Let’s talk about the beautiful troublemaker today, Helen. Before we go into the characters, just one observation I find interesting. Homer assumes a huge amount of background knowledge. I know this much that Helen was married to Menelaus first and now she was married to Paris. And the whole Trojan war was Menelaus’ attempt to get Helen back. But what exactly happened between Helen, Paris and Menelaus? How did Paris take Helen to Ilium? It’s not told in the Iliad and I guess that’s because Homer assumed his audience would know the back story very well. The Odyssey happens after the Iliad, I feel like there should be a story for what happens before the Iliad as well. I’m vaguely aware of the story about Paris and the three goddesses. If you know in which books I can read about it, please leave me a comment.
Helen rebukes Aphrodite
Now, Helen. Helen doesn’t appear very much, we probably see her three times in three individual scenes. But one of her scenes is so striking and refreshing, even after reading all the way through to Book 20, this is still one of my favourites in the Iliad.
First let me give you the context. Paris offered to have a duel with Menelaus to work out who Helen belonged to so they could end the war without further bloodshed. So they fought and at one point Menelaus took hold of Paris’ helmet-strap and was dragging him by the throat. Paris and the Iliad could have ended there and then in Book 3,
“… but for the quickness of Aphrodite daughter of Zeus, who saw what was happening and broke the strap made of leather from a slaughtered ox. So the helmet came away empty in Menelaus’ clenched fist. The warrior swung it round and tossed it into the Greek lines, where it was picked up by his loyal troops, and launched himself at Paris again in the hope of killing him with his bronze spear. But Aphrodite hid Paris in a dense mist and whisked him away – an easy feat for an immortal – and put him down in his own perfumed, fragrant bedroom. Then she went herself to summon Helen.”
I had a massive question mark in my head when I first read this paragraph which could be summarised roughly as ‘fact or fiction?’ I’m not going to discuss that in this post. Let’s just trust Homer and go with it. Aphrodite picked Paris up from the battlefield and dropped him in his bedroom. She then went to Helen who was watching the duel on the city wall and said,
“Come here! Paris wants you to go home to him. There he is in his bedroom, on the inlaid bed, dazzling in looks and dress. You would never believe he had just come in from a duel. You would think he was going to a dance or had just stepped off the floor and sat down to rest.”
Paris gives me this young dandy vibe. Helen’s answer shows her attitude and also gives hint about their back story:
“Mysterious goddess, why are you trying to lead me on like this? You are plotting, I suppose, to carry me off to some still more distant town, to gratify some other favourite of yours who may be living in those parts. Or is it that Menelaus has beaten Paris and wants to take me back home, me, his loathsome wife – so now you have come here to try to lure me back to Paris?”
Loathsome is a rather strong word, it shows Helen’s feelings towards herself in this whole business. It’s a combination of hate and disgust. I don’t know if the Iliad is going to mention the relationship between Helen and Menelaus again, the book is mostly about what happens on the battlefield. I really wish Menelaus will take her back and forgive her and love her. But I’m probably thinking about Hosea in the Bible rather than the Iliad. But it’s not completely out of the blue. From snippets here and there, Helen seems to love her first husband more than the second. When the duel was first announced, it says
With these words the goddess filled Helen’s heart with sweet longing for her former husband, her parents and the town she had left.
Back to the conversation between Aphrodite and Helen. Aphrodite said go to your bedroom and find Paris. Helen said, what do you mean there’s a battle going on how could I just go sleep with Paris? She continued with this fabulous rebuke which I love.
“No, go and sit with him yourself. Forget you are a goddess. Never set foot on Olympus again but go and agonise over Paris, go and pamper him, and one day he may make you his wife – or his concubine. I refuse to go and share that man’s bed again – it would be quite wrong.”
Imagine that! Go and agonise over Paris your favourite boy yourself, go and fuss over him. One day he may make you his wife, or his concubine! Imagine that. What is she saying? He may make you his wife or he may not, it’s his choice and it’s not a given! He may not want to even when you save his life and fuss over him so much! He might only make you a concubine, one of his mistresses, like a slave girl. Aphrodite! What worse insult can one say to the goddess of love and beauty?
Aphrodite, you clearly love Paris, but I refuse to go and share his bed again. I despise and reject what you prefer. That’s another stab. You think him an angel, I think him dirt. And the translation is marvellous, ‘THAT man’. She despises him so much she doesn’t even say his name! There’s a battle going on with swords and spears among men down on the plain. Here we see a battle with words between two women. And more impressive, between a mortal and an immortal. No man rebuked a god like Helen did here. Most of them say, I would have liked to do one thing but because a god says otherwise, I’ll obey their words. For example, when Achilles nearly killed Agamemnon at the beginning, Athene stopped him by holding onto his hair. I find that image quite funny:
Athene stood behind Achilles and seized him by his auburn hair. No one but Achilles was aware of her; the rest saw nothing.
Achilles said what are you doing? Athene said don’t kill him don’t kill him Hera doesn’t like it. Achilles was exploding with anger but still he said:
“Goddess, a man must respect what you and Hera say, however angry he may be. Better for him if he does. The gods listen to the man who goes along with them.”
There’s the sense that I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the gods. But think back to what Helen said to Aphrodite. She didn’t care what the goddess wanted at all! She gave Aphrodite a good and proper telling-off, which was super satisfying.
Helen in the eyes of Trojan elders
There’s one more snippet that tells us about Helen. Again, we see a character through other characters’ eyes like when we talked about Odysseus and we can learn a lot about them. Here we see Trojan elders’ opinions about Helen, for whose cause so many of their countrymen died in the nine years that had passed in bloodshed.
When they saw Helen coming to the tower, they whispered winged words to each other: ”No one could blame the Trojans and Greek men-at-arms for suffering so long for such a woman’s sake. She is fearfully like the immortal goddesses. All the same, and lovely as she is, let her sail home and not stay here, a scourge to us and our children after us.”
Alexander Pope’s translation says the same thing more stylishly:
“No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! What majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen!
Yet hence, O Heaven, convey that fatal face,
And from destruction save the Trojan race.”
Helen is often referred to as the Spartan queen in Pope’s translation. She’s not just a pretty girl but majestic and queenly, which does not come through as strongly in E. V. Rieu’s translation. But beautiful as she is, her beauty is fatal and deadly.
So they spoke, and Priam called out to Helen: ”Dear child, come here and sit in front of me, so that you can see your former husband and your relatives and friends. I don’t hold you responsible for any of this, but the gods. It is they who brought on me this war against the Greeks, with all its tears.”
I find this little scene really sad. First of all, it shows us just how beautiful and lovely Helen is. Even though the whole town had been suffering for years and years, they still agreed that no one could blame the Greeks or the Trojans for fighting over her. The elders said If we were young and strong, we’d have joined the battles too. But we don’t want her here anymore. The price is too high to pay. We can’t afford it. And Priam who lost so many sons because of her, called her ‘dear child’ and asked her to sit close to him to have a chat. He didn’t blame her at all but the gods, which I agree. Even without seeing how beautiful and lovely Helen is, I don’t blame her either, it really is the gods’ fault, which I won’t talk about in this post either.
Helen on Paris
After Helen’s rebuke we talked about earlier, there’s a scene in Paris’ bedroom. The dynamic between two humans and one goddess is super interesting.
There the goddess herself, laughter-loving Aphrodite, picked up a chair, carried it across the room and put it down for her in front of Paris. Helen, daughter of Zeus who drives the storm-cloud, sat down on it but refused to look her husband in the face and attacked him…
Just imagine the scene. Helen came to the bedroom door and wouldn’t walk any further. Aphrodite carried a chair across the room – love that detail – and put it down in front of Paris and said, go on, you two need to talk. And Helen didn’t even look at him, just like earlier, she wouldn’t say his name. She sat down reluctantly and said, you still alive? You coward! Paris has the cheek to reply.
“My dear, don’t say such hurtful things about me and my courage. Menelaus has just beaten me, with Athene’s help. But I too have gods to help me and next time I shall win. Come, let us go to bed together and enjoy the pleasures of love.”
I might talk about Paris in another post. He is really something. In a scene later on that features Hector in Helen and Paris’ bedroom, Hector gave Paris another older-brother rebuke for delaying going back to the battlefield, he asked Helen to “hurry this fellow up” and Helen referred to Paris as “this husband of mine hasn’t a brain in his head and never will; though one day he will pay for it, if I am not mistaken.” Helen didn’t think very highly of her husband and did not hesitate to speak her mind in front of his own family. I suspect Hector rather agreed with her. Homer is a lot more occupied telling the story of Achilles, which is fair enough, but I really hope he will give us a conclusion to Helen’s story.
A Day of Small Things 