Helen of The Iliad and The Odyssey (kaila)
The Trojan War is the subject of Homer’s epic works The Iliad and The Odyssey. The first poem takes place near the end of the battle, while the second, set around ten years later, tells the story of Odysseus’ perilous return home after the war. Odyssey’s female characters demonstrate the different ways in which women contribute to men’s lives. These characters serve several purposes, from the goddess who aids them to the nymphs who deceive them. Ancient Greek women’s significance is demonstrated in the Iliad by their prominence in a military-dominated civilization. One of these ladies was Helen of Troy, the daughter of Zeus and Leda, who plays a significant role in both of Homer’s epic works.
Helen appears to have a more complex image than other Greek women portrayed in Homer’s stories. Nearly every time her name is referenced in The Iliad, it is in a bad light. Because of her constant self-blame for the war in conversations with Hector and other characters throughout the epic, she is shown to be conscious of her deeds. In The Odyssey, Homer seems to soften the blow of Helen’s betrayal. In this story, Helen is married to Menelaus. However, she now freely acknowledges to him and other guests that her acts were inexcusable, nearly to the point of saying that what happened was uncharacteristic of her and that she is a great woman. Menelaus also agrees and shows no hostility towards her. It is when Helen confesses to relishing Troy’s demise, reveling as the Trojan wives mourned their husbands, Homer reveals that she is still as treacherous and devious as ever.
Helen sees herself as both the cause of the war and a mythical figure. This is displayed as she speaks with Hector, “…..on whom Zeus set a vile destiny, so that hereafter/ we shall be made into things of song for the men of the future” (Iliad 6.357-358). Helen’s role in the story of the Iliad goes far beyond that of just another person in this epic. Instead, at times, she impersonates the poet and turns the physical nature of the Iliad into art that the reader can understand. Even though other characters in the Iliad would try to say that Helen didn’t play a role in the events of the Trojan War, Helen places a lot of blame on herself for them. She refers to herself as a “slut” (Iliad 3.180) and a “nasty bitch evil-intriguing” (Iliad 6.344). Her guilt is amplified by her desire for death; “and I wish bitter death had been what I wanted, when I came hither/…/ It did not happen that way; and now I am worn with weeping.”(Iliad 3.173 – 176), and; brother by marriage to me, who am a nasty bitch evil-intriguing, how I wish that on that day when my mother first bore me the foul whirlwind of the storm had caught me away and swept me to the mountain, or into the wash of the sea deep-thundering where the waves would have swept me away before all these things had happened. (Iliad 6.343 – 348) Before her abduction from Sparta, Helen desires death because she believes herself responsible for what has occurred or is happening. The other characters eliminate Helen’s accountability while she is overwhelmed with guilt.
Helen is one of the few female characters who appear in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and she has a solid relationship to the story’s progression. In Book 4, Telemachus travels to Sparta, where he meets Helen and her lawful husband, Menelaus, who is still mourning the war. Helen’s personal narrative is still laden with guilt as she continues to think of herself in a bad light as the story progresses. Menelaus acknowledges what Helen sees, pointing out the similarities between the father and son. Menelaus grieves over Odysseus’ absence, and the men join him in weeping. Despite the fact that Helen is crying along with them, she finds a way to help them share stories by dosing their wine with drugs (Odyssey Book 3). While the males are drinking, Helen is the first to speak, narrating the story of Odysseus’ espionage voyage into Troy. She describes how he disguised himself as a beggar and entered the city while Helen was the only one who knew who he was. As he departs the city, he slays many Trojans, and Helen remarks on how her heart yearns for her husband and home. She praises Menelaus, describing him as a “man who lacked no endowment either of brains or beauty” (Odyssey 3.220 – 264). Helen is speaking in part to appease her husband, who still feels the pain of her elopement, and in part to convey her yearning to come home, which she expresses throughout the Iliad but is rejected. Her allegiance appears to be with her husband, yet his narrative undermines hers. “Yes, my wife, all that you have stated is fair and orderly,” he begins his own account, but he continues with the story of Helen traveling by the Trojan Horse with Deiphobus, her husband after Paris, when she chooses to mimic the Achaeans’ wives’ voices. Some of the men are tempted to call out, but Odysseus stops them, allowing them to remain hidden (Odyssey 3.266 – 289).
I think that this story contradicts Helen’s previous story about her desire to return home and the longing she felt. It casts her as a villain instead of a victim or a person who wants to change their ways. In the Odyssey, Helen kept having a role in the story. She helped move it along and tried to change, or at least express, her involvement in the Iliad narrative. In one way, she helps the narrative move forward by giving the men drugs to help them move past their grief. In another way, her husband’s conflicting stories about the past make it hard for people to see how important she is to the story.
Works Cited
The Internet Classics Archive | The Iliad by Homer. http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.1.i.html. Accessed 15 Mar. 2022.
The Internet Classics Archive | The Odyssey by Homer. http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.1.i.html. Accessed 15 Mar. 2022.
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The Odyssey’s Helen and The Iliad’s Helen (kaila)
Homer’s epic works The Iliad and The Odyssey are both about the Trojan War. The first poem takes place near the end of the battle, while the second, set around ten years later, tells the story of Odysseus’ perilous return home after the war. Odyssey’s female characters demonstrate the different ways in which women contribute to men’s lives. These characters serve several purposes, from the goddess who aids them to the nymphs who deceive them. Ancient Greek women’s significance is demonstrated in the Iliad by their prominence in a military-dominated civilization. One of these ladies was Helen of Troy, the daughter of Zeus and Leda, who plays a significant role in both of Homer’s epic works
