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Show "VAMPS" WHO I MADE HISTORY S By JAMES C. YOUNG. g 0) by MuClure Newspaper Syndicate.) A FAMOUS CASE OF "FATAL BEAUTY." THE name Helen of Troy brings to our mind's eye a woman young and slender and of surpassing beauty. As a matter of record she had red hair and was forty years old when she started on her great adventure. But all the ancient world agreed that Helen was its finest ornament. Although Al-though she lived 3,000 years ago her fame still endures. When Helen was a little under twenty, twen-ty, her father, Tyndareus of Argos, found his palace filled with almost every kinglet and princeling in Greece, demanding her hand. He foresaw that no matter where her choice fell, there would be future trouble. So he bound all of them to an oath that they would protect the hearthstone of the favored suitor. Helen made a strange selection, Menelaus, king of Sparta, a plodding, middle-aged man. He took her off to his palace and after a while many things were said about her. But the two lived in seeming contentment for twenty years. Then came Paris, son of Priam, from the great city of Troy. He was young and handsome. It had been foretold that his city would be destroyed through him. Helen promptly prompt-ly "vamped" the stranger guest. They fled one night for his ship and sailed for Troy. Menelaus mourned her as one distracted and called on Tyndareus to make the nobility of Greece fulfill its promise. Off. .they went, in 1,200 ships, to the city of Troy, standing near the present-day Constantinople. The Trojan war lasted ten years without result. Helen had long since tired of Paris. Then he was brought back dying from a night sortie. "Long ago, dear," he said, "we were glad we who never more shall be together. Will you kiss me, once? It is ten weary years since you have smiled on me. But. Helen, say farewell with your old smile." She kissed" him, he died, and soon afterward she wed his younger brother, broth-er, although all Troy reviled her for bringing upon it such a war. One day the Greeks apparently sailed away and great was the rejoicing. But the besiegers left behind their famous wooden horse, which the Trojans mistook mis-took as an offering to Neptune for a safe passage home. They brought the horse into the city. That night a secret se-cret door in the horse was opened and Helen led those within to the gates, which they unfastened to the returned Greeks. An indescribable slaughter followed and the city was burned. Helen went hack to Sparta as the wife of Menelaus. When he died the women rose against her and she fled to Rhodes, whose queen had lost a son in the Trojan war. And she- had poor Helen publicly hanged. |