Helen of Troy [29]
enough that the poet has modified and purified more ancient
traditions which still survive in various fragments of Greek legend.
In Homer Helen is always the daughter of Zeus. Isocrates tells us
("Helena," 211 b) that "while many of the demigods were children of
Zeus, he thought the paternity of none of his daughters worth
claiming, save that of Helen only." In Homer, then, Helen is the
daughter of Zeus, but Homer says nothing of the famous legend which
makes Zeus assume the form of a swan to woo the mother of Helen.
Unhomeric as this myth is, we may regard it as extremely ancient.
Very similar tales of pursuit and metamorphosis, for amatory or other
purposes, among the old legends of Wales, and in the "Arabian
Nights," as well as in the myths of Australians and Red Indians.
Again, the belief that different families of mankind descend from
animals, as from the Swan, or from gods in the shape of animals, is
found in every quarter of the world, and among the rudest races.
Many Australian natives of to-day claim descent, like the royal house
of Sparta, from the Swan. The Greek myths hesitated as to whether
Nemesis or Leda was the bride of the Swan. Homer only mentions Leda
among "the wives and daughters of mighty men," whose ghosts Odysseus
beheld in Hades: "And I saw Leda, the famous bedfellow of Tyndareus,
who bare to Tyndareus two sons, hardy of heart, Castor, tamer of
steeds, and the boxer Polydeuces." These heroes Helen, in the Iliad
(iii. 238), describes as her mother's sons. Thus, if Homer has any
distinct view on the subject, he holds that Leda is the mother of
Helen by Zeus, of the Dioscuri by Tyndareus.
Greek ideas as to the character of Helen varied with the various
moods of Greek literature. Homer's own ideas about his heroine are
probably best expressed in the words with which Priam greets her as
she appears among the assembled elders, who are watching the Argive
heroes from the wall of Troy: --"In nowise, dear child, do I blame
thee; nay, the Gods are to blame, who have roused against me the
woful war of the Achaeans." Homer, like Priam, throws the guilt of
Helen on the Gods, but it is not very easy to understand exactly what
he means by saying "the Gods are to blame." In the first place,
Homer avoids the psychological problems in which modern poetry
revels, by attributing almost all changes of the moods of men to
divine inspiration. Thus when Achilles, in a famous passage of the
first book of the Iliad, puts up his half-drawn sword in the sheath,
and does not slay Agamemnon, Homer assigns his repentance to the
direct influence of Athene. Again, he says in the Odyssey, about
Clytemnestra, that "she would none of the foul deed;" that is of the
love of Aegisthus, till "the doom of the Gods bound her to her ruin."
So far the same excuse is made for the murderous Clytemnestra as for
the amiable Helen. Again, Homer is, in the strictest sense, and in
strong contrast to the Greek tragedians and to Virgil, a chivalrous
poet. It would probably be impossible to find a passage in which he
speaks harshly or censoriously of the conduct of any fair and noble
lady. The sordid treachery of Eriphyle, who sold her lord for gold,
wins for her the epithet "hateful;" and Achilles, in a moment of
strong grief, applies a term of abhorrence to Helen. But Homer is
too chivalrous to judge the life of any lady, and only shows the
other side of the chivalrous character--its cruelty to persons not of
noble birth--in describing the "foul death" of the waiting women of
Penelope. "God forbid that I should take these women's lives by a
clean death," says Telemachus (Odyssey, xxii. 462). So "about all
their necks nooses were cast that they might die by the death most
pitiful. And they writhed with their feet for a little space, but
for no long while." In trying to understand Homer's estimate of
Helen, therefore, we must make allowance for his theory of divine
intervention, and for his chivalrous judgment of ladies. But there
are two passages in the Iliad which may