It would have been impossible to enhance more worthily than thus the spirit of courtesy and knightly kindness which was in Hector--qualities, in truth, which, together with his loyalty to Andromache, endeared the champion of the Trojans to chivalry, and placed Hector upon the list of worthies beside King Arthur and Godfrey of Bouillon. The character of Helen loses much of its charm and becomes more conventional in the _Odyssey_. It is difficult to believe that the poet who put into her lips the last lines of that threnos could have ventured to display the same woman calm and innocent and queen-like in the home of Menelaus: While in his mind he sat revolving this, Forth from her fragrant bower came Helen fair, Bright as the golden-spindled Artemis. Adraste set the couch; Alcippe there The fine-spun carpet spread; and Phylo bare The silver basket which Alcandra gave, Consort of Polybus, who dwelt whilere In Thebes of Egypt, whose great houses save Wealth in their walls, large store, and pomp of treasure brave. Helen shows her prudence and insight by at once declaring the stranger guest to be Telemachus; busy with housewifely kindness, she prepares for him a comfortable couch at night; nor does she shrink from telling again the tales of Troy, and the craft which helped Odysseus in the Wooden Horse. The blame of her elopement with Paris she throws on Aphrodite, who had carried her across the sea: Leaving my child an orphan far away, And couch, and husband who had known no peer, First in all grace of soul and beauty shining clear.