Menelaus : younger brother of Agamemnon, king of Sparta & husband of Helen. Menelaus led the Spartan contingent against Troy.
... which was ruled by Menelaus. Menelaus extended warm welcome to Paris to whom he introduced his beautiful wife Helen. As soon as Paris set eyes on Helen, her beauty dazzled him. It so happened that on the 10th day after Paris' arrival, Menelaus was forced to leave for Crete. During the absence of 1 Will Durant: The Story of Civilization, Vol. 2; p.36. Page 17 Menelaus, Paris made his advances... burned and looted. Menelaus ransacked the royal apartments of Troy in search of his wife. In the meantime, when Paris was killed, Helen had married a brother of Paris, Demophobus. Menelaus killed him on the same night and rushed into the room of Helen; Helen was expecting death from Menelaus, and when he entered her room she bared her breast to accept the blow from him. But Menelaus' sword fell to the... treasures which Paris offered her. Both Paris and Helen found in each other a perfect agreement of beauty and joined and escaped by night and fled to Troy, where their wedding was celebrated. As soon as Menelaus heard of this in Crete, he sailed away from Crete and went straight to his brother Agamemnon who was the ruler of Mycenae. The two brothers decided to raise all the kings and heroes of Greece in a ...
... mood of their mother. Helen none shall take from me living, gold not a drachma Travels from coffers of Priam to Greece. Let another and older Pay down his wealth if he will and his daughters serve Menelaus. Rather from Ilion I will go forth with my brothers and kinsmen; Page 385 Troy I will leave and her shame and live with my heart and my honour Refuged with lions on Ida or build in... Achilles." Smiling answered Aeneas, "Surely will, Eurus, thy prowess Carry thee far to the front; thou shalt fight with Epeus and slay him. Who shall say that this hand was not chosen to pierce Menelaus? But for a while with the ball should it rather strive, O hero, Till in the play and the wrestle its softness is trained for the smiting." Eagerly Eurus answered, "But they have told me, Aeneas... Thou then hop'st to escape! But the gods could not take thee, O Helen, How then thy will that to mine is a captive, or how, though with battle, He who has lost thee, unhappy, the Spartan, bright Menelaus? All things yield to a man and Zeus is himself his accomplice When like a god he wills without remorse or longing. Thou on this earth art mine since I claimed thee beheld, not speaking, But with ...
... Sparta; Helen was wife of Menelaus, Tyndareus' successor by their marriage, but was carried off to Troy by Paris. She was the most beautiful of women. As she had many suitors, Tyndareus had each of them take an oath swearing to come to the aid of the man chosen as her husband. It was this oath that brought many Greek princes and their armies to Troy to support Menelaus' cause. Helios: ... Idas, an Argonaut, had won Marpessa as his bride, but she was carried off by Apollo. Zeus intervened in the fight which ensued and offered her a choice between the two. She chose Idas. Menelaus: Younger brother of Agamemnon and husband of Helen. He was the king of Sparta, succeeding Tyndareus, Helen's foster-father, to the throne, and led the Spartan contingent against Troy. Mycenae:... mast of his ship; as for his companions, he had cautiously sealed their ears with wax. Sparta: City-State, south Peloponnesus, Sparta was the kingdom of Tyndareus, foster-father of Helen. Menelaus succeeded him to the throne and led the Spartan contingent against Troy. Taygetus: Highest Mountain range in the Peloponnesus. Themis: Titaness who came to personify law and justice; ...
... to help the Greeks. (I-II) We pass in review the ships and tribes of the assembled force, and (III) see bluff Menelaus engaging Paris in single combat to decide the war. The two armies sit down in a civilized truce; Priam joins Agamemnon in solemn sacrifice to the gods. Menelaus overcomes Paris, but Aphrodite snatches the lad safely away in a cloud and deposits him, miraculously powdered and ... perfumed, upon his marriage bed. Helen bids him return to the fight, but he counter proposes that they "give the hour to dalliance." The lady flattered by desire, yields. (IV) Agamemnon declares Menelaus the victor, and the war is apparently ended; but the gods, in imitative council on Olympus, demand more blood. Zeus votes for peace, but withdraws his vote in terrified retreat when Hera, his spouse... make a two-man sally upon the Trojan camp at night and slay a dozen chieftains. (XI) Agamemnon leads his army valiantly, is wounded, and retires. Odysseus, surrounded, fights like a lion; Ajax and Menelaus cleave a path to him and save him for a better life. (XII-XIII) When the Trojans advance to the walls that the Greeks have built about their camp (XIV), Hera is so disturbed that she resolves to rescue ...
... the city of Troy for more than nine years. The declared motive of the war had been the abduction of Helen, beautiful wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, by Paris, prince of Troy. To avenge this deception the whole of the Achaean forces, under the commandership of Agamemnon, Menelaus' brother and king of Mycenae, had left for Troy. We are told in one of Aeschilus's play "Agamemnon” of the tragic story of ...
... power to that city. Achelous: river in Phyrigia (Asia Minor), east of Troy. Aegean: sea between Greece and Asia Minor. Agamemnon: eldest son of Atreus and brother of Menelaus, King of Mycenae and Argos, Agamemnon was the commander in chief of the Greek forces against Troy. On his return to Greece, he was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus; his... and Aphrodite, the most beautiful woman as his wife. He gave the apple to Aphrodite who later arranged for him to abduct Helen, who was the acknowledged beauty of her era, but already the wife of Menelaus. This story is the mythical explanation behind the siege of Troy. Lesbos: island and city off the coast of Asia Minor south of Troy. Leto: Greek goddess, mother of Apollo and ...
... Rebuffed by Troy, Achilles sends an insolent message to Agamemnon, and the Greek chieftains debate whether they should join Achilles in his attack on Troy or sullenly stand aside from the conflict. Menelaus feels demoralised and strikes a wholly defeatist note, some of the chieftains rail against Agamemnon and some rage against Achilles. It is left to Odysseus to show the way of prudence and calculation... rapture,... Nay, if thou has that strength, then hunt me, O hunter, and seize me,... But if thou canst not, death of myself or thyself thou shalt capture. 104 In the Greek camp, Menelaus despairingly asks: "Who in the dreadful field can prevail against Penthesilea...?", while the Locrian swift-footed Ajax calls her "this hell-bitch armed by the furies". Zeus himself takes in his ...
... before which marble Troy Was a tiny transience, well worth throwing away— Whiteness ineffable, drawing towards timeless joy Man's arms through passioning night and longing day. Did Menelaus enfold your secret light? Did Paris plumb your radiant mystery? They knew but longing day and passioning night: The timeless splendour touched blind Homer's eye. Once caught ...
... Paris — Homer's Paris, of course, and not Mallarme's — Paris the man to whom she was madly drawn and not Paris the city from which she might have run away frightened as if it had been her own husband Menelaus! And the Rose held in Helen's lily-slender fingers and watched by her violet-soft eyes must be the same as the Rose that suggested to the French poet Malherbe, when he wrote an elegy on the death ...
... 811f). 48 Ajax expected to be awarded the arms of Achilles, which were supposed to pass, after their owner's death, to the next bravest of the Greeks; but the generals Agamemnon and Menelaus awarded them to Odysseus. Ajax, in a fit of madness, killed some cattle in mistake for the persons who had wronged him, and later, recovering his senses, was so ashamed that he killed himself. ...
... 81 If). Ajax expected to be awarded the arms of Achilles, which were supposed to pass, after their owner's death, to the next bravest of the Greeks; but the generals Agamemnon and Menelaus I awarded them to Odysseus. Ajax, in a fit of madness, killed some cattle in mistake for the persons j who had wronged him, and later, recovering his senses, was so ashamed that he killed himself ...
... on his homecoming to Ithaca, neither pleases nor is pleased himself, and so sets out again on his wanderings with a few picked rugged companions. His first hop is at Sparta, and there he finds Menelaus' smugness repulsive. He abducts a not unwilling Helen, who is as beautiful as ever, but not because he desires her carnally but rather because he thinks that she too deserves release from the barred ...
... Achilles has learned of the rejection of his offer and decides upon instant battle. There is a parallel assembly of the Greek chieftains, and Page 54 after hearing Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus, they too decide to join the fray at Achilles' side. In a short Book Achilles takes leave of his mistress, Briseis. There is also a synod of the gods on Olympus, and the future ...
... described them to Sri Aurobindo he identified them as Horace and Hector. In the age of the siege of Troy Sri Aurobindo is taken to have been Paris, the Mother Helen and Nolini the husband of Helen, King Menelaus of Sparta from whom Trojan Paris seduced away Helen. On one occasion when I remarked to the Mother that the way she had poised her arm and hand a moment earlier reminded me of the depiction of Mona ...
... The Secret Splendour O This Old Age.. O this old age that makes a mockery Of Helen and Troy's fire a waste of love To Menelaus's blurred and bounded eye! Alone the poet's will—"Tine shall not move When once the flawless note is struck"—keeps bright The Swan-sired face and the reddening topless towers. Nought save his reverie ...
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