Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 25 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is a page of running prose from the novel *The Taking of Helen* (page 13). The text depicts a dialogue between King Menelaus and a heavy man (later identified as Nireus) discussing running races and athletic prowess. Menelaus recalls beating the athlete Aktor at the Holy Games in his youth, while the heavy man disputes this claim, attributing Aktor's poor performance to illness and age. The conversation then shifts to hospitality, with Menelaus offering food and wine to his guest and discussing grapes, wines, and foreign ports before transitioning to mention Paris of Troy and forest goddesses.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE TAKING OF HELEN 13 when I was young, I used to run; the short dashes, eighty yards, one hundred yards, even the furlong. Once, when I was about your age, I raced Aktor him- self at the Holy Games and beat him. You remember that ?”’ ‘“Aktor was old, then,’’ the heavy man said, “as well as unfit to run. He had a fever and should not have run. I was with him before the race and urged him not to run. No man ever beat Aktor in the dash. The fever and old age and heaviness beat him.” ‘“T took Aktor’s crown,” Menelaus said. ‘“‘He had a bigger head than mine, so that I could not wear it. The crowns at the Games were then of rosemary. I have it still, within there. Ah, come in, there. Here is the fruit; a little salad of grape-thinnings. Sit you here, Nireus, and eat a little fruit, for it is wholesome and good for the wind. Eat but a little dish of this, with a cup of wine, and you will beat Aktor’s grandson by twenty yards.” “He will not beat Aktor’s grandson,” the heavy man said. “A good runner has a set of the spine and a breadth in the nose, for the drawing of his wind, which this young fellow, nice lad as he is, has not.” As they ate and drank, King Menelaus talked of grapes, and of wines, and of foreign wines and of for- eign ports, and of wonders, and of goddesses, and of forest goddesses, and so to Paris of Troy, who had seen the forest goddesses. CORIICLOOC SS) (C(O)