Poems and translations amorous, lusory, morall, divine [collected and translated] by Edvvard Sherburne ...

Vpon the Title.

THe Rape, &c.] Not to be taken in the Common acception of the Word: (for Paris was more courtly than to offer, and Hellen more kind-hearted than to suffer, such a violence;) but rather for a transporting of her (with her consent) from her own Country to Troy: which Virgil seems to insinuate in the first of his Aeneis, where he speaks to Achates to bring him from the Fleet, amongst other Pre∣sents for Dido, a rich Veil; once,

Ornatus Argivae Helenae, quos illa Mycenis Pergama eum peteret, inconcessosque Hymenaeos Extulerat, &c,

Greek Hellens dress, which she from Sparta brought, When Troy, and lawless Marriages she sought.

Where the Word peteret is to be applyed as well to Hymenaeos as Pergama, and implies that the quitting of her Country, and going along with Paris, was an Act she desir'd as well as consented to, as Donatus (in 6 Aeneid.)

hath rightly observed▪ and thus much the ensuing Poem makes good.

But the Occasion of this her Rape is diversly reported: Herodotus writes that Paris did it in a meere bravery of Knight Erranty, following the Examples of the Cretans, Phaenicia••s, and the Argonauticks, in the Rapes of Europa, Io, and Medea. Dictys Cr••tensis and others report that being sent Embassodor unto the Graecian Princes to ne∣gotiate for the Release of his Ant Hesione, or (accord∣ing to Plutark in vita Homeri) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. to learn Greek fashions; and being kindly entertain'd at Sparta in the Court of Menelaus, he in his absence sol∣licited his Queen, and having won her Consent, carried both her and her two Kinswomen Clymene and Aethr•• away with him to Troy.

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But she in neat-built Ships (as falsely Fame Gives out) n••'r sail'd, nor e'r at Ilium came.

Saies Stesichorus in his Recantation, after he had been struck blind for slandering Hellen, (with a Matter of Truth) as Plato in Phaedro and Pausan. in Lacon. make mention. Euripides likewise in her Tragedy (though elsewhere he be of another Opinion,) makes her not to be rapt by Paris, but conveyed into Aegypt by Mercury, and there kept in safe Custody by Proteus: and that a Cloud in her Likeness was only transported by Paris to Troy: which Menelaus after the end of the Trojan Wars brought away with him, but being driven (in his Return) upon the Coast of Aegypt, lost there his Cloudy Hellen, and recovered the true one by the means of Theonoe Pro∣teus his Daughter.

But this is ove••born by the generall stream of all Poe∣ticall Relations, which say, (and our Author here goes along with the Tide) that Hellen was assign'd to Paris, as

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Euripid. Iphig. in Aul.

The gift of Venus, when she near The Fountain cleer, With Pallas, and the Wife of Jove, For Beauty strove.

Upon which score he is said to have undertaken a Voy∣age to Sparta, and from thence to have brought her away with him to Troy. Which occasioned those fatall and la∣sting Wars, so celebrated by Homer in his Iliads, to which this ensuing Poem, seems as it were a Prologue or Pre∣ludium.

There be those yet who think her not worth the Ho∣nour of so famous a Contention; and Hoelzlin (in Pro∣legom: ad Apollon:) saith in plain terms, that Homer might be asham'd to make that the Argument of his Work, not will beleeve that any man could be such a Wittall, as to seek by force to regain one to his Bed, that had so noto∣riously wrong'd it. (Though this Example wants not se∣conds if we may credit Parthenius in Eroticis) But hear we another Doctors opinion: with which we conclude:

Olim mirabar, quod tanti ad Pergama Belli Europae, atque Asiae causa puell•• fuit.

Nunc, Pari, tu sapiens, & tu, Menelae fuisti: Tu, quia ponebas; tu, quia lentus eras, Digna quidem facies, pro qua vel obiret Achilles Vel Priamus, belli Causa probandafuit.Propert. l. 2. eleg. 3.

I wonder'd once, that Troy's War, which engag'd Half the whole World, should for a Wife be wag'd, But now methinks both Princes I approve, This 'cause he sought, that 'cause he kept his Love. Worthy Achilles, worthy Priams Life, Was such a Beauty: 'Twas a just brave strife.