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P. C . B O W M A N Helen Approaching And these, as they saw Helen along the tower approaching, Murmuring softly to each other uttered their winged words. —Iliad, III, 154–155. Helen standing on the city wall, composed as the clouds, Light and ambiguous as these, still supple in old men’s eyes, Filled to the brim their vision till Panthoos asked aloud If she were not the sort of blessing one might call mixed. At length Antenor answered, “The gods are full of tricks, And give with one hand what they take back with the other. The balance of our life is thus forever fixed On zero,” and he coughed into his tired hand. The group fell silent, but Thymoites’ sly eyes scanned Each wrinkled face. “The wise man holds the reins, Perhaps, but stallions pull the weight. As he understands Zeus’ ways so well, perhaps Antenor might undertake To remember his own, when he was Paris’ age. The young rake, Like a lovesick bull, pursued Theano through Troy’s streets, And when she first refused him, threatened to find a lake Proper for such grief, and drown himself in it.” At that the wise men laughed, and recalled the adolescent Each once had been, and so Helen found them by the gate, Their voices smooth and sweet as wine with honey in it: Their eyes gazed through her as if they gazed on clouds. 154 ❚ The 1980s ...

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