Summary

On his last trip to Troy, Menelaus becomes friends with the Trojan prince named Paris and he decides to invite him to Sparta in order to further the peace negotiations. As Helen rides with Menelaus down to the sea to meet the ship that will bring Paris, she realizes the gods haven’t brought her such a bad destiny after all. As the ship approaches the shore, their daughter sees Paris and asks if he is a god. Menelaus tells her Paris is just a man. Helen sees his curly, gleaming hair and bronzed, muscular body and immediately falls in love with him on sight. Helen thinks her maid, Hessia, would say she had been bewitched by Aphrodite. Helen attempts to make an excuse at dinner but Menelaus and Paris insist she remain. Paris commences the story of his birth and...