Helen in the "Iliad" Reckford, Kenneth J Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1964; 5, 1; ProQuest pg. 5

Helen in the Iliad 
Kenneth J. Reckford 

THE COMPARATIVE METHOD in Homeric criticism raises more 
problems than it solves.! We have learned, and gratefully, how 
wrong it is to apply to Homer the concepts and criteria that we 

are accustomed to apply to written literature; we are beginning to 
understand how each performance, each song of Homer could be 
rooted in a long tradition and unique at the same time; and yet, there 
remains something frustrating in the results of the work of Milman 
Parry and his student, Albert Lord. Perhaps we feel baffled because 
we cannot, after Parry, exercise our accustomed intuition on a Homer­
ic formula or simile or theme; or perhaps we expected, somehow, 
to learn more about Homer than the comparative method was 
designed to permit. 

lOur questions about Homer have been given a new direction by the epoch-making work 
of Milman Parry (for whose bibliography see A. B. Lord, "Homer, Parry, and Huso," AJA 
52 (1948) 34-44). As discussed by Lord, op.cit., by J. A. Notopoulos, "Mnemosyne in Oral 
Literature," TAPA 69 (1938) 465-93, and by C. M. Bowra, "The Comparative Study ofHo­
mer," AJA 54 (1950) 184-92, the main contribution of the comparative method to Homeric 
criticism seems negative: we have learned not to read Homer as we would Vergil. But where 
do we go from here? On the one hand, E. Howald, Der Dichter der Ilias (Zurich 1946), and 
W. Schadewaldt, Von Homers Welt und Werk, ed. 3 (Stuttgart 1959), continue, with no men­
tion of Parry, to stress the excellence of certain very "Homeric" passages, like the farewell 
of Hector and Andromache; on the other hand, Parry's friend and disciple, A. B. Lord, 
seems unable in his lucid book, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass. 1960), to make any 
serious qualitative distinction between Homer's work and that of the most competent 
Serbian Singers of modern times; G. S. Kirk, The Songs of Homer (Cambridge, England 1962), 
gives no better account of Homer's originality (a misleading word, to be sure); and C. M. 
Bowra simply reviews the new ground rules (after Parry) in A. J. B. Wace and F. H. 
Stubbings, A Companion to Homer (London 1962). Only C. H. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic 
Tradition (Cambridge, Mass. 1958), seems adequately to pose the problem of modern Homer­
ic criticism. Seeking anew the unity of the Iliad, he finds its track "in the logic of imagery, 
in the consistency of poetic conception, and in the formal structure" (p. 2); or again, partly 
in character, partly in "its own unity of structure, textual or imagistic consistency, and the 
power or finesse of the development of formulaic speech" (p. 12). In his discussion of pre­
sentational symbolism (in chapter VI), Whitman justifies the artistic possibilities of oral 
epic; but Homer's uniqueness seems to remain more in his thought, which Whitman 
examines through the gods, Achilles' character, and supporting imagery. The present 
investigation moves inwards, from elements of the artistry of the Iliad towards the heroic 
idea at its center. 

5 



6 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

Since we cannot account for Homer's genius in any easy or mechani­
cal fashion, it remains for each critic to ask, from his arbitrarily chosen 
vantage point, the same basic question: what is the "Homeric con­
sciousness" and where can it be found? Having chosen Helen as a focal 
character for this investigation, I shall move from negative to positive: 
from the formulas and themes out of which the episodes involving 
Helen are constructed, to her personality, both as seen throughout the 
Iliad and as concentrated in her confrontation with Aphrodite in 
Book 3. 

I 
The two principal characteristics of oral composition are the singer's 

use of formulas and of themes. The first, whether they take the form 
of phrases, lines, or groups of lines, are his building blocks; some very 
stable through constant use, others less stable, or formed by analogy 
according to the dictates of metre, syntax, and the psychological 
moment. These formulas give the singer the security that makes 
possible the easy and regular flow of language so highly praised by 
Matthew Arnold. 

Most of the formulas used to describe Helen are generic and so, 
according to Parry, must not be thought to characterize her in partic­
ular.2 Her own radiance emanates from what she says and does, and 
not from a phrase like oia yvva£Kwv, which would suit any heroine in 
the nominative case at the end of an hexameter line. For Alcestis too is 
called oia yvva£Kwv; and so might any other heroine be called, just as 
any goddess may be referred to as oia 8Eawv, or any phrase may be 
"feathered," not because of its unusual burden of wit, but simply 
because it is undesirable to re-name the speaker. One cannot say, then, 
that such phrases as rEMvn AEVKWMvcp or the impressive t,dA'I'} xpvalT/ 

'AcppoStrn contribute to our understanding of Helen. To an "indiffer­
ent" audience they have lost all particular relevance, although a 
more general fragrance lingers-the fragrance of the godlike world of 
heroic action. The same restriction of meaning holds for Helen's dress, 
vEKTaplov €avov. In Parry's terms, the adjectives are merely functional 
and decorative, however much their use may reflect the unconscious 
assumption that every hero or heroine is somehow touched by divinity. 

2 The following discussion of Homer's epithets is based on M. Parry, L'Epithete traditio­
nelle dans Homere (Paris 1928) 118-20. 



... 

KENNETH J. RECKFORD 7 

More consciously, Homer seems aware that in descriptions, a little 
goes a long way. The most that is said directly of Helen is that "she is 
terribly like the immortal goddesses to look upon." If we compare a 
description of Hurrai in the Ugaritic epic of Kret,3 

Whose beauty is like Anath's beauty, 
whose loveliness is like Astarte's loveliness, 
whose brows are lapis lazuli, 
whose eyes are bowls of marble, 

we realize that no careful amassing of descriptive adjectives could 
match Homer's indirection of praise through the statement of the 
weary elders. This restraint and tact must be credited to Homer, not 
to his material. 

We must postpone consideration of the value of the formulas r EAEJJ7} 

. .::::hoS' ~"I'EYIXVLIX and rEAEJJ7}V EimIXTEpELIXV. Parry argues that these special 
epithets, like the generic epithets, have no particular significance in 
the poem. But although one cannot dispute what Parry calls their non­
particularity, one might still claim, after looking further at Helen 
and the scenes in which she appears, that these epithets become 
especially right in context, that the life in them is somehow 
renewed. 

Homer's themes are "elements of production" like the formulas 
and no more original. Lord defines them as "groups ofideas regularly 
used in telling a tale in the formulaic style of traditional song."4 Such 
would include the princess on the wall (Iliad 3.161-244), the princess 
seduced or recovered (3.383-447), the embassy and duel on her behalf 
(7.345-78), and the princess appealing to her brother and mourning 
for him dead (6.344-56, 24.762-75). Although there are scattered 
references to Helen throughout the Iliad, she appears principally in 
Books 3-7, a section largely devoted to the Trojan past, where the 
singer seems intentionally to relate the Achilles story to the larger 
context of the Trojan War and, at the same time, to surrender as 
usual to the attraction of a variety of traditional themes impinging 

3 The parallel between the rape of Helen and that of Hurrai in the Ugaritic Tale of Kret 
(not to mention the Hebrew "princess" Sara) is discussed by C. H. Gordon, Before the Bible 
(New York 1962), especially pp. 142-43, 270. The motif is quite ordinary (see Kirk, op.cit. 
[supra n.1] 107); what seems important is the difference between the women concerned. 

4 See Lord, op.cit. (supra n.l) 68, 72-73. 



8 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

upon his attention.5 His control and manipulation of these themes, 
whatever their inspiration, is a great part of his total achievement. 

Take for example some obvious Ur-Helens. There is the princess on 
the wall, apparently a common figure in the complex tradition of 
Oriental siege-stories.6 Menelaus was not the first hero to besiege a 
town and regain a wife. The ritual nature of Priam's questioning and 
Helen's answering in 3.161-244 suggests that the recognition of her 
former kinsmen (friends, suitors) by the princess on the wall may 
customarily have preceded her recovery. Helen's seduction by 
Aphrodite and Paris is surely also a reflection, be it of the rape of the 
princess, or of her recovery by husband or lover, whether through 
disguise and trickery (here transferred to Aphrodite), or through the 
formalities of embassy and duel. More familiar to the English-speak­
ing world, through the English and Scottish border ballads, are the 
traditional themes reflected in Books 6 and 24, the attempt of mother, 
sister and wife to stay the hero from his fated purpose, and the mourn­
ing of the dead hero by the same female group.7 In both scenes involv­
ing Hector, Helen replaces the more usual sister. The folk-tale quality 
of both scenes betrays their antiquity, the threefold pattern of appeal, 
refusal, and redirection in Book 6, and the threefold lament in Book 
24.8 

5 Cf J. A. Notopoulos, "Continuity and Interconnexion in Composition," TAPA 82 (1951) 
91-95, on the use of retrospection to tie the present to the past, to stimulate the memories 
of the audience, and to help characterization; also G. E. Duckworth, Foreshadowing and 
Suspense in the Epics of Homer, Apol!onius, and Vergil (Princeton 1933) 66, on the dramatic 
uses of retardation. On the unconscious side, Lord, op.cit. (supra n.l) 94, argues that "the 
theme in oral poetry exists at one and the same time for itself and for the whole song," and 
that (p. 97) a familiar theme may be displaced from its usual setting and "submerged," 
rising elsewhere in the story. 

41 T. B. L. Webster, From Mycenae to Homer (London 1958) 58-59, notes that the storming of 
a citadel is portrayed on a silver vase from the shaft-graves (S.G. pI. 122) and on fragments of 
fourteenth century frescoes of the Megaron at Mycenae. He suggests (p. 61) that the Myce­
naeans borrowed the story from the Minoans, mixing history and legend. For the Oriental 
recovered bride of legend, he cites (p. 86; and see supra n.3) the Ugaritic Kret, who besieged 
a town and recovered a wife (not necessarily the one lost). The storming of the Achaean 
wall in the Iliad, Webster argues (pp. 252-53), recalls a successful siege. 

7 Professor A. P. Hudson kindly referred me to "The Braes of Yarrow" (the plea to the 
lover) and "Bonnie James Campbell" (the lament) in H. C. Sargent and G. L. Kittredge, 
English and Scottish Border Ballads (Boston 1904) nos. 210 and 214 (only the wife appears in the 
former poem). 

8 G. M. Calhoun, "Homer's Gods-Myth and Marchen," AJP 60 (1939) 19, notes the use of 
the triad as a folk-motif; but Webster (supra n.6) 250, may be right in suggesting that "the 
rising ride of womanly affection" which surrounds Hector was influenced by the Meleager 



KENNETH J. RECKFORD 9 

What in these traditional scenes can be called "Homeric"? On the 
simplest level, their complex elaboration reveals an experienced and 
gifted singer. Consider the threefold appeal to Hector. Its basic struc­
ture is obvious:9 

Appeal by mother (245-62), refusal of appeal (264-68), redirection 
of mother (269-79); 

Appeal by sister (344-58), refusal of appeal (360-62), redirection 
of sister (363-64); 

Appeal by wife (407-39), refusal of appeal (440-65, 486-89), re-
direction of wife (490-93). 

Within this ready framework the singer has included character con­
trast (Paris-Helen and Hector-Andromache), deceived hope and faith 
(the appeal to Athena), foreboding and premature lamentation, and 
an unequalled symbolic juxtaposition of love and honor, war and 
peace (the babe, the helmet, the farewell to Andromache). By con­
trasting this last Farewell with the relatively incomplete first two, and 
all three with their simple folk-tale origin, we gain a partial measure of 
Homer's achievement.1o 

Unelaborated, these themes would have been epic common-places; 
elaborated without restraint, they would have been inartistic. But 
Homer exercises control. Every theme is psychologically in place. 
The poet may not have cared about time; but if Helen surveys the 
Greek forces in the tenth year of the war, it is because the absence of 
Achilles permits a respite not otherwise possible. Like the truce it­
self, the spears fixed in the earth, the duel of Paris and Menelaus, and 
the building of the wall and ditch, the View from the Gate has been 
transferred from the first year of a short war to a significant moment 
in a long one.H Far from being logically incongruous, the static picture 

story. If so, a plea to go into battle (see Howald, op.cit. [supra n.1], 118ft") would ironically be 
replaced by a plea not to go into battle. 

9 Compare a pattern of entrance-rebuking-redirection in the Odyssey discussed by Lord, 
op.cit. (supra n.l) 170. 

10 To see Homer against this folk-background may be speculative, but to measure him 
against hypothetical reconstructions of earlier songs is too narrowing. Thus W. Schade­
waldt, op.cit. (supra n.1) 171, derives Achilles' weapons from Memnon's, but there is no 
reason why Memnon should have possessed the only special shield before Achilles. 

11 D. L. Page, History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley 1959) 316-21, is troubled by the wall 
built in the tenth year (cf Thucyd. 1.11). But Homer's wall-building, like the other events 
in Books 3-7, recalls earlier years; as well, it is related psychologically to Achilles' with­
drawal, as he himself points out in 9.348-55. Perhaps Thucydides sensed that the building 
of the wall in the tenth year reflected an earlier time. 



10 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

has ironic value, since it reflects a delusion that the first part of the 
Plan of Zeus might reach permanence. So, too, the duel of Paris and 
Menelaus and the "seduction" of Helen depend upon the false equilib­
rium temporarily provided by Achilles' absence. The duel will be 
unavailing, the truce abortive, the wall insufficient. The transfer of 
Helen once more to the bed of Paris marks the failure of peace hopes 
just as decisively as the breaking of Paris' chin-strap in the hands of 
Menelaus. 

Less obvious signs of the control exercised by Homer are his subor­
dination and transference of themes. Helen's rape has become the 
very paradigm of bride-stealing, but there were other Lochinvars 
before Paris. Not surprisingly, then, this entertaining theme dominates 
Homer's Trojan epic-but not in the form of stealing Helen. There are, 
to be sure, scattered references to Paris' theft of Helen and her formu­
laically accompanying Knl/-,CXTCX.12 Menelaus emphasizes the idea of 
vengeance (Ttvw, TlaL<;) in an appeal to Zeus Xenios which is ignored, at 
least temporarily, for the sake of Achilles' TL/-,~. Hector's criticism of 
Paris, and Helen's reproaches to her lover and to herself, show how 
much, in their minds, the initial wrong of violated hospitality has 
been compounded by the lovers' responsibility for the Trojan War. 
Generally, however, this particular instance of bride-stealing has been 
relegated to the background, while the theme itself is transferred to 
the central story of Achilles.I3 It is now the "bedmate," Briseis, who is 
stolen, and payment for her is exacted in the form of Agamemnon's 
repentance and Zeus-sent honor for Achilles. The comparison 
between Helen's rape and that ofBriseis is felt strongly throughout the 
lliad.14 At one point Achilles even makes it explicit (9.335-43): 

A \" ~ A • A~'" , 'A A TOLaL /-,EV E/-,TrEOCX KELTCXt, E/-,EV 0 CXTrO /-,OVVOV XCXtWV 
"\ ." ~,"\ (J , A , 

ELI\ET J EXeL ° CXI\OXOV V/-,CXPECX' TT}t TrCXptCXVwv 

TEpTr€a(Jw. Tt Se SE' TrOAE/-,'{€/-,EVCXt Tpweaaw 
'A I I ~ \ \ , • I , (J I~" , PYELOV<;; TL OE I\CXOV CXVYJYCXYEV EV cxo CXYELpCX<; 

11 References to Helen (and Paris) as causing the war are: 2.160-62, 355-56, 3.351-54, 
365-68, 5.59-68, 19.324-25, and 24.28-30 (the choice of Paris) .. 

18 Thus Lord, op.cit., (supra n.1) 190, says, "The pattern of the wrath is really a pattern of 
bride-stealing and rescue." C. M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (London 1952) 316-21, shows how 
different versions of a story may be used as separate episodes (doubling of themes) or com­
bined in the same poem, for events may be detached from one character and connected 
with another. 

Ie Note that Briseis is kept against Nestor's advice (9.107-8), as is Helen against Antenor's; 
and Patrodus' kindness to Briseis (19.287-300) resembles Hector's to Helen (24.762-75). 



KENNETH J. RECKFORD 

'ATP€LOYJS; 1j oVX <EAEVYJS ~V€K' ~VK0I-'Oto; 
'i1 fLoDvot cptMovu' aAoxovs fL€P07TWV av(JpcfJ7Twv 
'ATp€LOat; 

11 

Characteristic of the Iliad is the tragic turn that the vengeance takes. 
In simpler narratives, as reflected in the Iliupersis and Little Iliad, the 
stolen bride was returned and peace thus concluded.15 In the Iliad, 
Helen is not restored. All attempts to return her and the possessions 
prove futile. In Iliad 3 she is "returned," ironically, to Paris' bed. 
Briseis, her counterpart, is restored to Achilles untouched, but her 
restoration is powerless to soften Achilles' wrath or to ward off the 
destruction threatening Achaeans and Trojans alike. 

The theme of the embassy undergoes a similar development. There 
are various references to the mission of Odysseus and Menelaus to 
win Helen back and its frustration by Paris' bribing of certain Trojans.I6 

So strong, however, is the attraction of this "submerged" theme for 
the poet of the Iliad that he introduces it anew into Book 7, where 
Antenor's proposal to return Helen and the possessions is challenged 
by Paris CIfyou're serious the gods have destroyed your wits!") and 
tacitly refused by Priam. The bareness of detail in this scene suggests 
its antiquity; so does Paris' surprising show of strengthP By failing to 
elaborate this theme here, Homer enables the embassy to Achilles 
in Book 9 to remain unique. The chief embassy, like the chief instance 
of bride-stealing, is transferred to the central story of Achilles, to 
which the fortunes of Helen and Paris are made peripheral. 

To follow one last theme: like the embassy to the Trojans, the per­
sonal combat of Menelaus and Paris must have figured prominently 
in many renditions of the Helen song. In the Iliad it serves to charac­
terize Helen, Paris, and Menelaus, as well as to underline the inevita­
bility of the war; but it is shunted into a place of little importance in 
Books 3-7, the better to safeguard the climactic effect of the combat be­
tween Hector and Achilles. Once more the story of Helen embellishes 
but does not clash with the story of Achilles. 

15 See the discussion by Bethe, RE 7 (1912) S.V. HELENE, 2832. 
16 Cf Iliad 3.205-6,11.123-25 (Antimachus bribed with Alexander's gold not to let Helen 

be restored), and 7.345-78. 
17 Thus J. A. Scott, "Paris and Hector in Tradition and in Homer," CP 8 (1913) 163, asked, 

though a good unitarian, why Paris should still be influential in 7.137 after his notorious 
failure in the duel. 



12 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

Structurally, then, all the recurrent themes associated with Helen 
(bride-stealing, embassy, and combat) are carefully controlled, subor­
dinated to the story of Achilles, and even transformed in that story. 
This achievement in itself reveals the Iliad master, the singer who 
exercises almost unwavering control over his long and involved tale. 
But our appreciation of the figure of Helen goes further, and through 
it, our appreciation of Homer. 

Two general remarks may be helpful here. First, that throughout 
the Iliad, through diversity of situation-the moment of calm and 
contemplation in the midst of turmoil, the touching appeal to Hector 
to rest from his tragic destiny, the lament after that destiny has come 
to pass-we have one and the same Helen. And second, that she is 
human. Rachel Bespaloff's paradoxical statement, that of all the 
figures of the poem she is the severest, the most austere,18 serves 
nicely to dispel misty ideas of Helen as the "eternal feminine," beauti­
ful, lightminded, irresponsible. Helen is no goddess (although she was 
worshipped in Mycenaean times and even later) ;19 and although she 
is a daughter of Zeus, the epithet KOVPTJ LJtOS alyt6xoto (3.426) becomes 
in its context a kind of mockery of her state. 

Helen is distinguished in the Iliad not for inspiring passion, but for 
experiencing it. When we first meet her in Iliad 3, Iris has just" cast 
upon her spirit sweet yearning for her former husband and city and her 
parents." There is no conflict here between Helen's self-control and 
her passion, no return to reason;20 Iris simply provides a counter 
impulse, a longing for home and its associations that for the time 
obliterates the attraction of Paris. Iris' prompting not only serves to 
motivate Helen's ascent to the wall and her talk with Priam; it 
renews in her that tragic awareness, seen throughout the Iliad, of her 
loneliness and her shame, with which is connected her sensitivity to 
the feelings of other people, their kindness to her or their unkindness.21 

18 R. Bespaloff, On the Iliad, trans. by M. McCarthy (The Bollingen Series, Pantheon 
Books. 1947) 61-69. 

19 On Helen's origins, see Bethe op.cit. (supra n.15). 2824-27; M. P. Nilsson, The Mycenaean 
Origin of Greek Mythology (Berkeley 1932) 73-75; and J. Alsina elota, "Helena di Troja," 
Helmantica 8 (1957) 376-78. 

20 Cf B. Snell, The Discovery of the Mind, trans. T. C. Rosenmeyer (Harper's Torchbooks, 
1960) 14, 19. A man may oppose his 8vJ.L6~, but there is "no genuine dialogue of the soul 
with itself." 

21 For Helen's shame. see Iliad 3.173-6, 180,242.404.406-12.428-36,6.343-46,356. In the 
Kupria (fr. 6 Kinkel), Helen was the daughter of Nemesis. 



KENNETH J. RECKFORD 13 

Whatever their structural place in the plot or their derivation from 
traditional motifs of storytelling, all Helen's appearances in the Iliad 
show some facet of this sensitivity. Although, in Book 3, Priam cour­
teously prefaces his questions by absolving her from any blame for 
the woes of Troy (as, in a different way, the old councilors paid tribute 
to her godlike beauty by perceiving through it the destiny of Troy, 
for which she as a person could not be blamed), yet Helen fails to 
accept the excuse offered. On the contrary, she repents her past, 
blames her own shamelessness (Kvvcfnn8oS') for the woes of Troy, and 
even disrupts the traditional pattern of questions and answers to 
dwell once more on her disgraceful action and shameful behavior. 
Later in Book 3, her feeling of self-reproach reaches such an inten­
sity that she clashes with Aphrodite herself in helpless fury and resent­
ment at the power that will seduce her again to the bed of Paris. 
Threatened with the full force of men's hatred, she submits to her 
destiny as though under the strongest physical compulsion. In Book 6, 
despite her dramatic role as sister, she rails against fate and longs for 
a lover more understanding than Paris (one who "knew nemesis"). 
And in Book 24, her grief at Hector's death is intensified by deepening 
loneliness, for he had given her kindness and understanding amidst 
the general hatred. She misses his ayavocppouvV7J, the gentleness of spirit 
expressed in gentle words, ayavotS' €7TJWULV. 

The order of the pleaders in Book 6 was Hecuba, Helen, Andro­
mache. By a curious asymmetry, the order of mourners in Book 24 is 
Andromache, Hecuba, Helen. It is worthwhile asking why Helen is 
saved for last. But first, more must be said of the scene with Aphro­
dite, which is far from gentle. 

II 
So far we have been examining one aspect of Homer's art: the con­

sistency of his portrayal of Helen, the control with which he weaves 
different threads of story into the unity of the Iliad. Elaboration with 
economy: these are marks of the master singer; and we are well 
reminded of that sure control, the rightness of relation between dec­
orative motifs and vase surface, that characterizes the Dipylon Geo­
metric style. But the Dipylon vases are inadequate analogues to the 
Iliad, the excellence of which is more than architectonic. Part of the 
difference may be seen in a contrast between the figure scenes of the 



14 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

vases and the more intense dramatic episodes of the poem. The first 
have value only as they are subordinated to the vase as a whole: the 
prothesis, for example, helps a total pattern to emerge. But in the 
Iliad, as Homer deepens the meaning of a particular scene, trans­
cending the very themes and formulas out of which the scene is 
composed, he sometimes seems to strike a note of awareness in which 
is concentrated the total effect produced by the story as a whole. 

One such crucial scene is the meeting of Helen with Aphrodite in 
Book 3. Aphrodite has snatched Paris from battle in a cloud, "easily, 
as a god may," and set him down in his sweet-smelling bedchamber. 
She then goes to call Helen, finds her on the gate, shakes her, and in 
the guise of a beloved spinning woman, bids her go to her house: for 
Paris gleams in beauty like a dancer. In the words of invitation we 
feel the seductiveness of the call, the deep impression it makes on 
Helen's spirit. She recognizes the goddess22 and answers her (395-420): 

"r'l ,/.. I ~ ~,,, f) , " 'f) " 
;:'':s 'f'a:ro, 77J 0 apa vf-Lov EVt u7T) EUUtv OptvE" 

I C''t r 1"'" f) -. \ \ I ~ " 
Kat p WS OVV EV07]UE Eas 1TEpLKaIVlEa OELP7]V 

'f) I f)' r, " At I U'T7] Ea Lf-LEpOEV'Ta KaL of-Lf-La'Ta f-Lapf-LaLpOV'Ta, 
f) I f3 ' ,,,,,, " , "J.. ,,, ", r 

af-L 7]UEV 'T ap E1TEL'Ta E1TOS 'T E'f'a'T EK 'T OVOf-Lal:,E· 
~ I I ~ \\" I 
oaLf-LOVL7], 7"L f-LE 'TaV'Ta I\Ll\aLEaL 7]1TEp01TEVELV; 
'J' I '\' 1'" I 

7] 1TT/ f-LE 1TpO'TEPW 1TOI\LWV EV vaLOf-LEvawv 

agELS, 7} C/>pvyt7]S 7} MT/ovt7]s Epa'TELvfjs, 
" , 'Af) .I.. 1\ I 'f) I E L 'TLS 'TOL KaL KE L £ 'f'tI\OS f-LEp01TWV av pW1TWV· 

OVVEKa 8~ vvv Dtov ' AMgavDpov MEVEAaos 
I 'f) 1\ , , , " ~,,, f) 

VLK7]uas E EI\EL U'TvyEP7]V Ef-LE 0 LKao aYEU aL, 

'TOVVEKa 8~ VVV 8EVPO 80AocppovEovua 1TapEU7T)S; 
.$: " , , ~ f) ~ ~. " \ 'f) "UO 7T'ap av'TOV tovua, EWV 0 a1TOELKE KEI\EV OV. 

f-L7]D' €7"L UOtUL 1T6DEUULV tJ1TOU'TpEifiELas "OAvf-L7T'OV, 
~'. \ \. " , A , 'Y I • .I.. 1\ 
(X.fV\ atEL 7T'Ept KELVOV OL",VE KaL E 'f'Vl\aUUE, 

, ttl , ') 't\ ", I 't\ ~ ~ I\. 
EtS 0 KE U 7] al\oxov 1TOL7]UE'TaL 7] 0 yE OOVI\7]V. 

..... ~" \ , ., \ ~, " 
KELUE 0 E"')'WV OUK ELf-LL· VEf-LEUU7J'TOV OE KEV EL7]· 

I I \1 rp ,",," I 
KELVOV 7T'OpUaVEovua I\EXOS· .1 PCfJa£ OE I-' 07T'LUUW 

~ I ""',,, ,,, f) ~ 
7T'aua£ f-Lwf-L7]UOV'TaL· EXW D aXE aKpL'Ta Vf-LCfJ. 

T~v DE xoAwuaf-LEVTJ 7T'pOUECPWVEE Dt ' AcppoDtrr{ 
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2SThus Ajax (13.72) calls the gods aplyvw-ro" and Achilles, Diomedes, HelenusandAeneas 
recognize them easily. But clear vision of divinity may be deadly (20.131): 

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KENNETH J. RECKFORD 15 

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Along with her privilege, noticed earlier, of being beyond praise and 
blame, Helen has an obligation, to be easily swayed, to follow Aphro­
dite; and on her acceptance of that necessity depends the continua­
tion of her privilege, and perhaps her life. It is not a situation that she 
would have chosen freely. As Paris says of a similar gift (3.164-66), 

Do not cast in my teeth the lovely gifts of golden Aphrodite. You 
cannot, look you, throwaway the fame-bearing gifts of gods, but 
whatever they give, no man of his own choice would receive. 

This is not a boast, an assertion that no man could get such gifts 
merely by desiring them. It states rather a basic condition of life.23 

Achilles carries the generalization further in Book 24 when he says 
that mortals receive their life-shaping gifts without right of appeal; 
they have their portion, whether from the jar of good mixed with ill, 
or else from the jar of unmitigated ruin. 

Helen's submission has the inevitability of a hero's death or the tak­
ing of a city. What matters, though, is the struggle of which it is the 
climax. Others recognize the gods and quarrel with them: thus Hec­
tor (within his limits) challenges Apollo, or, on a more comic plane, 
Diomedes wounds Aphrodite and Ares: divine ichor flows and divine 
voices are raised in protest.24 But Diomedes' triumph over Aphrodite 
sheds less light on the world of the Iliad then Helen's failure. 

In the Homeric world, man discovers his nature largely through his 

23 J. T. Sheppard, "Helen," G&R 7 (1933) 32, translates the passage rightly and well: 

Taunt me not with the gifts of the gods, by golden Aphrodite given. 
When the gods give, none may refuse 
as none of their own will would choose, the glorious gifts of Heaven. 

So too Cowper, in his freer 1814 version, put the emphasis in the right place: 

The gods are absolute, and what they give, 
or good, or ill, mere mortals must receive. 

Most commentators, however, (including Anthon, Felton, Munro, Leaf and Bayfield, 
Seymour) interpret EKWV as "for the asking"; similarly, the translations by Pope, Chapman, 
the Earl of Derby, Butb-, Leconte de Lisle, and Lang, Leaf and Myers. Bryant translates 
ambiguously; Hobbes and Robert Graves impatiently side-step the problem. 

S4 Webster op.cit. (supra n.6) 69, discusses the special situations in Eastern poetry in which 
a hero affronts a god; in another context (p. 82), he argues for the influence of the Gilgamesh 
story on Mycenaean poetry. The motif of man rivalling the gods seems especially Greek to 
Stith Thompson, "Motif-Index of Folk-Literature," Ind. Univ. Studies 19-23 (1929-33) C.54. 



16 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

confrontation with the gods, much as a child discovers his identity as 
he learns, little by little, to separate himself from the world around 
him. Homer views the gods through his epic medium of heroic ex­
perience; and since the business of a hero is aristeuein, to pursue excel­
lence in word and deed, his experience of the gods must be viewed 
primarily in terms of effort and limit. Distinguished by closeness to 

the gods, he is inevitably compelled to recognize that he is a man. 
When Aphrodite impresses upon Helen what Achilles learns from 

Zeus, she acts as one of the Olympian gods. If we compare her to the 
Babylonian Ishtar or the Ugaritic Anath, both of them fierce, revenge­
ful, and generally unpredictable fertility goddesses, we see how com­
pletely Aphrodite has been adopted into the Olympian company. 
Already she has her proper sphere of activity; she is supreme in mat­
ters of love, not battle; and the very indignities visited upon her by 
Diomedes and Athena serve comically to emphasize the limitations 
of her sphere. But just as she cannot create havoc in war like Anath, 
or threaten like Ishtar to upset the very peace of the gods, so she does 
not appear as a whimsical, independent agent, but rather as an ulti­
mately controllable Olympian goddess, responsible to the Will of 
Zeus and, behind this Will, to Fate. 

Like the other Olympians, Aphrodite must be understood as opera­
ting on more than one level. Calhoun says of her: HShe is at once the 
divine entourage, the personification of the impulses that jar and clash 
in Helen's bosom, and an actor in the drama who follows her own 
purposes."25 Although we may doubt that the goddess personifies 

26 G. M. Calhoun, "Homer's GodS-Prolegomena," TAPA 68 (1937) 24-25. Thus Iris is 
both a motivating force and a personification of Helen's impulse; and G. M. A. Grube, 
"The Gods of Homer," Phoenix 5 (1951) 74, well says of Aphrodite that she is "not only the 
goddess of love, she is love or passion, and she is Helen's passion, both at the same time." 

More scholarship than can adequately be summarized here has contributed to our pre­
sent understanding of Homeric psychology and the relations of gods and men (the two 
problems are closely bound up together, and with them that of personality). For me, the 
most thoroughgoing and valuable investigation is that of A. Lesky, "Gottliche und men­
schliche Motivation in homerischen Epos," Sitzungsb. d. Heidelberger Akad. der Wissen­
schaften (1961) 5-52. (Among other observations, Lesky emphasizes Helen's acceptance of 
responSibility for her actions even when she is most fully aware of the action of the gods 
[po 39].) In shaping my own ideas I was also helped by M. P. Nilsson, "Gotter und Psycholo­
gie bei Homer," Archiv f Religionswissenschaft 22 (1923/24) 363-390; P. Chanrraine, "Le 
Divin et les dieux chez Homere," Entretiens sur I'Antiquite Classique, I (Geneva 1954) 47-77, 
followed by a good discussion (see especially Snell's comment on Iliad 3.420, on p. 82); 
E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Beacon Paperback, Boston, 1957), esp. page 17; the 
articles by Calhoun and Grube cited above; and E. L. Harrison, "Notes on Homeric Psycho­
logy," Phoenix 14 (1960) 63-80. 



KENNETH J. RECKFORD 17 

clashing impulses, it is useful, following Calhoun, to look at Aphrodite 
and Helen from roughly three points of view: the power of the gods 
working as an external force; the same power made psychologically 
effective, from within; and the triumphant will of an Olympian god­
dess, enforcing the separation of man from god. 

The power of Aphrodite appears first in its outward results. Not 
only is the second rape of Helen a tragic repetition of the first (which it 
brings somehow vividly into the later story), but it belongs to a larger 
tragedy, of the war that cannot be halted until its destined end. In the 
older tale, Paris' refusal to give up Helen caused the war to take place 
or continue. But now, after a truce has been proclaimed and a duel 
arranged, and hopes run high of settling the Achaean-Trojan quarrel 
by single combat, Paris is suddenly wafted out of battle to his fragrant 
bedchamber, and Aphrodite has come to bring Helen to him. This 
new seduction shows the pressure of a fate that cannot be withstood; 
as its representative, Aphrodite plays a part little different from that 
of the Achaean partisans, Hera and Athena. 

The power of Aphrodite, which is really the power of fate, is felt 
throughout the speech that challenges it. Helen knows she must go: 
"Where will you bring me now?" And again, after she scornfully 
tells the goddess to go herself, sit by her paramour, and care for him, 
her very refusal seems pregnant with the knowledge that she will 
have to accept: 

But I will not go there-it would be blameworthy­
to strew his couch: the Troj an women later 
all will blame me. I have untold sorrows at heart. 

The refusal is tentative, like Achilles' expressed intention of returning 
to Phthia. Helen uses the future tense; and Aphrodite's warning, 
"lest I take anger and let you go," only makes her helplessness 
explicit. The touching kindness with which Priam treated her, as 
well as the awe with which the elders refrained from judging her, is 
revealed as conditional, a present to be revoked at will. 

But Helen is not just used by Homer to demonstrate the power of 
the gods, as shown in the fulfillment of the Trojan War. Homer also 
asks (and perhaps this is new in his poem), what would a person feel 
who is being used as a pawn of the gods? Here it is useful to contrast 
the classic example of an "overdetermined" action in Book 1, where 
the coming of Athena represents a clearing of Achilles' vision, a 

2 



18 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

victory oflucid and prophetic intuition over a blind, short-sighted act. 
By accepting her advice, Achilles at once accepts necessity and profits 
by his own better judgement: to resist would damage his quest for 
honor. But Helen's dialogue with Aphrodite is different, for here 
Helen tries to control an overwhelming force that directs her actions 
against her more honorable impulse. 

From this perspective, the measure of Aphrodite's power is not the 
war that must continue, but the shame of Helen that is overcome. As 
we saw, Helen is as sensitive as Hector to what people will say. She 
"knows nemesis," cares about blame, although Aphrodite has pro­
tected her from it. And it is precisely her own deep feeling of shame 
that reveals to her the utter shamelessness of the controlling goddess: 

Go now and sit by him-withdraw from the path of gods, 
nor ever again under your feet tread down Olympus, 
but always whine over that man, watch over him 
until he makes you his own wife-or else his slave! 

The forced submission of Helen to the shamelessness at which she 
lashes out shows, like so much in the Iliad, the weakness of mankind. 
For men's limits are within as well as without; to Homer these are 
the same. 

The relations viewed above may be looked at in a third, and en­
compassing way, as a meeting of the human and transitory with the 
absolute and divine. This meeting is the tragic prerogative of the hero; 
for as he shines with god-given radiance, a man will sometimes appear 
to be more than human, and then he can only be subdued, as he was 
excited, by a god. Thus Patroclus' newfound strength tempts him to 
try his limits in Iliad 16, and Apollo destroys him.26 Earlier, Diomedes 
more wisely (if reluctantly) deferred to the threatened wrath of 
Apollo (5.440-2): 

Think, son of Tydeus, and yield, do not match yourself 
with the gods in thought: never is the race alike 
of deathless gods and men going on the earth. 

There is a gnomic ring in the words, c/>pa~€o, TV~€{~1J' Kat xa~€o: to 
think is here to yield. 

In a similar way, Helen's dialogue with Aphrodite marks the ab­
solute limit of her assimilation to divinity. For were she to inspire love 

26 Cf. the remark of Whitman, op.cit. (supra n.l) 221, on Athena: "She represents not 
only the valor of Diomedes but the limits of that valor." 



KENNETH J. RECKFORD 19 

and not feel it, she might herself be the equal of Aphrodite; but as it is, 
she must succumb to the same passion that emanates from her per­
son, that she recognizes when she looks upon the "desire-breathing 
breasts and flashing eyes" of the goddess. To resist is vain; she knows 
it even before being told. The shamelessness of Aphrodite, the domina­
tion of passion, and the driving force of fate, are all magnificently sym­
bolized in the climactic scene in Paris' bedchamber, when the goddess 
draws up a chair for the mortal woman. In a final line of submission, 

" () ()~ Y' fE'\ I I A \ , I €v a Ka ts I\€VT} KOVp7J LJWS atywxow, 

the non-particular epithet seems effortlessly to point the tragic con­
trast between the semi-divinity of Helen and her human weakness. 
The epithet is perfectly right here, and Homer must at least have felt 
this rightness as he sang.27 

Not only the coherence of Homer's song, but its unity of underlying 
feeling, may be shown in a comparison of the Helen episode just dis­
cussed with the larger story of Achilles to which it is dramatically 
subordinated. There are superficial parallels between Helen and 
Achilles. Both are children of gods, both possess a special excellence, 
both are cut off from the normal communal ties of a Hector or an 
Andromache. But more intimately related are the realizations to 
which they attain, Helen when she succumbs to a shameless passion 
and re-enters the bed of Paris, Achilles when he wills his own death by 
deciding to re-enter battle and take vengeance on Hector. In a different 

27M. Parry, "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making, II," HSCP 43 (1932)7-8, 

said that with every new poet the formula "must undergo the nvofold test of being found 
pleasing and useful." Just so: the singer continues to use a certain epithet in its prescribed 
place more and more because he feels its rightness in context (a ship in the dative must be 
"black," not "balanced," but its blackness may become highly satisfactory). Thus Bowra 
says of the formulas, in Wace-Stubbings (supra n.l) 35, "though they perform an essential 
task, they must be considered in their individual contexts, since it is from these that they 
often take their meaning and their worth." Without follOWing W. Whallon, "The Homeric 
Epithets," YCS 17 (1961) 97-142, who finds many word-echoes and associations more appro­
priate to Vergil than to Homer, one might argue that since the traditional epithets show 
normal heroic qualities, we are naturally led by their use in context to feel that such and 
such a quality is, or is not, fulfilled in the present. Our resulting sense of irony cannot then 
be unjustified in Iliad 9.485 

or here. in 3.426. The contrast here is not forced, but natural; not consciously invented, but 
somehow "accepted." Whallon's remarks (op.cit. 101ff) on the interaction of epithet and 
epic matter are also helpful. Although Homer sometimes uses an inappropriate epithet, 
he may nonetheless sometimes be aware that an epithet in context is perfectly "right". 



20 HELEN IN THE ILIAD 

way, both Achilles and Helen strive for honor and force the issue; 
each exacts a special revelation from the gods, and each gets one that is 
intolerable: Aphrodite's carrying of Helen's chair has the same mean­
ing as Zeus' thundering for Achilles. Man cannot, in aspiring to divin­
ity, transcend the suffering of a human being. 

A brief contrast, taken from the Odyssey, throws into relief the tragic 
quality of the Helen-Aphrodite scene, its lack of solace. For in the 
story of Odysseus, which is largely about the acceptance of life, 
Helen appears after her return from isolation. Although she sometimes 
daydreams about her past (and the old epithet KvvcfJ7TtoOS dimly recalls 
her shame), her principal concern is now to make atonement through 
affection for her husband and attentiveness to his spoken or unspoken 
wishes (4.259-64): 

And so my spirit 
had joy, for already my heart was moved to return 
back home, and I grieved for the blindness that Aphrodite 
gave when she guided me from my dear fatherland, 
when I left my child and bedchamber and a husband 
lacking in nothing, neither in wits nor else in form. 

The very structure of Helen's words reveals her attitude. Her mind, 
her loyalty has returned altogether to Sparta and her husband. In this 
companionship of husband and wife, not so different from that to 
which Odysseus himself will return, Helen can even accept herself, 
accept her past as something foreign to her now, and settle down to a 
glorified domesticity (her golden distaff and silver yarn basket are 
not gifts of the gods but Oriental riches acquired by Menelaus). If 
there is pain in the memories of the past-which is to say memories 
of the Iliad-this pain has its anodyne in drugs brought from Egypt. A 
little forgetfulness makes it possible to go on living. It is as though the 
unsolaced tragedy that one faces in the Iliad were an adventure of the 
youthful, the rebellious spirit, that loses its fierce brilliance in the 
wiser resignation of age.28 

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 

April, 1964 

18 I am indebted to Professors Henry R. Immerwahr, Berthe Marti, and James A. 
Notopoulos for their advice and criticism.