Helen of Troy, to Priam

"Before thy presence, father, I appear,
With conscious shame and reverential fear.
Ah! had I died, ere to these walk I fled,
False to my country, and my nuptial bed;
My brothers, friends, and daughter left behind,
False to them all, to Paris only kind!
For this I mourn, till grief or dire disease
Shall waste the form whose fault it was to please!
The king of kings, Atrides, you survey,
Great in the war, and great in arts of sway:
My brother once, before my days of shame!
And oh! that still he bore a brother's name!"

Helen of Sidon?

Come to think of it, what was Paris doing with Helen in Sidon anyway? Sidon is not on the way from Sparta to Troy. Maybe Herodotus has a point: did Homer know?

This heard, she [Hecuba, Priam's wife] gave command; and summon'd came
Each noble matron, and illustrious dame.
The Phyrgian queen to her rich wardrobe went,
Where treasure'd odors breath'd a costly scent.
There lay the vestures, of no vulgar art,
Sidonian maids embroider'd every part,
Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore,
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.

Helen and Herodotus Say, "Wow!"

My brief post on Helen of Memphis unleashed a veritable avalanche of learned commentary about Herodotus's treatment of Helen and related subjects. Thank you all, and my complements.

While I have you, may I ask a question? What's the current learning on where or how the alternate Helen-went-to-Egypt story got started? Stesichorus's (640-555?) wonderful Palinode indicates that the idea was already floating around before Herodotus composed his Histories. I don't buy Herodotus's argument that certain passages of Homer suggest that "Homer" was aware of the variant. Did Stesichorus start the whole thing? Or maybe he visited Egypt, or heard the story from someone who did?

Helen of Memphis

Egyptian priests told Herodotus that, after Paris abducted Helen, violent winds drove him off course, and he landed in Egypt. Paris was forced to leave Helen there, and he sailed on alone to Troy. Helen spent the Trojan War in Memphis.

Herodotus credits the story, and his reasoning is just wonderful:

That is what the Egyptian priests said, and I agree with their argument, considering that if Helen had been in Troy, the Trojans would certainly have returned her to the Hellenes, whether Alexandros [another name for Paris] concurred or not. For neither Priam nor his kin could have been so demented that they would have willingly endangered their own persons, their children, and their city just so that Alexandros could have Helen. Surely the Trojans would have realized this even in the first years of the war and would have given her up. After all, many Trojans were being killed whenever they joined combat with the Greeks, and the sons of Priam himself were dying in every battle, two or three at a time, and sometimes even more.

Helen, to Menelaus

"Know that I have saved myself untouched for you."

Euripides

Helen and Priam

The good old Priam welcom'd her, and cry'd,
"Approach my child, and grace thy father's side,
See on the plain thy Grecian spouse appears,
The friends and kindred of thy former years.
No crime of thine our present suff'rings draws,
Not thou, but Heav'ns disposing will, the cause;
The gods those armies and this force employ,
The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy."

Helen of Troy

There sate the seniors of the Trojan race,
(Old Priam's chiefs, and most in Priam's grace)
The king the first; Thymoetes at his side;
Lampus and Clytius, long in council try'd;
Panthus, and Hicetaon, once the strong,
And next the wisest of the rev'rend throng,
Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon,
Lean'd on the walls, and bask'd before the sun.
Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage,
But wise thro' time, and narrative with age,
In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice,
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
These, when the Spartan queen approach'd the tow'r,
In secret own'd resistless beauty's pow'r;
They cry'd, "No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! what majestick mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen!
Yet hence oh Heav'n! convey that fatal face,
And from destruction save the Trojan race."

Helen of Troy?

The story I told is not true;
Never did you sail in the well-decked ships,
Never did you come to the towers of Troy.

Stesichorus