Nipu Cornelious Pereira
072-10-372
Helen
Halen is symbolized for the beauty as the rose. We find many mythological story as well as the poetry about her. The author fetched her references of Helen to different aspect of life. Though we do know about Helen for her beauty but if we observe her critically we would be able to find some different characteristics of Helen. She is very mysterious figure. The critically research of the life of Helen symbolizes the destruction. Because she was not the normal human being, she was owner of immortality. The story of her birth was very strange which makes us all very clear about her mystery.
Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, was a tantalizing enigma from the very first. She was flesh and blood certainly, but she was also immortal, since her father was none other than Zeus. Her mother was the beautiful Leda, queen of Sparta, who was ravished by the father of the gods in the form of a swan. Leda's husband was Tyndarecus, who later the same night, unaware of his feathered predecessor, also impregnated his wife. She produced two eggs, one of which yielded Helen and Polydeuces and the other of which contained Castor and Clytemnestra. While a swan's egg can be accepted for the sake of myth, it has never made much sense that the part of her pregnancy initiated by Tyndareus should produce an egg as well. This most curious of births has been subjected to all manner of combinations over the years. As delicious as the story of Leda was, some commentators even went so far as to suggest that Helen and the Dioscuri were conceived at Rhamnus in Attica by Zeus and Nemesis, the usually rather stern and sexless goddess whose job it was to curb excesses. Nemesis, not happy with being raped by a swan, laid an egg and left it. Leda found it, and when the egg hatched it produced Helen and the Dioscuri. In that case, Clytemnestra was not even a sister of Helen.
A normal human does not born from the egg. It takes places the womb of a mother through the love of parents. But here we can see the forceful love occurred between leda, the queen of starta and the god Zeus which takes form of a swan. Since Helen is not such a human being she does not concern the affection of human being, she never feels sorrow for others’ pain. So it is very needed to know how she was loved by Paris of troy. Their love story was planed by goddess (Aphrodite) who is goddess of beauty.
When Helen was already Menelaus' wife, there took place the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, whose child Achilles, fifteen years later was to become one of the ACHAEAN LEADERS against Troy. All gods were invited to this wedding except Eris (Discord), who took bitter revenge by throwing at the party one of the Golden Apples of the HESPERIDES, known by posterity as "The Apple of Discord" to be contended as a prize of beauty among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. The shepherd Paris was then appointed by Zeus Sparta,by Zeusto decide who was the fairest, and he, liking Aphrodite's bribe most of all, gave the apple to her. Having thus assigned the beauty award, Paris came to Sparta to fetch the prize that Aphrodite had given him in return, which was the hand of Helen. Soon after his arrival to Sparta, the shepherd Paris, now known as a Trojan prince, succeeded in seducing Queen Helen, who abandoning her daughter Hermione, then nine years old, put most of her and Menelaus' property on board, and by night set sail with Paris to Troy. They consummated their marriage in Cranae, an island in the Laconian Gulf.
When it was time for Helen to marry, many kings and princes from around the world came to seek her hand, bringing rich gifts with them, or sent emissaries to do so on their behalf. During the contest, Castor and Pollux had a prominent role in dealing with the suitors, although the final decision was in the hands of Tyndareus. Menelaus, her future husband, did not attend but sent his brother, , to represent him. There are three available lists of suitors, compiled by Pseudo-Appollodorus, Hesiod, and Hyginus respectively. In these catalogs, suitors range from twenty-five to thirty-six—from Hesiod's poem we only have fragments. Achilles' absence from the lists is conspicuous, but Hesiod explains that he was too young to take part in the contest
Tyndareus was afraid to select a husband for his daughter, or send any of the suitors away, for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. Odysseus was one of the suitors, but had brought no gifts, because he believed he had little chance to win the contest.
The marriage of Helen and Menelaus marks the beginning of the end of the age of heroes. Concluding the catalog of Helen's suitors, Hesiod reports Zeus' plan to obliterate the race of men and the heroes in particular. The Trojan War, caused by Helen's elopement with Paris, is going to be his means to this end.
Some years later, Paris, a Trojan prince, came to Sparta to claim Helen, in the guise of a supposed diplomatic mission. Before this journey, Paris had been appointed by Zeus to proclaim the most beautiful goddess. In order to earn his favour, Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world. Swayed by Aphrodite's offer, Paris chose her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, earning the wrath of Athena and Hera.
Although Helen is sometimes depicted as being unwillingly raped by Paris (termed abduction as per the ancient understanding of raptus), ancient Greek sources are often elliptical and contradicting. Herodotus states that Helen was abducted, but Cypria simply mention that, after giving Helen gifts, "Aphrodite brings the Spartan queen together with the Prince of Troy." Sappho argues that Helen willingly left behind Menelaus and Hermione, her nine-year-old daughter, to be with Paris:
When he discovered that his wife was missing, Menelaus called upon all the other suitors to fulfill their oaths, thus beginning the Trojan War. The Greek fleet gathered in Aulis, but the ships could not sail, because there was no wind. Artemis was enraged with a sacrilegious act of the Greeks, and only the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter, Iphigenia, could appease her
These bitter words reveal that Helen gradually realized Paris' weaknesses, and she decided to ally herself with Hector. There is an affectionate relationship between the two of them, and Helen has harsh words to say for Paris, when she compares the two brothers:
During the fall of Troy, Helen's role is ambiguous. In Virgil's Aeneid, Deiphobus gives an account of Helen's treacherous stance: when the Trojan Horse was admitted into the city, she feigned Bacchic rites, leading a chorus of Trojan women, and, holding a torch among them, she signaled to the Greeks from the city's central tower. In Odyssey, however, Homer narrates a different story: Helen circled the Horse three times, and she imitated the voices of the Greek women left behind at home—she thus tortured the men inside (including Odysseus and Menelaus) with the memory of their loved ones, and brought them to the brink of destruction.
After the death of Hector and Paris, Helen became the paramour of their younger brother, Deiphobus; but when the sack of Troy began, she hid her new husband's sword, and left him to the mercy of Menelaus and Odysseus. In Aeneid, Aeneas meets the mutilated Deiphobus in Hades; his wounds serve as a testimony to his ignominious end, abetted by Helen's final act of treachery.
Helen was also worshiped in Attica along with her brothers, and on Rhodes as Helen Dendritis (Helen of the Trees, she was a vegetation or a fertility goddess. Martin F. Nilsson has argued that its cult in Rhodes has its roots to the Minoan, pre-Greek era, when Helen was allegedly worshiped as a vegetation goddess. Claude Calame and other scholars try to analyze the affinity between the cults of Helen and Artemis Orthia, pointing out the resemblance of the terracotta female figurines offered to both deities.
