Helen
Not to the bed of the young barbarian, on the wings of oars, on the wings of desire for lawless marriage—
Menelaos
What god or fate tore you from your country?
Helen
[670]
Ah, my husband! The son of Zeus, of Zeus, brought me to the Nile.
Menelaos
Amazing! Who sent you there? O dreadful story!
Helen
I have wept bitterly, and my eyes are wet with tears; the wife of Zeus ruined me.
Menelaos
[675]
Hera? Why did she want to bring trouble to the two of us?
Helen
Alas for my terrible fate, the baths and springs, where the goddesses brightened the beauty from which the judgment came.
Menelaos
Regarding the judgment, Hera made it a cause of these troubles for you?
Helen
[680]
To take me away from Paris—
Menelaos
How? Tell me.
Helen
To whom Kypris had promised me.
Menelaos
O unhappy one!
Helen
Unhappy, unhappy; and so she brought me to Egypt.
Menelaos
Then she gave him a phantom instead, as I hear from you.
Helen
Sorrow, sorrow to your house,
[685]
mother, alas.
Menelaos
What do you mean?
Helen
My mother is no more; through shame of my disgraceful marriage she tied a noose around her neck.
Menelaos
Alas! Is our daughter Hermione alive?
Helen
Ah, my husband! Unmarried, without children, she mourns my
[690]
fatal marriage.
Menelaos
O Paris, who utterly destroyed my whole house, these things ruined you also, and countless bronze-clad Danaans.
Helen
The god cast me out, ill-fated and accursed, from my country,
[695]
from my city, and from you, when I left my home and bed—yet I did not leave them—for a shameful marriage.