A Double Wedding

1They came to Lacedaemon’s valley, seamed
With dells, and to the palace of its king,
The glorious Menelaus, whom they found
Within, and at a wedding banquet, made
Both for his blameless daughter and his son,
And many guests. Her he must send away,
Bride of the son of that invincible chief,
Achilles. He betrothed her while in Troy,
And gave his kingly word, and now the gods
Fulfilled it by the marriage. He was now
Sending her forth, with steeds and cars, to reach
The noble city of the Myrmidons,
Where ruled her consort. From the Spartan coast
He brought Alector’s daughter for his son,
The gallant Megapenthes, borne to him
By a handmaiden in his later years.
For not to Helen had the gods vouchsafed
Yet other offspring, after she had brought
A lovely daughter forth, Hermione,
Like golden Aphrodite both in face and form.

2So banqueting the neighbors and the friends
Of glorious Menelaus sat beneath
The lofty ceiling of those spacious halls,
Delighted with the feast. A sacred bard
Amidst them touched the harp and sang to them
While, as the song began, two dancers sprang
Into the midst and trod the measure there