It is thus simply, and by no mythological suggestion of Aphrodite's influence, that Homer describes the spirit of beauty which protected Helen among the people she had brought to sore straits. Priam accosts her tenderly; not hers the blame that the gods scourge him in his old age with war. Then he bids her sit beside him and name the Greek heroes as they march beneath. She obeys, and points out Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Ajax, describing each, as she knew them of old. But for her twin brothers she looks in vain; and the thought of them touches her with the sorrow of her isolation and her shame. In the same book, after Paris has been withdrawn, not without dishonor, from the duel by Aphrodite, Helen is summoned by her liege-mistress to his bed. Helen was standing on the walls, and the goddess, disguised as an old spinning-woman, took her by the skirt, bidding her hie back to her lover, whom she would find in his bedchamber, not as one arrayed for war, but as a fair youth resting haply from the dance. Homer gives no hint that Aphrodite is here the personified wish of Helen's own heart going forth to Paris. On the contrary, the Cyprian queen appears in the interests of the Phrygian youth, whom she would fain see comforted. Under her disguise Helen recognized Aphrodite, the terrible queen, whose bondwoman she was forced to be. For a moment she struggled against her fate. "Art thou come again," she cried, "to bear me to some son of earth beloved of thee, that I may serve his pleasure to my own shame? Nay, rather, put off divinity and be thyself his odalisque." "With _him_ remain, _Him_ sit with, and from heaven thy feet refrain; Weep, till his wife he make thee, or fond slave. I go to him no more, to win new stain, And scorn of Trojan women again outbrave, Whelmed even now with grief's illimitable wave."