The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships Where did that expression come from? The Rape of Helen, Mid of 17th c, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images By N.S. Gill Updated August 30, 2016. "The face that launched a thousand ships" is a well-known figure of speech and a snippet of 17th-century poetry that refers to Helen of Troy. The poetry of Shakespeare 's contemporary English playwright Christopher Marlowe is responsible for what is among the most lovely and famous lines in English literature. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Illium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss... The line comes from Marlowe's play The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus , published in 1604. In the play, Faustus is an ambitious man, who has decided that necromancy--speaking to the dead--is the only path to the power he seeks.

The risk of communing with dead spirits, however, is that raising them can make you their master, or their slave. Faustus, conjuring on his own, makes a deal with the demon Mephistopheles , and one of the spirits Faustus raises is Helen of Troy. Because he cannot resist her, he makes her his paramour and is damned forever. continue reading below our video 4 Tips for Improving Test Performance Helen in the Iliad According to Homer's The Iliad, Helen was the wife of the king of Sparta, Menelaus. She was so beautiful that Greek men went to Troy and fought the Trojan War to win her back from her lover Paris . The "thousand ships" in Marlowe's play refer to the Greek army who set sail from Aulis to war with the Trojans and burn down Troy (Greek name=Illium). But the immortality requested results in the curse of Mephistopheles and the damnation of Faustus. Helen had been abducted before she married Menelaus , so Menelaus knew it could happen again.

Before Helen of Sparta married Menelaus, all the Greek suitors, and she had had quite a few, swore an oath to aid Menelaus should he ever need their help retrieving his wife. Those suitors or their sons brought their own troops and ships to Troy. The Trojan War may have actually happened. The stories about it, best known from the author known as Homer, say it lasted 10 years. At the end of the Trojan War, the belly of the Trojan Horse (from which we get the expression " beware of Greeks bearing gifts ") sneakily transported Greeks into Troy where they set fire to the city, killed the Trojan men, and took many of the Trojan women as concubines. Helen of Troy returned to her original husband, Menelaus. Helen as an Icon; Marlowe's Play on Words Marlowe's phrase is not to be taken literally, of course, it's an example of what English scholars call metalepsis , a stylistic flourish that skips from X to Z, bypassing Y: of course, Helen's face didn't launch any ships, Marlowe is saying she caused the Trojan War.

Today the phrase is most commonly used as a metaphor for beauty and its seductive and destructive force. There have been several books exploring the feminist considerations of Helen and her treacherous beauty, including the well-received one from historian Bettany Hughes ( Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World , 2009, Knopf Doubleday). The phrase has also been used to describe women from the first lady of the Phillippines Imelda Marcos ("the face that launched a thousand votes") to consumer spokesperson Betty Furness ("the face that launched a thousand refrigerators"). You're starting to think Marlowe's quote is not entirely friendly, aren't you? And you'd be right. Fun with Helen Communications scholars such as J.A. DeVito have long used Marlowe's phrase to illustrate how the use of stress on a single word of a sentence can change the meaning. Practice the following, stressing the italicized word and you'll see what we mean. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?

Finally, says mathematician Ed Barbeau: If a face could launch a thousand ships, what would it take to launch five? Of course, the answer is 0.0005 face. Sources Classical Mythology: The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships Classical Mythology The End of Heroes Learning of Helen's disappearance, Menelaus asked his brother Agamemnon for help. Agamemnon, who would serve as commander in chief of the Greek forces, rounded up the former rivals for Helen's hand. Reminding them of their oath of allegiance, Menelaus demanded they join him in recovering Helen and punishing the Trojans. Not all of the suitors were eager to fulfill their obligation to Menelaus after so many years had passed. Some bought their way out of their duty. Odysseus, the wily prince of Ithaca, feigned madness but was tricked into giving himself away (see All's Not Fair in Love and War: The Fall of Troy ). His ruse exposed, Odysseus reluctantly left his wife Penelope and his infant son Telemachus and joined the Greek forces.

Despite the few who seemed reluctant, the Greeks in time assembled quite a rescue force: more than 1,000 ships from over two dozen different Greek kingdoms. They gathered in Aulis, a Boeotian town on the strait that separated the mainland from the island of Euboea. Which Way to Troy? Unfavorable winds kept the fleet from setting out for Troy. Calchas, a soothsayer, blamed the ill winds on Agamemnon, whose boastful claim that he could hunt better than Artemis had offended that goddess. The soothsayer insisted that Agamemnon appease the goddess by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia. Odysseus and Diomedes brought her to Aulis under the pretext of her marrying Achilles (the son of Peleus and Thetis), but the beautiful young girl was instead offered to Artemis. (As told by Euripides in Iphigenia in Tauris, the goddess may have spared Iphigenia, substituting a deer and whisking the girl away to serve as her priestess in Tauris, the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea.) Clytemnestra was furious at her husband.

She refused to believe that a miracle had saved her daughter and despised Agamemnon from that day forward. What a Life! Priam was the only son of King Laomedon to survive Heracles' siege of Troy years earlier. After Heracles killed Laomedon and captured his daughter Hesione, he allowed her to buy the freedom of one prisoner. She chose her brother Podarces, who was renamed Priam. Once the winds changed, the fleet set out. Since no one knew the way to Troy, however, the fleet landed to the south of Troy, in Mysia. Telephus—a son of Heracles and son-in-law of Priam, king of Troy—led a Mysian force that killed several of the Greeks. When Achilles—who would prove the greatest of all the Greek war heroes—wounded him, Telephus followed the Greeks back to Euboea, where he agreed to show the Greeks the way to Troy if Achilles cured him—but he refused to fight against his father-in-law's city (see Achilles: The Angry Young Hero ).

After getting underway again, Philoctetes—who as a boy had inherited Heracles' bow and arrows in return for lighting his funeral pyre (see The Labors of Heracles )—was bitten by a snake on an Aegean island. As one of Helen's ex-suitors, Philoctetes had brought seven shiploads of men to the service of Menelaus. But the stench of his wound and the sound of his agony caused his shipmates—at the urging of Odysseus—to abandon the renowned bowman on the island of Lemnos. The Long Siege of Troy Begins Before the Greek fleet landed at Troy (also called Ilium), Menelaus and the eloquent Odysseus went ahead to appeal to King Priam personally. Diplomacy might have prevailed, for Priam saw returning Helen and the Spartan gold as a way to avoid waging war with the impressive Greek fleet. But Priam's sons—he had 50, in addition to 12 daughters and at least 42 illegitimate children—called for war in defense of their brother.

They would have killed Menelaus and Odysseus on the spot, but Antenor, Priam's most respected councilor, would not allow them to risk angering the gods by so blatantly violating the laws of hospitality. An oracle had foretold that the first invader to set foot on Trojan soil would be the first Greek to die there. Only Protesilaus, commander of 40 ships from Thessaly, dared defy this oracle. Though he killed several Trojans in this first attack, Protesilaus was indeed the first Greek to fall. Logos The name “Protesilaus”—derived from “protos” (first) and “hallomai” (jump)—means “first to jump ashore.” Unless his parents were seers, the meaning of the name suggests that mythmakers created the character simply in order to fit the story element. Rather than mount a direct attack on the formidable fortress of Troy, the Greeks set out to destroy the surrounding towns and cities that supplied the city with both provisions and aid. The Greeks used their victories over these outlying regions not merely to cut off supplies to Troy, but to plunder food and provisions for their own armies.

In the course of this nine-year campaign to isolate Troy, the Greek conquerors committed many atrocities in the towns they seized. To satisfy their greed, they looted the surrounding towns of anything they could carry; to serve their lust, they raped and enslaved the women of Phrygia (the large area of Asia Minor in which Troy was situated). Heroes of the Battlefield Despite considerable bloodshed and the less-than-noble deeds of the victors, the war also allowed many Greeks—and many Trojans as well—to display their considerable heroism. Even the gods and goddesses got involved in the conflict. Though Zeus forbade the immortals from intervening, most nonetheless lined up on one side or the other: Aphrodite, chosen by Paris as the fairest of goddesses, naturally sided with the Trojans. So did Artemis and her brother Apollo. Hera and Athena, offended by the judgment of Paris, favored the Greeks, as did Poseidon, Hermes, and Hephaestus. Ares, who simply thirsted for battle and bloodshed, fought on both sides. Only Zeus, Hades, Demeter, and Hestia remained neutral throughout the war. Among the mortals, heroic and tragic figures abounded.

In addition to Paris, Menelaus, and Agamemnon, heroes of note were: Read All About It Homer's epic, The Iliad, focuses on the events of 50 days near the end of the Trojan War, and ends just after the death of Hector. A more comprehensive summary of all 10 years can be found in books 3 through 5 of Apollodorus's Epitome. Achilles. The greatest of Greek warriors, the nearly invulnerable Achilles killed countless Trojans in battle. Achilles proved irreplaceable on the battlefield. When Agamemnon stole away his concubine, Achilles was so offended that he quit the battlefield. The Greeks, who started to suffer serious losses, felt Achilles' absence keenly. Patroclus, the squire, best friend, and lover of Achilles—horrified at the sight of Trojans attacking the beached Greek ships—asked to borrow Achilles' armor. Though he was no Achilles, Patroclus inflicted great damage on the Trojans. (For a more detailed account of the heroics of Achilles, see Achilles: The Angry Young Hero .) Hector.

The eldest son of King Priam, Hector proved himself the mightiest of Trojan warriors. Noble and courageous, Hector repeatedly showed his mettle on the battlefield. It was he who killed the first Greek, Protesilaus. Late in the war, Hector insisted that Paris—who after nine years offered to give back the treasure, but still refused to give up Helen—meet Menelaus in one-on-one combat to decide the issue once and for all. This might have ended the war a year earlier—and at far less cost to the Trojans—but before Menelaus could kill him, Aphrodite spirited Paris away. Hector also killed Patroclus, which proved his undoing. Achilles returned to the battlefield in a fury, killing dozens of Trojans, including Hector. After the Greeks returned the body, both sides called an 11-day truce in order to mourn the greatest of Trojan heroes. Diomedes. A hero of Argos, Diomedes—who led 80 ships from Argos and its surrounding cities—was second only to Achilles among Greek warriors. In addition to killing many Trojans, Diomedes even wounded two gods: Aphrodite and Ares.

The war god, who never really distinguished himself in battle, suffered so badly from his wound that his screams equaled that of 10,000 men. Odysseus. Renowned for his cleverness, Odysseus often teamed up with the daring Diomedes—and not always purely for the greater good of the Greeks. For example, when the pair captured Dolon, a Trojan spying on the Greek camps, they forced him to reveal the layout of the Trojan camp—which no doubt helped the Greek troops—but also listened attentively when Dolon told them they would reap rich rewards if they captured Rhesus, king of Thrace—and then directed them to his camp. After killing the sniveling spy, Odysseus and Diomedes stole into the camp, killed Rhesus and 12 of his men in their sleep, and helped themselves to his valuable horses. Odysseus and Diomedes also joined in a more heinous conspiracy: engineering the murder of Palamedes, who before the war had tricked Odysseus into revealing his sanity and therefore joining the Greek forces. Odysseus nursed his hatred for Palamedes for many years.

While camped outside of Troy, Odysseus buried some gold under the tent of Palamedes. He then forged a letter from Priam promising Palamedes gold if he betrayed the Greeks. When the letter and gold were “discovered,” Agamemnon ordered the Greek troops to stone the “traitor” to death. (For more of the adventures of Odysseus, see All's Not Fair in Love and War: The Fall of Troy .) Ajax of Salamis. The son of Periboea and Telamon, who had captured Troy with Heracles more than a generation earlier, Ajax led 12 ships from Salamis. The tallest of all the warriors, Ajax was an imposing figure on the battlefield. At one point, he met Hector in one-on-one combat and fought to a draw. After the fight, the two combatants showed their respect for each other by exchanging gifts: Ajax gave Hector his belt, while the Trojan gave him a sword. Teucer. Another son of Telamon (by Hesione), Teucer was the best of all Greek archers—at least until the Greeks summoned Philoctetes. He often fought from behind the shield of his half-brother Ajax.

Teucer would dart out to the side, shoot an arrow or two, then quickly duck back behind the shield. If Zeus had not broken his bowstring, Teucer would have slain Hector long before Achilles did. Ajax of Locris. The leader of 40 ships from Locris, the “lesser” Ajax was adept with a spear and second only to Achilles in swiftness. He became an inseparable ally of Ajax of Salamis, often fighting side by side with the “greater” Ajax. Aeneas. A Trojan prince, related to Priam but not one of his sons, Aeneas fought with valor. When he was wounded, his mother Aphrodite quickly rescued him (though Diomedes wounded her), and Artemis and Leto healed him. One of the few fighters on the Trojan side to survive the war, Aeneas led several other survivors to a new home in Italy, where the Romans claimed him as the ancestor of their first emperors. Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Classical Mythology © 2004 by Kevin Osborn and Dana L. Burgess, Ph.D..

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. To order this book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website or call 1-800-253-6476. You can also purchase this book at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble . About Helen of Troy About Helen of Troy Robert E. Bell H elen of Sparta was perhaps the most inspired character in all literature, ancient or modern. A whole war, one which lasted for ten years, was fought over her. Not only that, nearly all the myths of the heroic age were threaded together in such a way that this most idealized of all wars was the culmination of various exploits, including the Argonaut, the Theban wars, and the Calydonian boar hunt. It is as though this event was in the destiny of every dynasty formed from the beginning of things. 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. It is difficult to imagine the childhood of the famous egg-born quartet. Two of them could be injured, perhaps, but not fatally; two had special gifts that made them physically and mentally superior. Apparently there was no jealousy among them. Castor and Polydeuces were so closely attached they swore to die together, even if Polydeuces could not hope to fulfill this resolve. The relationship between Helen and Clytemnestra was not so simple. Helen was stunningly beautiful, and this must have caused Clytemnestra some wistful moments when inevitable comparisons were made. When the sisters reached puberty, Helen was kidnapped. Both the aging Theseus, king of Athens, and his friend Peirithous, king of Larissa, wanted to have sex with one of Zeus' daughters before they died. Theseus chose Helen, whose remarkable beauty was already talked of far and wide. The abductors took her to Aphidna, a small city north of Athens, and left her in the safekeeping of one of Theseus' vassals. He put his mother, Aethra, with her as a guardian and companion.

Inevitably, stories arose that Theseus took her into safekeeping to do Tyndarcus a favor. One of Tyndarcus' nephews was persistently pursuing her as a suitor, even at her very young age. Another story said the sons of Apharcus, Idas and Lynceus, stole her, which caused the famous fatal battle between them and the Dioscuri. There can be little question that Theseus took Helens virginity. After all, that was the object of the kidnapping. Some suppose that he planned to keep her intact until she reached marriageable age. But the more realistic writers even gave the couple a child. Interestingly, but improbably, the child was Iphigeneia. We cannot know how long Helen was at Aphidna. Theseus had accomplished his goal, so he left her and went with Peirithous to Hades to steal Persephone. This was foolhardy as it turned out, for both were imprisoned, Peirithous forever. The Dioscuri meanwhile raised an army and marched on Athens. The Athenians knew nothing of the outrage to their sister, but one Academus had knowledge of the facts and revealed the hiding place.

The brothers razed Aphidna and delivered Helen, whom they carried home to Sparta, along with Aethra and Peirithous' sister as personal slaves to their sister. Clytemnestra married during this time, first to Tantalus, son of Thyestes, and later to Agamemnon, who killed Tantalus. If Helen did bring a baby back from Aphidna, it made good sense for Clytemnestra to adopt it, since Helen was still considered a virgin. If the child was Iphigeneia, some of the drama of sacrifice at Aulis would be diminished, and Clytemnestra's revenge motive would not be as strong. It is probably best to go with the common story that Helen had no child by Theseus and that Iphigeneia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Upon Helen's return to Sparta, an avalanche of suitors started to arrive. It would be interesting to explore the dynamics of this mass courting. Every red-blooded male in Greece who had heard of the gorgeous Helen dreamed of possessing her. But acting on such ambition had a price tag.

One had to be able to afford an impressive appearance, complete with attendants, gifts, and other evidence of affluency. It must be pointed out that the suitors were really wooing Tyndarcus, not Helen. Their expense was nothing to what the process cost the father. The suitors and their attendants had to be lodged and entertained, and the laws of hospitality probably did not allow for limits on the duration of one's stay. The roll call of suitors shows that they came from all parts of Greece and represented the finest stock of heroes and heirs to property and wealth.

They were Odysseus, son of Laertes; Diomedes, son of Tydeus; Antilochus, son of Nestor; Agapenor, son of Ancaeus; Sthenelus, son of Capaneus; Amphimachus, son of Cteatus; Thalpius, son of Eurytus; Meges, son of Phyleus; Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus; Menestheus, son of Peteos; Schedius and Epistrophus, sons of Iphitus; Polyxenus, son of Agasthenes; Peneleus, son of Hippalcimus; Leitus, son of Alector; Ajax, son of Oileus; Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares; Elephenor, son of Chalcodon; Eumelus, son of Admetus; Polypoetes, son of Peirithous; Leonteus, son of Coronus; Podaleirius and Machaon, sons of Asclepius; Philoctetes, son of Poeas; Eurypylus, son of Euaemon; Protesilaus

 and Podarces, sons of Iphiclus; Menelaus, son of Pleisthenes (or Atreus); Ajax and Teucer, sons of Telamon; Patroclus, son of Menoetius; and Idomeneus, son of Deucalion.

There were other lists, of course, with considerable variation in the names. In later years it was probably socially advantageous for one to be able to claim an ancestor who had been one of Helens suitors, in much the way descendants of the Argonauts could probably have filled three ships with their ancestors. It is interesting to learn that some of the suitors did not appear in person but sent representatives with offers of handsome dowries. Ajax the Greater promised considerable property, some of it not his own but to be acquired if he was chosen. Odysseus took no gifts, not expecting to win. Idomeneus of Crete appeared in person, depending on his extraordinary good looks to overcome the competition. Tyndareus was at a loss as to how to proceed, because he feared reprisal from the unsuccessful. Happy to settle for Tyndareus' niece, the wily Odysseus offered a solution in exchange for Penelope, a match Tyndareus was able to arrange with his brother Icarius.

Odysseus suggested that each suitor swear an oath to stand behind whomever Tyndarcus selected and be ready at any time in the future to defend the favored bridegroom against any wrong done to him in respect to the marriage. Everyone agreed to these terms, and Tyndareus promptly chose Menelaus, whom he had probably had in mind all along. It may be important to realize that Helen really had little say-so in this arrangement. Menelaus was a political choice on her father's part. He had wealth and power, mainly through his brother Agamemnon, but for Helen he did not offer the good looks and glamor of some of her other suitors. It was her lot to grace the palace and the kingdom Menelaus soon inherited. She gave birth to Hermione, Aethiolas, Maraphius, and Pleisthenes, and, according to some, Nicostratus, although many claimed he and Megapenthes were the sons of Menelaus by Pieris, a slave.

In that case, we can took at an additional reason for her own infidelity: (She had no way of knowing about another amorous adventure Menelaus was having in Crete during the time he was attending his grandfather's funeral.) According to some writers, Sparta experienced a plague during the early years of their marriage, and Menelaus was advised by an oracle to go to Troy to observe propitiatory rites at the graves of Lycus and Chimaereus, sons of Prometheus, who were buried there. Menelaus did so and was accompanied on his return by Paris, who had accidentally killed his best friend in an athletic contest and needed purification. The two arrived in Sparta, and during the several days necessary for the purification ceremony, Paris had many opportunities to see the gorgeous woman who had been promised to him. About the time the absolution was completed, Menelaus had to leave unexpectedly for Crete to attend funeral ceremonies for his grandfather Catreus. Ingenuously he left the handsome visitor to be entertained by his wife. Helen had been utterly charmed by the stranger.

He was by nature already handsome, but Aphrodite, as if to guarantee the success of her project, had made him even more irresistibly beautiful. In addition, he possessed manners and charm, and it was impossible for Helen not to fall in love with this superb young man. He, of course, had fallen under her spell the instant he laid eyes on her. Menelaus had not been gone long before the lovers departed. Some say they left the very next night, but some preparation must have been necessary. Paris had his own ship, and certainly he had retainers with him befitting his royal status. Helen required her own attendants, who included Aethra, the mother of Theseus; Thisadie, sister of Peirithous; and Astyanassa, Clymene, and Electra, servants. According to some reports, Paris helped himself to the royal treasury. It does not speak too well for Menelaus' authority that his security forces would have allowed this flagrant plundering. He must have left a considerable army behind when he went to Crete. It is likely Helen had a sufficiently large number of loyal subjects that she could come and go without question.

Undoubtedly many of the palace guards were secretly in love with her. Inevitably there were the stories that sought to make Helen look sinned against rather than sinning. According to these, she was taken by force. One silly version even suggested that Aphrodite deceived her by giving Paris the appearance of Menelaus. It was Aphrodite herself, though, who had pronounced a curse on Tyndarcus that his daughters Clytemnestra, Timandra, and Helen would be adulteresses, and she probably did not allow for such an excuse as involuntary adultery. At Gythium, the port of Sparta, they embarked after Paris dedicated a sanctuary to Aphrodite Migonitis in appreciation for her assistance. They were barely under way before they stopped at the island of Cranae, still within view of Gythium. So far the couple had not been to bed together, even though there was ample opportunity after Menelaus left. Perhaps Paris felt comfortable in robbing the treasury of his host but not further violating the code of hospitality by sleeping with his wife in his own house. For some similar moral reason, Helen may have held him off until they had left the mainland.

Or maybe it made good sense to erect the sanctuary at Gythium to Aphrodite, who might otherwise give them trouble at a later time. Paris could have had in mind to make for Onugnathus, farther down the Laconian Gulf and more or less out of immediate range of any pursuers, but biological urgencies probably forced him to cast anchor immediately. The consummation stuns the imagination. What a sublime moment for Paris, who now lay with the most desired woman in the entire world. Undoubtedly his passion was heightened by Aphrodite, who must have considered this her most inspired achievement. As for Helen, there could have been a bittersweet response to the great moment. Until then she had experienced sex with only the aging Theseus and the prosaic Menelaus. This virile young man must have given her bliss she had not imagined, but certainly the shadow of her infidelity and the abandonment of her children must have cast itself across the love couch. The trip thereafter has been variously described. The temptation to embroider on the already rich tapestry was too strong to resist. The ship went to Egypt and Phoenicia.

According to one account, Proteus, king in Egypt, took Helen from Paris and gave him a phantom image of her, restoring the real Helen to Menelaus on his return from Troy. This inane account would then make the Trojan War a total mockery. Another similarly tiresome account had Paris robbing the king of Sidon, who had offered the party hospitality on their way up the coast. Already disgraced in most eyes, Paris would then have been little more than a pirate. Whatever minor adventures befell them, the company came at last to Troy. The Trojans, even those who had criticized the rashness of Priams son, could only marvel at the divine beauty who stepped off the ship. A wedding ceremony took place, and it was as though Helen was marrying Troy, since her destiny became at that moment interlocked with the destiny of the city. Even Priam was fully won over and vowed to protect her as long as she wanted to remain. The lovers had barely left Sparta before couriers were running swiftly to all parts of Greece. The unthinkable had happened. Menelaus came swiftly back from Crete, where his loitering with a nymph had allowed the elopers ample time to outdistance any possible pursuit.

Agamemnon was furious. Not only was his family dishonored, but he took the insult almost personally. One suspects he himself was in love with his sister-in-law. Swift action was taken. Menelaus, Odysseus, and, according to some, Acamas, the son of Theseus, went to Troy to demand that Helen be returned. Incidentally, this above all would seem to silence the versions that had Paris and Helen taking months to reach Troy. Though counseled by such advisers as Antenor and Aeneas to surrender Helen, Priam stubbornly held to his promise to her. Moreover, he recalled the reverse situation when his sister Hesione had been kidnapped by Heracles and Telamon, and the Greeks had turned deaf ears to entreaties for her return. The envoys returned to Greece, and preparations for war began. The former suitors of Helen were reminded of the oath they had sworn. Armies were recruited and ships were built. Men who had been boys when Helen married came forward to enlist in a cause that the gods transported her to Elysium. This was the most fitting end of the story since Helen was, after all, immortal.

Consequently, Menelaus could scarcely have carried out his intention of killing her when he was reunited with her at Troy. Immortal or not, her physical remains and those of Menelaus were supposed to be buried at Therapne in a temple dedicated to them. Writers even followed her into the afterworld, where they had her marry Achilles, making him her fifth husband, following Theseus, Menelaus, Paris, and Deiphobus. From there she was even said to have blinded the poet Stesichorus for writing unflattering things about her; she restored his vision when he recanted and composed a poem in her praise. The most fascinating thing about Helen was her story. It was far better than she was. We do not see any real character development in her and have to regard her as a pawn of the gods. The larger story is involved with the people around her, their rise and fall. She herself seemed almost oblivious to the horrors that surrounded her. She displayed very little emotion and no remorse. She seemed removed and largely unaffected by the outcome of the war. In most accounts of her final years she was not even made to pay for her part in the calamity that touched virtually every family in Greece.

It is small wonder some writers contrived alternative versions in which she was made to pay a debt to society. From Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. Copyright � 1991 by Robert E. Bell. Jean-Louis Back�s Did the Trojan War take place? We have little reason to doubt it, but we have little more to believe that it was the greatest conflict ever to have occurred. The Greeks however, thought that it was: before telling the story of the Peloponnesian War the historian Thucydides felt the need to establish a parallel between it and the Trojan War to emphasize the importance of his subject. With the passage of time these heroic exploits had entered the realm of legend, people were convinced that the gods had taken part, and history became myth. The Trojan War glows with a dark fire at the dawn of time as the unsurpassable model for all the wars that were to come. An extraordinary phenomenon must have an extraordinary cause. Did Homer think so? It is impossible to tell: his Iliad recounts only one episode in the conflict, the death of Hector, otherwise contenting itself with allusions or prophetic pronouncements.

One thing is clear: each time the contenders started negotiations, it was said that the Trojans would have to hand back 'Helen and the treasures'. The affair started with a woman being raped and a raid -- an act of brigands. Paris went off with plundered treasure, and a queen to boot. With Aphrodite's blessing, he made the queen his wife. But other bards, whose work has been lost, were not satisfied with such a humble explanation. They built up a cycle of epics telling the whole story of the war from the beginning. They described the origin of the affair ab ovo. They accepted that Zeus wanted to decimate the human race which had become too numerous, and posited a whole series of events: rivalry among three goddesses over an apple given 'to the most beautiful' by Eris (Discord); a verdict favouring Aphrodite pronounced by Paris, a Trojan prince brought up among shepherds; Paris being rewarded with the most beautiful woman ever seen. This woman, Helen, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda; as Zeus had disguised himself as a swan to seduce his beloved, Helen and her brothers the Dioscuri were born ab ovo -- from an egg.

This explication of the whole episode entails several difficulties. The main question is the extent to which Helen accepted the fate assigned to her. Did she act of her own free will? It was not long before people wondered if she had followed Paris voluntarily. It is an important distinction. In the first instance it could be said that she was the occasion of the war, which makes her no less odious; in the second she was responsible for the war, and could thus be hated as a scourge, and also condemned on moral grounds. Such condemnation became increasingly necessary in the eyes of the Greeks, who were developing a personal morality, but was ever less acceptable to those among them who saw Helen as a goddess. The immorality of religious myths shocked more than one right-thinking person in the fifth century BC. In some towns, Sparta in particular, there were temples to Helen, feasts of Helen and a cult of Helen, who figured as the protectress of adolescent girls and young married women. It would be shocking if elsewhere she had set an example of adultery. And the closer we go towards presenting the story in human terms, the closer we come to the unacceptable.

Aeschylus turned Helen into a being who was both abstract and divine, a sort of curse closely allied to the goddess Nemesis, -- who according to some traditions was her mother, and not Leda. But Euripides saw his heroine purely as a woman; he did not even accept the possible intervention of Aphrodite to inspire Helen with an irresistible passion. Hecabe says so very forcefully in the Troades: 'Paris was an extremely handsome man -- one look,/And your appetite became your Aphrodite. Why,/Men's lawless lusts are all called love' (v. 987, trans. Vellacott). How far is this psychological speech, which uses allegory, also an impious speech casting doubt on the existence of the gods? It is not easy to say.

In any case it is almost at the opposite pole from the chorus in Agamemnon where Aeschylus says of Helen that she is the Erinyes, the 'wife of tears' and 'the priest of Ate'; we are also a long way from the suggestion that Helen has a sort of divine mission, making her the instrument of fate: as it is expressed in Vellacott's translation, 'Was born that fit and fatal name/To glut the sea with spoil of ships' (Agamemnon 689). The virtual disappearance of the religious aspect of Helen that surrounded her with an aura of sacred terror laid her open to the most scathing insults. People expressed amazement that the Trojan War should have been fought over such an unimportant creature -- a woman -- adding that the woman in question had absolutely no value because she herself had no sense of her own dignity. A fine assortment of insults could easily be garnered from Euripides.

This tradition did not stop with him; at the height of the neoclassical period in Europe the name of Helen became a simple figure of speech, a metonym that could be used to designate any woman who was dangerous because she was flighty; in Schiller's Maria Stuart one of the queen's most persistent opponents can find no worse epithet for her than this: she is a Helen. Euripides was alive at the time when sophistry was born. No doubt he was as amused as anyone else by the idea of pleading lost causes. Gorgias and Isocrates each produced a eulogy of Helen. The tragic poet had shown them the way by putting a plea in the heroine's own mouth (Troades 903ff.). There is censure of the power of the gods, the origin of desire and the power of seduction: a suitable subject for rhetors whose prime concern it was to attract an audience. Or there is praise of beauty. From whatever angle it was approached it was not a comfortable morality: was it possible for a woman who was perfectly beautiful to be corrupt and vile? A philosophical dimension loomed.

Homer was happy to concede that the Trojan populace felt ill-will towards Helen, but the finest Trojans, Priam, his advisers and Hector, found it impossible not to respect her. At one point in the Iliad (VI.358) a strange complicity is established between Helen and Hector, both of them unhappy, but sure that they will for ever be celebrated by poets. Homer's successors never tired of pondering a parallel between Helen and Achilles. One of the poets of the epic cycle had proposed a meeting between the most beautiful daughter of Zeus and the most valiant of heroes. Much later it was imagined that these two marvellous beings were united beyond death on the fabled Isles of the Blessed. But Euripides had already pointed out (Helen 99) that Achilles had been prominent among Helen's suitors, and that the Trojan War had been envisaged also with a view to allowing Achilles to distinguish himself (op. cit., 1. 41); moreover the apple of Discord, the origin of the whole affair, had been produced on the occasion of the wedding of Thetis and Peteus, Achilles' parents-to-be.

Paradoxically the concern to elevate Helen from the realm of sordid anecdote and restore her to an epic role, was to have the effect of casting doubt on the epic itself. Since it was vital that beautiful Helen should be virtuous, it was claimed that she had never been in Troy, that Zeus had put a phantom in her place or that a king of Egypt had snatched her from Paris to protect her. The second version, which was known to Herodotus, has had a long life: it can be found in the novel Kassandra (1983) by Christa Wolf. Wolf imagines that the Trojans pretended Helen was within their walls so as not to lose face. The first version also effectively makes Helen an object of derision, and again presents in an exaggerated form the bitter judgement so often repeated -- a woman was not a worthwhile cause for people to kill one another. Yet this was not the point of view expressed by Euripides, the poet supposed to hate women, in his tragedy Helen.

Not only does he depict her character in the same touching, majestic light as his Alcestis or his Polyxena (in Hecabe), he even extends the study of the sufferings of misrepresented innocence to a tragic interrogation of the identity of the person: Helen is a woman who has been robbed of her very name and face. Saved because the gods finally proclaim the truth, she can rejoin or at least expect to rejoin the pleasant atmosphere of the feasts in Sparta (I. 141ff.), the young girls dancing and the husband towards whom she was led with songs. Writing his 'Epithalamion of Helen' (Idylls 18) more than two centuries after Euripides, Theocritus did not even mention the Trojan War. No doubt he bore in mind that according to a tradition relayed by Plato (Phaedrus 243a) the poet Stesichorus had been blinded by the gods for speaking ill of Helen, recovering his sight only after reciting the Palinode (a recantation).

It is impossible to know which of the two traditions Euripides was more committed to, that which he followed in his Helen or the other which is evident in the rest of his plays, where he attacks her as fickle, flirtatious and brazen. We can only note that other heroic characters were also depicted by Euripides in a none too favourable light: wily Odysseus, for example, whose wisdom and ability to confront the most disconcerting situations unperturbed were described by Homer with admiration, tends to become an unscrupulous sophist who loves traps and machinations. If Hecabe reproaches Helen, she does not spare Odysseus. Reading the great tragedies that conjure up the fall of Troy (Traodes, Hecabe and to some extent Andromache as well) we get the impression that the judicious balance that Homer's epic poems preserved between the two opposing sides has been upset, and certainly not in favour of the victors. The legend also became degraded. Once seen as a divine scourge, Helen was now regarded as a hateful woman.

She was the butt of obscene jokes even in Euripides' day (the Cyclops), a tradition that was continued in Horace, Jean de Meung, Hofmannswaldau, and Meilhac and Hal�vy. Others merely adopted a light, frivolous, scornful tone when writing about her. [. . . .] The forms in which this myth is expressed are so diverse that it is hard to determine its invariables. How could we justify censuring those poets for whom Helen is perfectly and impudently at ease with her conscience, always supposing she has one? All the same, Helen is cast with remarkable frequency as a burdened soul who finds it hard to recognize her own identity, in the work of both those who stick to the Trojan version and those who adopt the Egyptian variant. One of the first times he mentions Helen Homer speaks of her 'sobs'. And the distress of the innocent Helen in Euripides' play is immense. Beside this motif there is another: Helen is par excellence the woman carried off by a stranger.

Abducted by Theseus, then by Paris, recaptured by her brothers, then by her husband, snatched from Paris by an Egyptian king, then from the son of that king by Menelaus, taken off by Simon Magus, then by Faust, sent to the heavens or to the Isles of the Blessed: is Helen the mistress of her fate? It will be remembered that in Troades Helen is 'held prisoner with all the women taken in Troy' (1, 872). She is imprisoned like Hecabe, Andromache and Cassandra. For the film he produced in 1971 Cacoyannis had a cage built in which Helen was discovered, and suddenly booed. And in the plea she makes, however sophistical it may be, the reviled princess claim that her time spent in Troy has always been to her a period of captivity. Morality and psychology would lead one to expect many subtle differences in the relationships between the characters. Euripides, for example, organized his tragedy round a conflict between Helen and Hecabe, and Tennyson made his poem a complaint levelled at Helen by Iphigenia.

Beyond these incontrovertible specific aspects, however, one feature remains: of all the heroic chronicles that have attained the status of myth, the saga of Troy is perhaps the one in which the roles played by women were most developed. From the mourning lament in Book XXIV of the Iliad to Christa Wolf's Kassandra, taking in the highly original adaptation by Jean-Paul Sartre of Troades, a veiled figure stands over the corpses, a pitiful victim left to her fate. When the warriors have perished, the women will be dragged far away from their land to the houses of new masters. The epic of Troy tells us that a city can die. Homer finishes the Iliad with a lament. Standing beside Hector's body Helen speaks to him, thanking him for never having insulted her. She is not afraid to compare their misfortunes; there are sensitive feelings that the old myth, facing darkness, may neglect: '. . .these tears of sorrow that I shed are both for you and for my miserable self. No one else is left. . .'. Excerpted from a longer essay in Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes, and Archetypes. Ed. Pierre Brunel.

Copyright � 1996 by Routledge. Summary/Reviews: Helen of Troy / Helen of Troy / No Tags, Be the first to tag this record! Saved in: Staff View SUMMARY A lush, seductive novel of the legendary beauty whose face launched a thousand ships Daughter of a god, wife of a king, prize of antiquitys bloodiest war, Helen of Troy has inspired artists for millennia. Now Margaret George, the highly acclaimed bestselling historical novelist, has turned her intelligent, perceptive eye to the myth that is Helen of Troy.Margaret George breathes new life into the great Homeric tale by having Helen narrate her own story. Through her eyes and in her voice, we experience the young Helens discovery of her divine origin and her terrifying beauty. While hardly more than a girl, Helen married the remote Spartan king Menelaus and bore him a daughter. By the age of twenty, the worlds most beautiful woman was resigned to a passionless marriageuntil she encountered the handsome Trojan prince Paris.

And once the lovers flee to Troy, war, murder, and tragedy become inevitable.In Helen of Troy, Margaret George has captured a timeless legend in a mesmerizing tale of a woman whose life was destined to create strifeand destroy civilizations. Review by Booklist Review When Helen of Sparta is seven years old, the sibyl at Delphi prophesies she will start a war in which many Greeks will die. King Tyndareus and Queen Leda, stricken with panic, keep their younger daughter in seclusion, discouraging rumors that Zeus is her real father. To marry her off quickly, they spread word that Helen is the most beautiful woman in the world. But because Helen fails to invoke Aphrodite when choosing a husband, her marriage to Menelaus of Mycenae is passionless. The fickle goddess finally hears Helen's pleas, yet Aphrodite's powers affect only Paris, a visiting Trojan prince, with whom Helen immediately falls in love. When the pair elopes one night to Paris' affluent homeland, it precipitates a war destined to last 20 years, one that Menelaus' restless and greedy brother, Agamemnon, has been itching to fight.

Only George, reigning queen of the epic fictional biography, could render Helen's story with all the emotion, grandeur, and tragedy it deserves. Her characters are precisely crafted, and the lovely Helen, clear-eyed and intelligent, is a sympathetic narrator. Despite the novel's length, the pages practically turn themselves. An absorbing retelling of the classic Trojan War myth, and a sobering look at the utter futility of trying to change one's fate. --Sarah Johnson Copyright 2006 Booklist From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission. Review by Publisher's Weekly Review George (Mary, Called Magdalene) depicts with bravado, grace and eloquence the grand spectacle surrounding Helen of Troy. The author's research into Mycenaean culture, coupled with Trojan War mythology's larger-than-life heroes, enliven a bold story pulsing with romance and sacrifice, omens and battles. Helen's noble Spartan parents try to defy the fates when a seer foretells the tragedy Helen and her legendary beauty will cause, but, as the myth of Helen demonstrates, destiny cannot be altered.

Helen's years of seclusion in Sparta lead to a frigid marriage to Menelaus before she connects with Paris, the Trojan prince with whom she forges an inextricable bond. Barely into her 20s, Helen escapes with Paris to Troy, but finds the Trojan royals welcome her with less than open arms. The mythic war, which, in less capable hands, might be over-romanticized, is portrayed with an enthusiasm that rings true to the period without verging on stagy-no small feat when dealing with such a sweeping conflict. George's extraordinary storytelling abilities shine in her portrayal of Helen as both a conflicted woman who abandoned her homeland and child for true love, and as a legendary figure whose beauty and personal choices had epic consequences. (On sale Aug. 7) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved Review by Library Journal Review The story behind the face that launched a thousand ships, told from her perspective. From a noted biographer who has hopscotched from Mary Magdalene to Cleopatra to Henry VIII. (c) Copyright 2010.

Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. (c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. AUTHOR NOTES Helen of Troy ON THE INEFFICIENCY OF BEAUTY CONTESTS, & A SUGGESTION FOR THEIR MODERNIZATION David Lance Goines August 4, 1987 Rather than the subjective, whimsical evaluations that so often lead to dud Symbols of American Womanhood, (1) the modern beauty pageant should take a hint from the Ancient Greeks and that straightforward measure of feminine pulchritude represented by Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus and Leda, whose face ". . . launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium." (2) Here we have a useful, dispassionate, scientific measure of beauty: a "helen." One helen is sufficient good looks to launch one thousand ships, and to cause the destruction by fire of an entire city. The objective standards of Ship Launching and Arson may now be used to analyze feminine beauty.

SHIP LAUNCHING Just what is meant by "launched a thousand ships?" What kind of ships are we talking about here? How can we compare modern ships to ancient? The ships that carried the Wrath of Achilles to Troy had single banks of oars arranged symmetrically on either side, manned by up to fifty rowers. Such a vessel was called in Greek a penteconter and might have been 100 feet in length and about one-tenth that in the beam, having a displacement (3) of about 20 tons. (4) One thousand such ships makes 20,000 tons. By this measure, the woman who breaks a bottle of champagne over the prow of a ship of 20,000 tons displacement and so launches it, becomes the equal to Menelaus' wandering spouse. At least so far as maritime affairs are concerned. If an average-size woman were to do no more than launch herself--by getting into the bathtub, say-- she would automatically get credit for about .3 hundredths of a ship launching. Larger women would do a little better.

If ships launched were the sole measure of beauty, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower would emerge, without peer, as the most desirable of women. Marilyn Monroe would not even be in the running. The pyromaniacal inclinations of the toothsome Mamie and Eleanor were, however, imperceptible. They didn't even smoke. ARSON Arson as a measure of allure merits separate consideration. The capital of the tiny Trojan realm was the three villages of Dardania, Troy and Ilium merged into a single fortress on the mound of Hissarlik. The "topless towers of Ilium" may well have been a fair-sized walled city of perhaps as many as 12 acres, though it is more likely that it was a fortified palace not much larger than a ballroom. That the Troy of c. 1200 BC had a substantial population can be inferred from the offspring of the king alone. Priam was a mighty man who, in addition to the handsome Paris, sired on his two wives Arisba and Hecuba (5) forty-nine sons and twelve daughters.

By comparison, in 1871 Mrs O'Leary's home town was a city of some 300,000 souls and the land area devastated by her careless cow was 3-1/3 square miles: 17,450 buildings were destroyed, 100,000 people were rendered homeless and 250 lives were lost. A simple appraisal of torched acreage shows Mrs O'Leary to be 44 times more beautiful than Helen. In terms of speed, the Greeks needed ten years to defeat the Trojans and destroy their city; Chicago burned in only 27 hours. By this measure Mrs O'Leary is 3,244 times more beautiful than Helen. There is no record, however, of Mrs O'Leary causing any ships to be launched, though surely she must have bathed from time to time. By the measure of .3 hundredths of a ship per ablution, a wash every Saturday night would give her the equivalent of one ship launching every six and a half years. To equal the lubricous Helen, Mrs O'Leary would need to bathe once a week for six thousand five hundred years.

THE BEAUTIES COMPARED Although Mrs O'Leary edges out the fair Helen in the arson category, Helen's ship launchings add up faster than Mrs O'Leary's baths. When Paris carried off his prize, Helen was married to Menelaus. Menelaus was the brother of the powerful king Agamemnon, who went around to the princes of the country drumming up a war of revenge against the Trojans. He himself furnished 100 ships, and was chosen commander-in-chief of the combined forces. The assembled fleet at the port of Aulis in Boeotia awaited only a favorable wind. But Agamemnon had offended the goddess Artemis by slaying a hind sacred to her and by boasting himself a better hunter. As punishment, a total absence of wind prevented the fleet from departing, and the army was visited by plague. The seer Calchas announced that the anger of the goddess could only be appeased by the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigeneia. This accomplished, the fleet set sail, though not without some hard feelings on the part of Clytaemnestra, Iphigeneia's mother. All this took about a year.

This time factor makes Helen 6,500 times more beautiful than Mrs O'Leary. THE WINNER Comparing the values (Mrs O'Leary's arson factor of 3,288 against Helen's ship launching factor of 6,500) gives us Helen of Troy, selected by the goddess Aphrodite as the most beautiful woman in the world and still the champ, by a factor of just about two to one. Even after all these years, Helen remains twice as beautiful as her closest contender. Not every woman is hot enough to burn down a city. But taking up smoking, or cooking the evening meal will add up. Combined with regular bathing, every woman can be remembered as more beautiful. The table below will be of assistance: TABLE OF HELENS AND EQUIVALENTS HELENS Helen of Troy – Margaret George About the Book A lush, seductive novel of the legendary beauty whose face “launched a thousand ships” Daughter of a god, wife of a king, prize of antiquity’s bloodiest war, Helen of Troy has inspired artists for millennia. Now Margaret George, the highly acclaimed bestselling historical novelist, has turned her intelligent, perceptive eye to the myth that is Helen of Troy.

Margaret George breathes new life into the great Homeric tale by having Helen narrate her own story. Through her eyes and in her voice, we experience the young Helen’s discovery of her divine origin and her terrifying beauty. While hardly more than a girl, Helen married the remote Spartan king Menelaus and bore him a daughter. By the age of twenty, the world’s most beautiful woman was resigned to a passionless marriage—until she encountered the handsome Trojan prince Paris. And once the lovers flee to Troy, war, murder, and tragedy become inevitable. In Helen of Troy, Margaret George has captured a timeless legend in a mesmerizing tale of a woman whose life was destined to create strife—and destroy civilizations. Praise “Delicious.” – People “An impressive feat of research and imagination. It’s no mean trick to resurrect not only ancient Attic politics and lifestyles, but the atmosphere of a time in which the gods truly spoke.” – Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander “A feast. . . George leaves us with the most coveted prize of fiction: a world. . . we wished existed, and that thoroughly does between the covers.” – Chicago Tribune “Fresh and vivid.” – The Washington Post “What Ms.

George has created with this book is a great summer read: realistic characters, engaging plots and enough mythology and Homer to make it all interesting.” – The Dallas Morning News

Question: Whose face launched a thousand ships?
Answer: Helen's