Metin
Till he beheld her in another's arms.
Why, Menelaus, dost thou now take on?
865
In Crete you long could sauntering stay alone;
Your Helen's absence ne'er disturb'd your rest:
No sooner fled she with her Trojan guest,
The royal cuckold raves, and he must make
A ten years' war, to fetch the harlot back.
870
'Twas on this score the fierce Achilles wept;
With Agamemnon his Briseis slept.Ovid calls him the son of Plisthenes; but indeed, neither Agamemnon nor Menelaus were the sons of Atreus, though they are so often called Atrides; both being begot by Plisthenes, brother of Atreus and Thyestes, who dying before his two elder brothers, left his two sons in charge with Atreus, who bred them up as carefully as if they had been his own children; for which reason, as Micyllus observees, they always passed for such.
Good cause to weep, the maiden toy was got,
Or great Alcides was a sov'reign sot.
His game of love were Ovid to have play'd,
875
The poet had the better hero made.
At last, with gifts he did the loss restore,
And that she was untouch'd profoundly swore,
Swore by his sceptre; — nor can that seem odd;
He knew his sceptre but a wooden god.He means that of Agamemnon which was made by Vulcan, who presented it to Jupiter, and he gave it to Mercury, Mercury to Pelops, and he to Atreus, who left it at his death to Thyestes, and Thyestes gave it to Agamemnon, to show his royal power in Argos.
880
Oh, could you once arrive but to the pow'r
As unconcern'd, to pass your mistress' door!
Strongly resolve, though ne'er so loath to stir,
