It will never be said in fair England I slew a naked man...

D'you know sophoclese, it might sound surprising (and a bit embarrassing too) but I'd never noticed that contradiction - got me flummoxed that, a strange moral code indeed from a time about which I know little.

But 'Helpless victims' sounds a bit deterministic or something - not every member of that society would have made the decision to murder them both, surely. He could have (as in many songs) ran off to seek another life or even killed himself with his own broadsword (it happens) or he might have forgiven them and they both lived happily ever after (that doesn't happen)....

All this IMHO

Catrin