Likewise the army of the Trojans; and battle is about to be joined when forth from the Trojan ranks steps Paris himself to challenge some champion of the opposing host to single combat, -- the beauteous Paris,

In form a god! The panther's speckled hide
Flowed o'er his armor with an easy pride, --
His bended bow across his shoulders flung,
His sword beside him negligently hung,
Two pointed spears he shook with gallant grace,
And dared the bravest of the Grecian race. 

(Iliad -  Pope's translation).

Him, Menelaus whom he had betrayed, Menelaus loved of Mars, raging like a lion, swift espies and, leaping from his chariot, hastens to encounter. But Paris, smitten with a sense of his own treachery, fearful, trembling, pale at sight of the avenger, betakes himself to his heels and hides in the thick of the forces behind. Upbraided, however, by the generous Hector, noblest of Priam's sons, the handsome Trojan recovers his self-possession and consents to meet Menelaus in formal combat between the opposing hosts: Helen and the wealth she brought to be the prize; and, thus, the long war to reach its termination. The Greeks accept the proposal, and a truce is agreed upon that sacrifices may be made on either side for victory, and the duel proceed.

Meantime, Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, summons Helen to view the impending duel. At her loom in the Trojan palace the ill-starred daughter of Leda is sitting, weaving in a golden web her own sad story. At memory of her former husband's love, her home, her parents, the princess drops a tear; then, softly sighing, turns her footsteps to the Scaean gate. No word is said of her matchless beauty, but what it was Homer shows us by its effect. For as she approaches the tower where aged Priam and his gray-haired chieftains sit, these cry, --

"No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! what majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.
Yet hence, oh Heaven! convey that fatal face,
And from destruction save the Trojan race." 

(Iliad - Pope's translation).

Words reechoed by Marlowe, two thousand years later:

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. --
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again!
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena. . . .
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele; . . .
And none but thou shalt be my paramour! 

(Christopher Marlowe - Doctor Faustus.)

Priam, receiving his daughter-in-law tenderly, inquires of her the names of one and another of the Greeks moving on the plain below. --

"Who, that
Around whose brow such martial graces shine,
So tall, so awful, and almost divine?" 

"The son of Atreus," answers she, shamefacedly. "Agamemnon, king of kings, my brother once, before my days of shame."

"What's he whose arms lie scattered on the plain?
Broad is his breast, his shoulders larger spread,
Though great Atrides overtops his head.
Nor yet appear his care and conduct small;
From rank to rank he moves and orders all."

"That is Ulysses," replies Helen, "of the barren isle of Ithaca; but his fame for wisdom fills the earth."

Old Antenor, seated by Priam's side, thereupon recalls the modesty and the restrained but moving eloquence of the wondrous son of Laertes.

The king then asked, as yet the camp he viewed,
"What chief is that, with giant strength endued;
Whose brawny shoulders, and whose swelling chest,
And lofty stature, far exceed the rest?" 

"That is Ajax the great," responds the beauteous queen, "himself a host, bulwark of the Achaeans." And she points out Idomeneus, also, the godlike king of Crete; then scans the array for her own dear brothers Castor and Pollux; -- in vain, for them the life-giving earth held fast there in Lacedaemon, their native land. 

(Iliad - Pope's translation).

Now from both sides sacrifices have been made to Jove, avenger of oaths, with prayer for victory and vow of fidelity to the contract made. But Jove vouchsafes not yet fulfillment. The lists are measured out by Hector and Ulysses. The duel is on, Paris throws his spear: it strikes, but fails to penetrate the shield of Menelaus, Menelaus then breaks his blade upon the helmet of the Trojan, seizes him by the horse-hair crest, and drags him toward the Grecian lines. But Aphrodite touches the chin strap of Paris' headpiece so that it breaks and leaves the futile helmet in the victor's hand. Then, wrapping her favorite in a mist, the goddess bears him from the pursuit of the furious Menelaus, and, laying him safe in Helen's chamber, summons his mistress, who first upbraids, then soothes him with her love.

The Greeks claim the victory, and with justice. The Trojans, then and there, would have yielded Helen and her wealth, and the fate of Troy might have been averted, had it not been for the machinations of the goddesses, Juno and Minerva. These could not bear that the hated city should thus escape. Prompted by the insidious urging of Minerva, one of the Trojans, Pandarus, breaks the truce; he shoots his arrow full at the heart of the unsuspecting Menelaus. Minerva, of course, deflects the fatal shaft. But the treachery has accomplished its purpose; the war is reopened with fresh bitterness.