Helen – Victim or Harlot?

 

  Helen – Victim or Harlot?

For centuries the debate has waged on as to whether Helen of Sparta, more famously known as Helen of Troy, was an innocent victim who was kidnapped against her will by Prince Paris of Troy, or a willing participant, harlot, adulterer and thief who helped rob the royal treasury of Sparta and went off willingly with Paris as his co-conspirator and sexual partner. The ambiguity surrounding her status is central to the legend of Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, or 1186 ships, to be more exact. Whether she went willingly or by force, her departure was used as the impetus for the start of the Trojan War, although many scholars now believe that the conflict was more about economics and the spoils of war than wounded dignity and revenge.

Helen was a legendary figure in Greek mythology and had a most interesting profile. She was born as a result of a violent sexual assault on her mother Leda by the god Zeus, who had taken on the form of a swan. Helen was the sister of the twins Castor and Pollux and was also reported to be the sister of Clytemnestra who was married to King Agamemnon of Mycenae. As a child she was abducted by Theseus of Athens, but was rescued by her brothers and returned to Sparta. She was married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta and brother of Agamemnon, and had a daughter named Hermione. In the famous story of the Judgement of Paris, she was offered as a bribe, as the most beautiful woman in the world, to the Trojan prince, if he chose the goddess Aphrodite instead of Hera or Athena as the winner of the golden apple of discord that had been inscribed “To the fairest”. His decision in favour of Aphrodite led Paris to abduct Helen and sparked the decade-long Trojan War between the Greeks and the Trojans, as Menelaus and Agamemnon, the two sons of Atreus, put together an invasion force bent on returning Helen to Sparta and to her husband.

The questions at hand are whether Helen went willingly or was abducted, whether she fell in love with Paris either before or after she went to Troy, or whether she just feigned affection for the Trojan prince for self-preservation purposes, and whether she returned to Sparta after the war as a warm and loving spouse, or just saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to cast her lot with the winners of the long conflict. Was Helen a victim or a scheming and deceitful harlot? She had the looks, but did she also have the brains to play fast and loose?

One of the arguments in favour of Helen being an unwilling victim of abduction is the fact that her departure from Sparta was divinely ordained and out of her control. She had been awarded as the prize to Paris of Troy for his selection of Aphrodite in the beauty contest, and as a result, she did not willingly elope with the Trojan, but was a victim of a forced or divinely manipulated kidnapping. Aphrodite had made her promise to Paris and there was nothing that Helen could do to prevent it happening. Helen was the unwitting pawn of an immortal goddess.

Commentators also look to Helen’s own words and actions for proof that she was an unwilling participant in the affair. In the Iliad Homer portrayed her as regretful and filled with self-loathing and lamenting the bloodshed and death that she had either caused by running away with Paris, or had been waged on her behalf after she had been abducted. Her actions appear to be more in line with those of a victim rather than a perpetrator, but perhaps she had just had a change of heart. Helen was found seated at the loom weaving a tapestry that told the story of the battles that the Greeks and the Trojans had fought and we learn that,

The goddess placed in her mind tender thoughts about him who had been her husband, her city and her parents. Quickly she covered herself with a soft white linen shawl and hastened from her chamber, shedding great tears as she did so.

The Trojan elders were certain that she was to blame for the conflict and spoke out against her:

What an indignity that the Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should suffer such hardships because of that woman. But wondrously she is like an immortal goddess to look upon. But even if she is, it would be better for her to leave here in her ships so that she will no more be a problem for us or our children.

But Helen did have an ally in old King Priam who blamed the gods for the war and not the woman whom he addressed as his dear child. He viewed Helen as nothing more than a mere pawn on a divine chessboard.

Come here dear child and sit with me so that you may gaze upon him who was your husband, your kinsmen and your friends. I do not blame you, but I do blame the gods who have riled up the Achaeans in terrible war against me.

But Helen’s response to Priam sounds more like a woman expressing regret for actions that she had willingly taken, rather than one who was caught up in circumstances beyond her control.

You are both friendly and fearful to me my father-in-law. I wish that a wretched death had been my destiny when I followed your son here, having left my marriage bed, my brothers, my blessed daughter and the lovely companions of my own age. But this did not come to pass and so I melt down in weeping.

What follows the battle between Alexander and Menelaus is a series of very conflicting events and statements. Athena plucked the Trojan from the battlefield and deposited him in the bedroom which he shared with Helen. Athena told Helen that Paris awaited her and Helen became sexually aroused at the news.

Come hither for Alexander calls you to return home. He is in the bedroom on the turned-down bed, radiant in both his beauty and his garments. You would not think that he has just come from a battle, but rather from a dance, having just taken a break from the dancing. Thus the goddess spoke and indeed she did arouse feelings within her.

            But Helen railed at the goddess and put aside her feelings, telling Athena to mate with him herself because she would never return to the Trojan’s bed, choosing instead to protect her reputation, or what was left of it.

But I will never go there again and attend to his bedside for it would cause indignation if I were to do so. The Trojan women would sprinkle blame on me forever, but I have constant grief in my soul.

            Helen bowed to the pressures and the threats that the goddess hurled at her and finally complied, returning to her bedroom and the waiting Alexander.

Then the much provoked Aphrodite called out to her. Do not anger me you wretched woman lest being provoked, I hate you and I abandon you to the same degree that I have heretofore loved you. Yet I can contrive to create a great hatred against you in the middle of the Trojans and the Danaans so that your black fate is sealed. Thus she spoke and Zeus-born Helen feared greatly.

            Helen upbraided Paris and told him that it would have been better if he had died on the battlefield at the hands of Menelaus, but curiously ended up in bed with him again, after he told her that he loved her more than he ever had before. Surely not the actions of a helpless victim or of one totally overcome by remorse – the slut who launched a thousand ships!

Thus he spoke and he led the way to the bed with his wife following him and the two of them made love in the well-carved bed.

            When Hector returned to Troy from the battlefield, Homer portrayed Helen in such a way as to answer once and for all the kind of woman that she was and whether she was a victim or a scheming harlot. She invited Hector to sit down beside her on the bed, mouthed some empty words of remorse about what had happened and then made a play for him. Basically she told him that she had been infatuated with his loser brother, but instead fancied Hector because he was a real man.

My brother-in-law, wretched and shameless bitch am I, and that day would have been more advantageous to me, when my mother first gave birth to me, had a stormy wind borne me into the mountains or into the waves of the loud-roaring sea, where the swollen waves would have swept me away before these deeds came to pass. But since the gods have ordained this evil then indeed it would be better if I were the spouse of a braver man who has come to understand the scorn and indignation of many men. But this man is not of sound spirit nor do I think he will ever be and he will harvest the results of that. But come in now my brother-in-law and sit yourself down, since all this hard work has tired you out, all because of me, bitch that I am, and on account of the infatuation of Alexander. On him Zeus has placed an evil destiny, so that we will be the subject of song for future mankind.

            Ever the diplomat, in a very polite way Hector told her to go screw herself and get her husband up off his ass and back into the fight, and that he had a nation and a family to look out for.

Do not ask me to sit down lovely Helen and do not try to persuade me. My spirit urges me on to provide assistance to the Trojans, those who regret that I am not now among them. But you urge on this man of yours so that he may hurry and catch up to me in the city. As for me, I am going to my house so that I may see the people of my house along with my beloved wife and my infant son.

            Even at Hector’s funeral it sounded like Helen was still carrying a torch for Hector and would have preferred being with him rather than with his brother Paris.

Hector, you were the dearest in my heart of all my husband’s kinfolk. Truly my husband is the godlike Alexander who brought me here to Troy and would that I had died before that. It is now the twentieth year that I have been gone from my beloved homeland and in all that time I never heard an evil or spiteful word from you and if any other in the hall tried to reproach me, a brother or sister of yours or a brother’s fair-robed wife or your mother, but your father was ever gentle to me as if he were my own, then you would have turned them aside with your words and restrained them with your gentle manner and your gentle speech. So I weep for you and for me with luckless grief in my heart for no longer do I have a friend in the broad land of Troy, but all men gaze upon me and shudder.

            What I really find interesting is the fact that Helen said that this was the twentieth year that she had been gone from her homeland. We know that the Trojan War was ten years long, so what was she doing for those other ten years? Why did the Greeks wait ten years before launching an invasion to get Helen back? If she had been kidnapped by Paris, surely the Greeks would have set off in pursuit of her immediately. Paris and Helen had all the money they needed since they had robbed the Spartan Treasury on the way out, and it seems that they cavorted their way around the seas for ten years before going to Troy. Paris the bad boy must have thought that the statute of limitations would have expired by that time and that it was safe for him to return with few repercussions. Before going to Troy, different versions of the story have the pair consummating their affair on the island of Cranae, visiting Sidon in Phoenicia and making their way eventually to Egypt. Sounds rather like the wealthy Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis travelling around with Jackie Kennedy, the Queen of Camelot. The Egyptian version of the legend has the king of Egypt condemning Paris, restraining Helen and holding the treasure until Menelaus could visit after the war and reclaim his wife and his property. In that version, Helen did not make it to Troy at all, with a phantom version of her being substituted by the gods.

            If Helen fell in love or in lust with Paris and willingly left Sparta, abandoning her husband, her only child, a daughter named Hermione, her entire family and nation, then truly she was following her heart. However, in doing so she displayed a selfish disregard for her family responsibilities, which audiences in ancient Greece would have seen as a major character failing. The elders and the women of Troy did not hold her in high regard, as she tells us herself, and the bard’s listeners would have concurred with this judgement and vilified her.

            We are presented with a different side of Helen when we meet her in the Odyssey. Telemachus had come to Sparta seeking news of his father and had interrupted a wedding feast in the palace of Menelaus and Helen. A bard started to sing about Odysseus and the Achaeans and Helen is reported to have wept at the story. She mixed a potion to ease the minds of the listeners and told her own story about events that had taken place during the Trojan War. She told how Odysseus had entered Troy disguised as a beggar and how she had recognized him. She bathed and anointed him and clothed him in better garments and he revealed the Greek war plans to her. He then went on to slay a number of Trojans before returning to the Achaean camp. Now to me this sounds like a very intimate encounter between Helen and Odysseus and one cannot help but read between the lines about what actually went on. Helen summarized the event with the following words:

Then the other Trojan women wailed aloud, but my soul was gladdened, for already my heart was turned to go back to my home, and I groaned for the blindness that Aphrodite gave me, when she led me here from my dear native land, leaving behind my baby and my bridal chamber and my husband, a man who lacked for nothing, whether in wisdom or in looks.

Were these the words of a penitent or someone who knew how to play her cards right? How do we reconcile Helen’s overt contrition and the loyalty that she apparently showed to the Achaeans when we hear Menelaus tell of her trying to entice the hidden Greeks out from the Trojan horse by imitating the voices of their wives?

Then you came there and it was like you were destined to do so by some god who wanted to grant glory to the Trojans and the godlike Deiphobus followed along behind you. Three times you circled the hollow ambush, touching it and calling out the names of the noble Danaans, making your voice sound like the voices of all the Argive wives.

Eumaeus, the noble swineherd of Odysseus, expressed a wish that all the tribe of Helen would be destroyed because of the havoc that she caused. Odysseus, on the other hand, seems to have been more forgiving and placed the blame for Helen’s actions at the feet of the gods, even though he was convinced that she knew what she was doing. His words appear to indicate that she was more of a willing participant than just a hapless victim.

Even Argive Helen, who was the daughter of Zeus, would not have laid and had sex with a stranger, if she had known beforehand that the warlike sons of the Achaeans would bring her back again to her dear native land. In her case, some god encouraged her to commit such a sin and up until that point, she did not think about how foolish it was and from that grievous and foolish deed, our first sorrow arrived as well.

My personal opinion is that Helen was no victim, other than being a victim of her own love or lust. She selfishly abandoned her family and her people, robbed the royal treasury and went off on a lark with a handsome prince. She was an adventure-seeker who knew what she was doing and chose the playboy over the dour Menelaus who languished in his brother’s shadow. When it looked like the tide was turning in favour of the Greeks in the war, she spoke hollow words of remorse and managed to fool Priam. Ever the harlot, she made a play for Hector, the stronger brother of Paris, and was rebuffed by that hero. Late in the game she threw herself at the feet of Menelaus and managed to gain his forgiveness and return to Sparta as the queen. While there the cunning side of her character was revealed as she and Menelaus spoke about her role in the war. One legend has it that after the death of Menelaus, Helen was driven from Sparta by the king’s sons and fled to Rhodes where she was hanged by Queen Polyxo to avenge her husband who was killed in the Trojan War. Sounds to me like a fitting end for her!