Amidst of these Menelaus led his wife Forth of the burning city, having wrought A mighty triumph--joy and shame were his. Cassandra heavenly-fair was haled the prize Of Agamemnon: to Achilles' son Andromache had fallen: Hecuba Odysseus dragged unto his ship. The tears Poured from her eyes as water from a spring; Trembled her limbs, fear-frenzied was her heart; Rent were her hoary tresses and besprent With ashes of the hearth, cast by her hands When she saw Priam slain and Troy aflame. And aye she deeply groaned for thraldom's day That trapped her vainly loth. Each hero led A wailing Trojan woman to his ship. Here, there, uprose from these the wild lament, The woeful-mingling cries of mother and babe. As when with white-tusked swine the herdmen drive Their younglings from the hill-pens to the plain As winter closeth in, and evermore Each answereth each with mingled plaintive cries; So moaned Troy's daughters by their foes enslaved, Handmaid and queen made one in thraldom's lot. But Helen raised no lamentation: shame Sat on her dark-blue eyes, and cast its flush Over her lovely cheeks. Her heart beat hard With sore misgiving, lest, as to the ships She passed, the Achaeans might mishandle her. Therefore with fluttering soul she trembled sore; And, her head darkly mantled in her veil, Close-following trod she in her husband's steps, With cheek shame-crimsoned, like the Queen of Love, What time the Heaven-abiders saw her clasped In Ares' arms, shaming in sight of all The marriage-bed, trapped in the myriad-meshed Toils of Hephaestus: tangled there she lay In agony of shame, while thronged around The Blessed, and there stood Hephaestus' self: For fearful it is for wives to be beheld By husbands' eyes doing the deed of shame. Lovely as she in form and roseate blush Passed Helen mid the Trojan captives on To the Argive ships. But the folk all around Marvelled to see the glory of loveliness Of that all-flawless woman. No man dared Or secretly or openly to cast Reproach on her. As on a Goddess all Gazed on her with adoring wistful eyes. As when to wanderers on a stormy sea, After long time and passion of prayer, the sight Of fatherland is given; from deadly deeps Escaped, they stretch hands to her joyful-souled; So joyed the Danaans all, no man of them Remembered any more war's travail and pain. Such thoughts Cytherea stirred in them, for grace To Helen starry-eyed, and Zeus her sire.