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Authors: Bettany Hughes
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And the story does not end there. Although the princess had been repatriated, the King of Ugarit was clearly still seething. Not satisfied with exiling the princess from his kingdom, he then demanded that she be returned to the Ugarit court for further punishment – almost certainly execution. Eventually, after protracted negotiations, the affair seems to have been resolved. The two states never actually came to blows 38 but the case demonstrates that the scandalous behaviour of aristocratic women in the Late Bronze Age could have significant political implications.
There have always been those sceptical of the notion that the Greeks and Trojans would have gone to war over a woman. But this sort of thing could and did happen in the Late Bronze Age. Even if Helen and her sweet-talking lover Paris are fictitious, a scandal such as theirs would, in the13th century BC , have been a perfect excuse for Mycenaean aggression on the western coast of Turkey. And although, down the centuries, authors have been quick to label Paris a rapist, a Bronze Age Helen, a Peloponnesian queen, could well have played more than just a passive role – as is suggested by the following fragments of one of the earliest poems written about the Helen affair:
… and fluttered the heart of Argive Helen in her breast. Maddened with passion for the man from Troy, the traitor-guest, she followed him over the sea in his ship
,
leaving her child at home … and her husband’s richly covered bed … … her heart persuaded by desire … [line missing]
[line missing] … many of his brothers the black earth holds fast, laid low on the Trojan plain for that woman’s sake
,
and many chariots in the dust … … and many flashing-eyed … … trampled, and slaughter …
ALCAEUS, FRAGMENT 283 (6th century BC ) 39
18
ALEXANDER HELENAM RAPUIT
She won the heart
of every man she saw.
They stood in line, sighed,
knelt, beseeched
Be Mine
.
She married one,
but every mother’s son
swore to be true to her
till death, enchanted
by the perfume of her breath
her skin’s celebrity.
So when she took a lover, fled,
was nowhere to be seen,
her side of the bed unslept in, cold,
the small coin of her wedding ring
left on the bedside table like a tip,
the wardrobe empty of the drama of her clothes it
was War …
…
Meanwhile, lovely she lay high up
in a foreign castle’s walls, clasped
in a hero’s brawn, loved and loved
and loved again, her cries
like the bird of calamity’s,
drifting down to the boys at the gates
who marched now to the syllables of her name.
C AROL ANN DUFFY , extracts from
‘Beautiful
’ 1
P ARIS’ SEDUCTION OF HELEN in the palace at Sparta has been inspirational for three millennia. 2 Most ancient Greek accounts of the seduction – or at least the extant fragments of those accounts – are fairly elliptical. The
Cypria
simply states that after giving Helen gifts, ‘
Aphrodite brings the Spartan queen together with the Prince of Troy
’. 3 Apollodorus, writing in the 2nd century BC , records that after nine days of enjoying Menelaus’ hospitality, Paris ‘persuaded Helen to go off with him’. 4 But for later writers, such as Ovid, this episode is a spur to the imagination. In his
Heroides
16, the poet describes how Paris ‘
swells up with envy
’ at the sight of Helen and Menelaus together. Paris moans: ‘
When he presses your body to his I drop my eyes, and food I have not tasted sticks in my mouth because I cannot swallow
.’ Helen in her turn, trembles: ‘
I have seen, traced on the table’s flat top, my name spelled in spilled wine, and there beneath it, the two words, “I love”
.’ 5
This moment in the story of Helen has particular pathos: the Spartan queen is seduced because her husband Menelaus has been called away to tend to his grandfather’s funerary rites in Crete. 6 Soaking up Lakonian hospitality, Paris seems, at first, to keep himself in check. He might have watched the Spartan queen too
And the story does not end there. Although the princess had been repatriated, the King of Ugarit was clearly still seething. Not satisfied with exiling the princess from his kingdom, he then demanded that she be returned to the Ugarit court for further punishment – almost certainly execution. Eventually, after protracted negotiations, the affair seems to have been resolved. The two states never actually came to blows 38 but the case demonstrates that the scandalous behaviour of aristocratic women in the Late Bronze Age could have significant political implications.
There have always been those sceptical of the notion that the Greeks and Trojans would have gone to war over a woman. But this sort of thing could and did happen in the Late Bronze Age. Even if Helen and her sweet-talking lover Paris are fictitious, a scandal such as theirs would, in the13th century BC , have been a perfect excuse for Mycenaean aggression on the western coast of Turkey. And although, down the centuries, authors have been quick to label Paris a rapist, a Bronze Age Helen, a Peloponnesian queen, could well have played more than just a passive role – as is suggested by the following fragments of one of the earliest poems written about the Helen affair:
… and fluttered the heart of Argive Helen in her breast. Maddened with passion for the man from Troy, the traitor-guest, she followed him over the sea in his ship
,
leaving her child at home … and her husband’s richly covered bed … … her heart persuaded by desire … [line missing]
[line missing] … many of his brothers the black earth holds fast, laid low on the Trojan plain for that woman’s sake
,
and many chariots in the dust … … and many flashing-eyed … … trampled, and slaughter …
ALCAEUS, FRAGMENT 283 (6th century BC ) 39
18
ALEXANDER HELENAM RAPUIT
She won the heart
of every man she saw.
They stood in line, sighed,
knelt, beseeched
Be Mine
.
She married one,
but every mother’s son
swore to be true to her
till death, enchanted
by the perfume of her breath
her skin’s celebrity.
So when she took a lover, fled,
was nowhere to be seen,
her side of the bed unslept in, cold,
the small coin of her wedding ring
left on the bedside table like a tip,
the wardrobe empty of the drama of her clothes it
was War …
…
Meanwhile, lovely she lay high up
in a foreign castle’s walls, clasped
in a hero’s brawn, loved and loved
and loved again, her cries
like the bird of calamity’s,
drifting down to the boys at the gates
who marched now to the syllables of her name.
C AROL ANN DUFFY , extracts from
‘Beautiful
’ 1
P ARIS’ SEDUCTION OF HELEN in the palace at Sparta has been inspirational for three millennia. 2 Most ancient Greek accounts of the seduction – or at least the extant fragments of those accounts – are fairly elliptical. The
Cypria
simply states that after giving Helen gifts, ‘
Aphrodite brings the Spartan queen together with the Prince of Troy
’. 3 Apollodorus, writing in the 2nd century BC , records that after nine days of enjoying Menelaus’ hospitality, Paris ‘persuaded Helen to go off with him’. 4 But for later writers, such as Ovid, this episode is a spur to the imagination. In his
Heroides
16, the poet describes how Paris ‘
swells up with envy
’ at the sight of Helen and Menelaus together. Paris moans: ‘
When he presses your body to his I drop my eyes, and food I have not tasted sticks in my mouth because I cannot swallow
.’ Helen in her turn, trembles: ‘
I have seen, traced on the table’s flat top, my name spelled in spilled wine, and there beneath it, the two words, “I love”
.’ 5
This moment in the story of Helen has particular pathos: the Spartan queen is seduced because her husband Menelaus has been called away to tend to his grandfather’s funerary rites in Crete. 6 Soaking up Lakonian hospitality, Paris seems, at first, to keep himself in check. He might have watched the Spartan queen too
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