HELEN OF TROY Helen was the immortal daughter of the god Zeus (Jupiter) and the mortal Leda, Queen of Sparta. Zeus, lusting after Leda, ravished her in the form of a swan. She later gave birth to Helen and her brother Polydeuces (Pollux), fathered by Zeus, and Castor and Clytemnestra, fathered by her husband Tyndareus. Helen's beauty soon became legendary and many men wanted to possess her. She was kidnapped by Theseus, who raped her and then departed on a mission to rescue the goddess Persephone from Hades. In his absence, Helen was rescued and taken home to Sparta. There she was immediately thronged with suitors. She had little say in whom she would marry, however; Tyndareus chose powerful Menelaus, who was soon to inherit a kingdom - the brother of the King of Mycenae, Agamemnon. It was when Helen left her husband, however, that hers became "the face that launched a thousand ships." As the story goes, when the sea nymph Thetis married the mortal Peleus, Zeus invited every god save Eris, or Strife, to a feast. Jealous because she was excluded, Eris set out to make trouble. Into the banquet she tossed an apple, declaring that it was for the most beautiful woman present. Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena each tried to claim it, and a bitter quarrel erupted among them. To quiet things down, Zeus commanded that the three take the apple to Paris, the son of the king and queen of Troy, and let him decide. Each goddess tried to bribe Paris to declare her the most beautiful. Hera promised to make him the king of the world and the richest man in existence; Athena promised to make him the bravest of all men and "the master of every artifice" (Hygenius); Aphrodite, however, promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, as his wife - and with that, he declared her the winner. Assisted by Aphrodite, Paris convinced Helen to leave her husband and took her back with him to Troy. Menelaus and Agamemnon went after them, and the war that resulted lasted for ten years. Finally, due to Odysseus' craftiness in devising the Trojan horse, the Trojans were defeated and Helen was returned to Menelaus. Research for these Real Stories profiles was provided by April Benson, Marie Barda, Elana Kantor, Matt Ray, and Larissa Szwast, University of Michigan students participating in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) under the direction of Pam Reister in the Education department of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Profiles were edited by Jessica Adams. |
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