On another occasion Faustus entertained several of the junior members
of the university of Wittenberg at his chambers. One of them,
referring to the exhibition the doctor had made of Alexander the Great
to the emperor Charles V, said it would gratify him above all things,
if he could once behold the famous Helen of Greece, whose beauty was
so great as to have roused all the princes of her country to arms, and
to have occasioned a ten years' war. Faustus consented to indulge his
curiosity, provided all the company would engage to be merely mute
spectators of the scene. This being promised, he left the room, and
presently brought in Helen. She was precisely as Homer has described
her, when she stood by the side of Priam on the walls of Troy, looking
on the Grecian chiefs. Her features were irresistibly attractive; and
her full, moist lips were redder than the summer cherries. Faustus
shortly after obliged his guests with her bust in marble, from which
several copies were taken, no one knowing the name of the original
artist.
No long time elapsed after this, when the doctor was engaged in
delivering a course of lectures on Homer at Erfurth, one of the
principal cities of Germany. It having been suggested to him that it
would very much enhance the interest of his lectures, if he would
exhibit to the company the heroes of Greece exactly as they appeared
to their contemporaries, Faustus obligingly yielded to the proposal.
The heroes of the Trojan war walked in procession before the
astonished auditors, no less lively in the representation than Helen
had been shewn before, and each of them with some characteristic
attitude and striking expression of countenance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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