Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 95 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 95: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is page 83 of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "The Taking of Helen." The text depicts a blind man called "the Sightless" encountering characters named Paris, Nireus, and Helen in what appears to be a house. The Sightless recites lines of classical poetry about arriving from Leros with ships, then comments ominously that "Princes are here again. Misfortune follows princes." Helen welcomes him, calling his arrival "lovely fortune," while looking at Paris "with the eyes of a lover." The passage ends with the Sightless observing that one of the three present has not yet spoken.
📄 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 83 Sightless, being a man long blind from a wound in the head. He was a big man, with the milky seamed face of the Sightless; on his face was all the tragedy of the bitterness of a soul who had found no compensation for being blind, not even in thirty years. He strode along the corridor like one who knew it well; all was darkness to him. As he went, he muttered some lines of a poem : “T came, with three black ships, from many-tossing Leros, Whose trees the north wind shakes, the oak-trees good for ships. I was the loveliest man of all my fifty seamen, : None had such arms as I, nor such a chest, nor strength.”’ As he came abreast of Paris, the sense of the blind made him turn towards him. He muttered: “Princes are here again. Misfortune follows princes.’’ He strode up to the door and stared down upon them with eyes that could not see. “Welcome to the poet,’’ Nireus said. “Tt is long since a prince bade me welcome,” The Sightless said. ‘A princess bids you welcome,’ Helen said. “What brings a beautiful princess to this house of misfortune?”’ he said. “Is it misfortune?” “Fortune,” she said. “Lovely fortune.’’? And she looked at Paris with the eyes of a lover. ‘There are three of you here and one of you has not spoken,” The Sightless said. “Time was, when I CONRIICLO® <S (EO)