“Having thus spoken, Eunoia descended to the earth, and was incarnate in the breast of a woman of Argos.  She was born small and feeble, and received the name of Helen.  She submitted to all the labours of this life, but soon grew in grace and beauty, and became the most desired of women, as she had determined, in order that her mortal body might be tried by the most supreme defilements.  An inert prey to lascivious and violent men, she suffered rape and adultery, in expiation of all the adulteries, all the violences, all the iniquities, and caused, by her beauty, the ruin of nations, that God might pardon the sins of the universe.  And never was the celestial thought, never was Eunoia, so adorable as in those days when, as a woman, she prostituted herself to heroes and shepherds.  The poets surmised her divinity when they painted her so peaceful, superb, and fatal, and when they addressed that invocation to her, ‘A soul as serene as a calm upon the waters.’

“Thus was Eunoia led by pity into evil and suffering.  She died, and the Argives still show her tomb—­for it was necessary that she should know death after lust, and taste the bitter fruit she had sown.  But, emerging from the decomposed flesh of Helen, she became incarnate again as a woman, and again suffered every form of insult and outrage.  Thus, passing from body to body, throughout all the evil ages, she takes upon her the sins of the world.  Her sacrifice will not be in vain.  Joined to us by the bonds of the flesh, loving us, and weeping with us, she will effect her redemption and ours, and will carry us, clinging to her white breast, into the peace of the regained paradise.”

Hermodorus.  This myth was not unknown to me.  I remembered having heard that, in one of her metamorphoses, the divine Helen lived with the magician, Simon, in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius.  I thought, however, that her perdition was involuntary, and that she was dragged down by the angels in their fall.

Zenothemis.  It is true, Hermodorus, that men who were not properly initiated in the mysteries have imagined that the sad Eunoia was not a party to her own downfall.  But if it were as they assert Eunoia would not be the expiating courtesan, the victim covered with stains of all sorts, the bread steeped in the wine of our shame, the pleasant offering, the meritorious sacrifice, the holocaust, the smoke of which rises to God.  If they were not voluntary, there would be no merit in her sins.

Callicrates.  Does anyone know, Zenothemis in what country, under what name, in what adorable form, this ever-renascent Helen is living now?

Zenothemis.  A man would have to be very wise indeed to discover such a secret.  And wisdom, Callicrates, is not given to poets, who live in the rude world of forms and amuse themselves, like children, with sounds and empty shows.