Who She Is
Helen is the woman because of whom the Achaeans went to Troy, and who now lives in Sparta beside Menelaus, back in the palace. She appears in the Odyssey as a hostess who controls the mood of the table: she drops a drug into the wine to take away pain and tells stories of Troy. Other characters cite her as the cause of many deaths or as the example of a woman carried off by a god.
Trajectory
In Book IV, she comes out of her room looking like Artemis, with her maids and her silver basket. She asks her husband whether she should speak the truth or lie, and says she has never seen such a likeness: the boy can only be Telemachus. The one who recognizes the son is the woman because of whom the Achaeans went to Troy, and she does it by his face.
οὐ γάρ πώ τινά φημι ἐοικότα ὧδε ἰδέσθαι / οὔτʼ ἄνδρʼ οὔτε γυναῖκα, σέβας μʼ ἔχει εἰσορόωσαν, / ὡς ὅδʼ Ὀδυσσῆος μεγαλήτορος υἷι ἔοικε(4.141-143), for I say I have never seen anyone so alike, neither man nor woman (awe seizes me as I look), as this one is like the son of great-hearted Odysseus.
After everyone has wept, she drops into the wine an Egyptian drug that takes away pain and anger and makes one forget every evil, and says Zeus gives each person good and evil. She tells how Odysseus entered Troy as a beggar, after wounding himself with humiliating blows and wearing the rags of a slave, and that only she recognized him. She bathed him and anointed him, swore not to betray him, and he told her the Achaeans' plan. The other Trojan women cried out, but her heart rejoiced, because she wanted to return home, and she lamented the blindness Aphrodite had given her when she carried her away from her homeland.
αὐτίκʼ ἄρʼ εἰς οἶνον βάλε φάρμακον, ἔνθεν ἔπινον, / νηπενθές τʼ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων(4.220-221), she at once dropped into the wine they were drinking a drug that takes away pain and anger, and makes one forget all evils.
ἔνθʼ ἄλλαι Τρῳαὶ λίγʼ ἐκώκυον· αὐτὰρ ἐμὸν κῆρ / χαῖρʼ, ἐπεὶ ἤδη μοι κραδίη τέτραπτο νέεσθαι / ἂψ οἶκόνδʼ, ἄτην δὲ μετέστενον, ἣν Ἀφροδίτη / δῶχʼ, ὅτε μʼ ἤγαγε κεῖσε φίλης ἀπὸ πατρίδος αἴης(4.259-262), there the other Trojan women cried out loudly; but my heart rejoiced, since my spirit was already turned to return home, and I lamented the blindness that Aphrodite gave me when she carried me there, far from my dear homeland.
Menelaus replies that she spoke as is fitting, and tells another deed: inside the wooden horse, the chiefs heard Helen circle it three times, calling them by name in the voices of their wives, and Odysseus held them back until Athena took her away. She orders the guests' beds made.
In Book XI, Odysseus tells Agamemnon, in Hades, that many died because of Helen. In Book XIV, Eumaeus curses her lineage, which made so many men perish, among them his master.
In Book XV, when Telemachus takes his leave, Menelaus gives him a mixing bowl, and she gives him the most beautiful and largest robe from her chest, made by her own hands, for the wife he will yet have. When an eagle passes carrying a goose, Menelaus hesitates over the answer, and she speaks first: as the eagle came down from the mountain and seized the goose raised at home, so Odysseus will return and take his revenge. Telemachus says he would call on her as on a goddess.
δῶρόν τοι καὶ ἐγώ, τέκνον φίλε, τοῦτο δίδωμι, / μνῆμʼ Ἑλένης χειρῶν, πολυηράτου ἐς γάμου ὥρην, / σῇ ἀλόχῳ φορέειν·(15.125-127), I too give you this gift, dear child, a memento of Helen's hands, for the hour of the much-desired marriage, for your wife to wear.
ὡς ὅδε χῆνʼ ἥρπαξʼ ἀτιταλλομένην ἐνὶ οἴκῳ / ἐλθὼν ἐξ ὄρεος, ὅθι οἱ γενεή τε τόκος τε, / ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς κακὰ πολλὰ παθὼν καὶ πόλλʼ ἐπαληθεὶς / οἴκαδε νοστήσει καὶ τίσεται·(15.174-177), just as this eagle seized the goose raised in the house, coming from the mountain where its kin and its offspring are, so Odysseus, after suffering many evils and wandering much, will return home and take vengeance.
In Book XVII, Telemachus tells Penelope what he saw in Sparta, and among those he saw is Helen. In Book XXII, Athena reproaches Odysseus: he no longer has the strength he had when he fought nine years for Helen.
In Book XXIII, Penelope cites her while explaining why she was slow to accept her husband. Not even Helen, born of Zeus, would have lain in love and bed with a foreign man if she had known that the Achaeans would take her back; a god drove her to the shameful deed, and from that ruin came the grief of both.
οὐδέ κεν Ἀργείη Ἑλένη, Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα, / ἀνδρὶ παρʼ ἀλλοδαπῷ ἐμίγη φιλότητι καὶ εὐνῇ, / εἰ ᾔδη ὅ μιν αὖτις ἀρήϊοι υἷες Ἀχαιῶν / ἀξέμεναι οἶκόνδε φίλην ἐς πατρίδʼ ἔμελλον.(23.218-221), nor would the Argive Helen, born of Zeus, have mingled in love and bed with a foreign man, had she known that the warlike sons of the Achaeans were going to take her back home, to her dear fatherland.
Themes Embodied
Helen embodies Loyalty and betrayal at the point where it merges with Truth and lies and with fate: the poem shows her explaining, to whoever wants to hear, that it was a blindness set by Aphrodite, and lets her husband answer that she spoke as is fitting. She also embodies the Family, as wife and hostess who, with the drug dropped into the wine, wipes away the pain of the table in Menelaus's house.
What Helen says of herself, that she wanted to return home and lamented Aphrodite's blindness, can be read in two ways the text supports: as the account of someone who was carried off, or as the version that protects her before her husband. The same holds for the drug, which is a remedy for grief and also the means she has to control what is said at the table. Penelope, for her part, cites her without condemning her: a god drove her, and Penelope's caution is the opposite of Helen's recklessness.
Relationships
- Menelaus: the husband with whom she lives without visible resentment, who corrects her in public.
- Telemachus: the boy she recognizes by his face and to whom she gives a robe.
- Odysseus: the man she recognized in Troy, disguised as a beggar.
- Penelope: the wife who cites her as the example of what fear of being deceived prevents.