Euripides, Helen
E. P. Coleridge, Ed.

But Hera, indignant at not defeating the goddesses, made an airy nothing of my marriage with Paris; she gave to the son of king Priam not me, but an image, alive and breathing, that she fashioned out of the sky and made to look like me; [35] and he thinks he has me—an idle fancy, for he doesn't have me. And in turn the plans of Zeus added further troubles to these; for he brought a war upon the land of the Hellenes and the unhappy Phrygians, so that he might lighten mother earth [40] of her crowded mass of mortals, and bring fame to the bravest man of Hellas. So I was set up as the Hellenes' spear-prize, to test the courage of the Trojans; or rather not me, but my name. Hermes caught me up in the folds of the air and [45] hid me in a cloud—for Zeus was not neglectful of me—and he set me down here in the house of Proteus, having selected the most self-controlled of all mankind, so that I might keep my bed pure for Menelaos. And so I am here, while my wretched husband [50] has gathered an army and gone over to the towers of Ilion to hunt down and recover me. And many lives have been lost for my sake by the streams of Skamandros; and I who have endured all this am accursed, and have in appearance betrayed my husband [55] and brought a great war to the Hellenes. Why then am I still alive? I heard the god Hermes declare that I would yet live in the glorious country of Sparta, with my husband—for Hermes knew I never went to Ilion—so that I would not go to bed with another man. [60] Well, as long as Proteus saw this light of the sun, I was safe from marriage; but now that he is hidden in the dark earth, the dead man's son hunts after a marriage with me. But I, out of regard to my husband of long ago, am throwing myself down as a suppliant before this tomb of Proteus, [65] for him to keep my bed safe for my husband, so that, if I bear a name infamous throughout Hellas, at least my body may not incur disgrace here.