Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/309

It is told that one of the old bards, named Stesichorus, who lived six generations before Euripides, did in a certain poem revile Helen, for that her sin was the cause of misery to Hellas and to Troy. Thereupon was he struck blind for railing on her who had after death become a goddess. But the man repented of his presumption, and made a new song wherein he unsaid all the evil he had sung of Queen Helen, and wove into his song an ancient legend, telling how that not she, but her wraith only, had passed to Troy, while she was borne by the Gods to the land of Egypt, and there remained until the day when her lord, turning aside on the homeward voyage, should find her there.

When he had done this, his sight was straightway restored to him.

In this one play only is Helen's story told according to the "Recantation of Stesichorus."