So prayed he; but her darkly-brooding heart Was steeled, and her words mocked his agony: "Thou comest unto me!--thou, who didst leave Erewhile a wailing wife in a desolate home!-- Didst leave her for thy Tyndarid darling! Go, Lie laughing in her arms for bliss! She is better Than thy true wife--is, rumour saith, immortal! Make haste to kneel to her but not to me! Weep not to me, nor whimper pitiful prayers! Oh that mine heart beat with a tigress' strength, That I might tear thy flesh and lap thy blood For all the pain thy folly brought on me! Vile wretch! where now is Love's Queen glory-crowned? Hath Zeus forgotten his daughter's paramour? Have them for thy deliverers! Get thee hence Far from my dwelling, curse of Gods and men! Yea, for through thee, thou miscreant, sorrow came On deathless Gods, for sons and sons' sons slain. Hence from my threshold!--to thine Helen go! Agonize day and night beside her bed: There whimper, pierced to the heart with cruel pangs, Until she heal thee of thy grievous pain." So from her doors she drave that groaning man-- Ah fool! not knowing her own doom, whose weird Was straightway after him to tread the path Of death! So Fate had spun her destiny-thread. Then, as he stumbled down through Ida's brakes, Where Doom on his death-path was leading him Painfully halting, racked with heart-sick pain, Hera beheld him, with rejoicing soul Throned in the Olympian palace-court of Zeus. And seated at her side were handmaids four Whom radiant-faced Selene bare to the Sun To be unwearying ministers in Heaven, In form and office diverse each from each; For of these Seasons one was summer's queen, And one of winter and his stormy star, Of spring the third, of autumn-tide the fourth. So in four portions parted is man's year Ruled by these Queens in turn--but of all this Be Zeus himself the Overseer in heaven. And of those issues now these spake with her Which baleful Fate in her all-ruining heart Was shaping to the birth the new espousals Of Helen, fatal to Deiphobus-- The wrath of Helenus, who hoped in vain For that fair bride, and how, when he had fled, Wroth with the Trojans, to the mountain-height, Achaea's sons would seize him and would hale Unto their ships--how, by his counselling Strong Tydeus' son should with Odysseus scale The great wall, and should slay Alcathous The temple-warder, and should bear away Pallas the Gracious, with her free consent, Whose image was the sure defence of Troy;-- Yea, for not even a God, how wroth soe'er, Had power to lay the City of Priam waste While that immortal shape stood warder there. No man had carven that celestial form, But Cronos' Son himself had cast it down From heaven to Priam's gold-abounding burg.