of Troy,"--in which he adopted the theory that the real Helen remained in Egypt, while a phantom accompanied Paris to Troy. AEschylus searches into the dire consequences of Helen's sin, and on her shoulders lays all the sufferings of Agamemnon and his descendants. "Rightly is she called Helen," says he; "a hell of ships, hell of men, hell of cities." He regards her as the very incarnation of evil, the curse of two great nations. Yet even stern AEschylus yields due reverence to her all-conquering beauty: "Ah! silent, see she stands; Each glowing tint, each radiant grace, That charm th' enraptur'd eye, we trace; And still the blooming form commands, Still honor'd, still ador'd, Though careless of her former loves, Far o'er the rolling sea the wanton roves." He also represents her forsaken husband ever dreaming of her, enraptured of her beauty: