Life of HelenAAPD 1c

Ms. Arlene Opina

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.

Stories claiming Leda as Helen's mother tell how Zeus disguised himself as a swan and raped the Spartan queen. Leda then produced two eggs. From one came Helen and her brother Pollux. Clytemnestra and Castor emerged from the other. Other versions of the myth say that Zeus seduced Nemesis, and she laid the two eggs. A shepherd discovered them and gave them to Queen Leda, who tended the eggs until they hatched and raised the children as her own. In some variations of this legend, Helen and Pollux were the children of Zeus, but Clytemnestra and Castor were actually the children of Tyndareus.

When she was about ten, she was seen by Theseus and Piritous, who both fell in love with her. They cast lots and Theseus won, so he kidnapped her and took her to Aphidnae, where he entrusted her to his mother, Aethra. Helen of Troy's brothers, the Dioscuri, went after her, while Theseus and Piritous were gone to kidnap Persephone. Someone told them where Helen was hidden, and they took her back, together with Aethra (Theseus' mother), who became Helen of Troy's slave until the end of the war of Troy.

When Helen came back home, Tyndareus, her father, decided it was time to marry her. As word about her beauty had spread all over Hellas, all the kings, princes and heroes of Greece came and tried to win her hand. Her father was afraid that her choosing one of them over the others might lead to war.

Among those seeking to marry Helen was Odysseus, the king of Ithaca. Odysseus advised Tyndareus to have all the suitors take an oath to accept Helen's choice and promise to support that person whenever the need should arise. The suitors agreed, and Helen chose Menelaus, a prince of Mycenae, to be her husband. Helen's sister Clytemnestra was already married to Menelaus's older brother, Agamemnon.

The Immortals were not actually fighting on the battlefield but they were engaged in constant meddling. When Menelaus was obviously going to win the fight with Paris, Aphrodite swooped down and carried Paris away ... she carried him to Helen's bedchamber. Aphrodite found Helen on a high tower of Troy where she was watching the fight with the other Trojan women. Assuming a disguise, Aphrodite told Helen to leave the tower and go to Paris. Helen recognized Aphrodite's divinity and asked why she was trying to beguile her. Aphrodite was not accustomed to being questioned or disobeyed by a mortal ... she threatened Helen with her divine hatred if her commands were not obeyed at once. Helen went to Paris and confessed that she wished that she had been killed at birth because so much misery and suffering had been endured for her sake.

The last bitter days of the Trojan War saw the deaths of the Trojan prince Hector and the greatest warrior of all time, Achilles.The Greeks however had a brilliant idea. They built a giant Wooden Horse and concealed their best fighters inside. They then took their fleet to a nearby island where they could not be seen by the Trojans. The trick worked ... the Trojans thought the Greeks had finally given up and returned to their homes and that the Wooden Horse was a peace offering in the form of a tribute to the lord of the Sea, Poseidon. Over the objections of the seer Laokoon (Laocoon), the Wooden Horse was brought inside the city.

Helen was suspicious of the horse and the intentions of the Greeks. Once the Wooden Horse was inside the city walls, she walked around it and imitating the voices of different men's wives, called out to see if any of the men she suspected to be hiding in the horse would answer. All the men hiding inside the horse remained silent. The Trojans began their victory celebration and when all their energies had been spent, relaxed into a wine-induced slumber.

The Greeks emerged from the Wooden Horse and the slaughter began. Troy was a large city and its toppling was not as organized as we might think. In the confusion, a man named Deiphobos (Deiphobus) found Helen and hastily married her. When Menelaos found out about the marriage, he killed Deiphobos and was reunited with the semi-divine Helen.When the walls of Troy were finally toppled and King Priam and his family were either dead or enslaved, the invaders collected their treasures and slaves and sailed for home.

After the fall of Troy:* Menelaus took Helen back to Lacedaemon, where they lived an apparently happy married life once more* After the end of their mortal existence, they continued to be together in Elysium.

According to  the Rhodians: *when Menelaus was dead, and Orestes still a wanderer, Helen was driven out by Nicostratus and Megapenthes and came to Rhodes, where she had a friend in Polyxo, the wife of Tlepolemus.* For Polyxo, they say, was an Argive by descent, and when she was already married to Tlepolemus, shared his flight to Rhodes.* At the time she was queen of the island, having been left with an orphan boy. They say that this Polyxo desired to avenge the death of Tlepolemus on Helen, now that she had her in her power. So she sent against her when she was bathing handmaidens dressed up as Furies, who seized Helen and hanged her on a tree, and for this reason the Rhodians have a sanctuary of Helen of the Tree."

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