On Thu, 11 Feb 1999, Dan King wrote:
> You've also hit on a subject of great debate in antiquity. Gorgias wrote a
> whole speech vindicating Helen of any responsibility, just to prove that
> rhetoric could make any weak argument strong. See Euripides' Trojan Women
> for a really full debate on the matter - 'Did she want to go or was she
> just Aphrodite's pawn'
For what it's worth, the late Latin _Daretis Phrygii de excidio Troiae
historia_ says that Helen was taken away "not unwilling"--an ironic
litotes that insinuates she was actually hot to trot! But Dares Phrygius
is a revisionist account in many ways.
If Richmond Lattimore is right in suggesting that, on one level, the
Olympian gods in the Iliad function as external symbols of qualities that
are actually within us, then when Helen reproaches Aphrodite for her high-
handed ways, Helen is actually talking to a part of herself, her own
sexual passion, which is only one component of Helen's complex
personality. Even more directly, Helen calls herself "bitch," "slut," and
so forth: self-condemnations showing a divided mind. In the _Aeneid_,
our only view of Helen is through Aeneas' eyes, and he is in no doubt of
what a brazen hussy she is; but then he only sees her from the outside.
Randi Eldevik
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