What do we know about Helen of Troy?
-That she is supposed to have been the most beautiful woman that ever lived;
-That she was the Queen of Sparta, married to Menelaus, and she was abducted by/ eloped with Paris, Prince of Troy;
-That this led to the Trojan war as Menelaus called upon other Greek states for assistance and they united under Agamemnon's leadership to attack Troy. Among the Greeks was the mighty warrior Achilles. After a long siege lasting over a decade, the Trojans were defeated by trickery when the Greeks pretended to retreat, leaving behind a large wooden horse. The Trojans mistook this for a gift, happily wheeling it inside their hitherto impregnable walls, unaware that Greek warriors were concealed inside the contraption...
Episodes from the Trojan war have been depicted through poetry, drama and movies, most famously in Homer's epic Iliad (probably composed between 750- 650 B.C) and recently in the Hollywood blockbuster Troy, featuring Diane Kruger as Helen, Orlando Bloom as Paris and Brad Pitt as Achilles.
All very well, but what happened to Helen after the sack of Troy? And what does that tell us about her character?
Before the stratagem of the wooden horse (described in the second book of Virgil's Aeneid), Paris kills Achilles by sending an arrow through his heel and is later killed by Philoctetes. So Helen is left in a precarious position. She is, after all, the 'pearl, whose price hath launched above a thousand ships', as Shakespeare's Troilus says (Troilus and Cressida, Act II, scene ii). She's presumably not high on the Trojans' popularity lists. In order to safeguard her position, she marries Paris's brother Deiphobus. Hector, Paris's noble older brother, is killed by Achilles during the war. No one would blame Helen for taking up with Deiphobus. But what happens when Troy is burning? She betrays Deiphobus in order to curry favour with Menelaus, who forgives her and takes her back! Surprised? I was, when I discovered this recently. And, more surprised still, when I went through the Iliad again (Alexander Pope's translation) and found Helen's reference to a daughter she'd left behind in Troy. One would presume this fact makes her elopement all the more cold-hearted. But Homer is kind to her. She's repeatedly presented as being filled with remorse. On the death of Hector (in the last book of the Iliad) she acknowledges herself as being 'the wretched source of all this misery/ The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan...'
Really? But not enough to stand by the Trojans and Husband Number Three?
-That she is supposed to have been the most beautiful woman that ever lived;
-That she was the Queen of Sparta, married to Menelaus, and she was abducted by/ eloped with Paris, Prince of Troy;
-That this led to the Trojan war as Menelaus called upon other Greek states for assistance and they united under Agamemnon's leadership to attack Troy. Among the Greeks was the mighty warrior Achilles. After a long siege lasting over a decade, the Trojans were defeated by trickery when the Greeks pretended to retreat, leaving behind a large wooden horse. The Trojans mistook this for a gift, happily wheeling it inside their hitherto impregnable walls, unaware that Greek warriors were concealed inside the contraption...
Episodes from the Trojan war have been depicted through poetry, drama and movies, most famously in Homer's epic Iliad (probably composed between 750- 650 B.C) and recently in the Hollywood blockbuster Troy, featuring Diane Kruger as Helen, Orlando Bloom as Paris and Brad Pitt as Achilles.
All very well, but what happened to Helen after the sack of Troy? And what does that tell us about her character?
Before the stratagem of the wooden horse (described in the second book of Virgil's Aeneid), Paris kills Achilles by sending an arrow through his heel and is later killed by Philoctetes. So Helen is left in a precarious position. She is, after all, the 'pearl, whose price hath launched above a thousand ships', as Shakespeare's Troilus says (Troilus and Cressida, Act II, scene ii). She's presumably not high on the Trojans' popularity lists. In order to safeguard her position, she marries Paris's brother Deiphobus. Hector, Paris's noble older brother, is killed by Achilles during the war. No one would blame Helen for taking up with Deiphobus. But what happens when Troy is burning? She betrays Deiphobus in order to curry favour with Menelaus, who forgives her and takes her back! Surprised? I was, when I discovered this recently. And, more surprised still, when I went through the Iliad again (Alexander Pope's translation) and found Helen's reference to a daughter she'd left behind in Troy. One would presume this fact makes her elopement all the more cold-hearted. But Homer is kind to her. She's repeatedly presented as being filled with remorse. On the death of Hector (in the last book of the Iliad) she acknowledges herself as being 'the wretched source of all this misery/ The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan...'
Really? But not enough to stand by the Trojans and Husband Number Three?
Nice article. never read the illiad, so didn't know how Helen ended up after the war (the Troy pic ended when Brad Pitt pouted slicly to his end). Thanx.
ReplyDeleteBut, in general, women are mean when it comes to babes who launch 1000 ships. Had she sunk 10,000 ships, she would've been feted as a feminist. lol.
She left her husband for a younger guy and then switched sides to survive. There's a pattern here. So don't blame her for not standing by hubbies one through three.lol
Very Interesting. I guess -'Greece hath no mercy like a Husband-scorned-but-redeemed again-by the return of the one who scorned him'.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stephen
ReplyDelete