This pledge was not as fanciful as it may seem. For, cave-man tactics of "wooing by capture" were still more or less in vogue. A man who fell in love with another's wife was wont to kidnap her and to defy her bereft spouse to get her back.
Thus, Tyndareus was not only preventing civil war in Greece, but he was making it prohibitively perilous for any outsider to try to win Helen. Such a wooer would find himself at odds with practically every country in the whole archipelago. Yes, decidedly Tyndareus knew what he was about. He was assuring his daughter--as far as was humanly possible--a safe married life.
All the royal suitors--being very much in love--were in a condition to promise anything. They bound themselves, right willingly, to the oath Tyndareus exacted; even Nestor, who, as I think I said, was old and wise enough to have known better. It is a supreme tribute to Helen's glory that the wisest man alive should have behaved just as foolishly over her as did the osseous-brained Ajax Telemon.
The oath being taken, Helen's choice was made known. And, out of the ruck of greater and richer and handsomer men, she chose the plodding Menelaus, King of Sparta.
There were black looks, there were highly unstoical gusts of anger--but the disappointed suitors made the best of their bad luck. After consoling themselves by getting gloriously drunk at the marriage feast, they called it a day, and went home; not one of them realizing how fearfully his lovelorn oath was one day to bind him. And the golden Helen departed for the prim little, grim little kingdom of Sparta with her liege lord, Menelaus.
The years drifted on, lazily, happily, in humdrum fashion. If Menelaus were not inspiring as a husband, he was at least pleasanter to live with than a cleverer man might have been. He and Helen had one child, a daughter, Hermione.
Placid years make sweet living, but poor telling. So let us get along to the day when heralds from the port of Pylos brought news of a strange prince's arrival on the Spartan shores. The messengers knew not who the stranger might be, nor whence he came. But, from his retinue and dress and bearing, they judged him worthy to be a guest of honor. So a gorgeous guard was sent to escort him to the palace, and great preparations were made there to receive him.