The Ancients - Helen of Troy

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships - but is there more to her than a beautiful face? To mark Women's History Month, Tristan is joined by author and broadcaster Natalie Haynes to discuss Helen's place in mythology and history. Often viewed through the male gaze, Natalie helps set the record straight about who Helen really was. With discussions of her conception, abductions, and grief after the Trojan War - we learn about why she was so noteworthy in mythology.This episode contains references to rape and self harm.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, well, a couple of days back was International Women's Day. March is Women's History Month. And today we're going to be talking all about one of the most famous women from antiquity, and perhaps the most famous woman from ancient Greek myths.

It's about time we talked about myths, about the Trojan War, about the figure of Helen. Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships. In this podcast, we're going to be giving a detailed rundown of Helen, the many versions of Helen, shall we say, that exist from various authors from antiquity, from ancient Greek times, whether it's Sophocles' Helen in one of his lost plays, or one of Euripides' Helens in two of his plays where Helen features, or of course, the Helen that features in Homer's Iliad and Homer's Odyssey, most famously. Now to talk through all of this, including the legacy of Helen, how she influenced a certain character in one of the Star Trek episodes.

Yeah, you heard me right there. I was delighted to interview a very special guest because at the moment, she is one of the leading lights in the classics world. She's one of the most famous faces, shall we say, in the classics world. She's a writer. She's a best-selling author. She's a comedian. She's a broadcaster. She's multi-tal most famous faces, shall we say, in the classics world. She's a writer. She's a best-selling author. She's a comedian. She's a broadcaster. She's multi-talented, incredibly talented.

And this is, of course, Natalie Haynes. It was a pleasure to chat to Natalie about a week or so ago to talk all things Helen of Troy. She's extremely funny, as you're about to hear. And stay tuned for a second episode to be recorded with Natalie all about Pandora, the famous Pandora, which we'll also be releasing in due time. So without further ado, to talk all about Helen of Troy, the various versions of Helen, here's Natalie. Natalie, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. My pleasure.

Now, Helen of Troy, first of all, the face that launched a thousand ships, but almost everything about Helen of Troy, should we say, is there are multiple versions. They can be debated. The question I get asked almost more than anything else is, but what's the real version of the myth or what's the original version of the myth? And Helen, as much as anyone and more than most. And the answer is, of course, there isn't one. Sorry to, you know, spoil everything and smash it all up. But there isn't an original version.

There is only ever the earliest version that we know about. And the likelihood of that being the earliest version there is pretty well zero because almost always they're drawing on earlier traditions sometimes from whole other myth cycles and other cultures and sometimes it's just the earliest version that survives to us that's just the version that we have and so I suppose it's the equivalent of I don't know imagine if you lived thousands of years in the future and the earliest version of I don't know the King Arthur story was the musical Camelot. You'd be like, okay, so originally it's a musical. No, originally it is not a musical. Well, at least I assume it's not, but you know, at least not staged in a sort of Broadway kind of style. But that would be the earliest version that you had. And so, and that's what happens with Helen. The version

of her that we see in Homer and the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are our two earliest texts to survive, they're not even particularly in agreement with one another, quite aside from anything else. But the version that we see in the Iliad is probably the closest to the version that people now know, I think, which is that she has eloped with Paris. She's daughter of Zeus. She is from the Peloponnese, southern Greece. She's daughter of Zeus. She is from the Peloponnese, southern Greece. She has a sister, Clytemnestra, who marries Agamemnon. She, Helen, marries Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus.

A handsome man comes to visit Paris from Troy, and she elopes with him. In some versions of the story, she's kidnapped by him. And they go to Troy, and the Greeks mass under armies commanded by Agamemnon Menelaus's brother to get his wife back and she is therefore always derided as this sort of terrible adulteress she's responsible for all these Greeks and Trojans dying and so on and so on but at least as old as Homer at least the 8th century BCE is atradition in which Helen doesn't go to Troy. She's never Helen of Troy, she's Helen of Egypt. And so she elopes with, or is taken by, Paris. And then they stop off in Egypt on the way to Troy,

and she stays there, and she lives in the palace of Proteus, who can change shape, hence Protean, who is famously chaste. Chaste T-E, not chaste E-D. This is not a Benny Hill scenario. And so she has this completely blameless decade. But the gods send an Erdalon, an image of Helen, to Troy instead. So it's made of air. It looks exactly like her. The war is conducted in the exact same way. Her name is still derided as being an adulteress because what looks like Helen

is there. And when, at the end of the war, the Greeks finally get, literally get their hands on her, she disappears into the air that she was made of. It is the most extraordinary metaphor for the futility of war that you could ever hope to find. And that version of the story is just lost. I mean, there's no reason for it to have been abandoned. The Euripides play Helen follows that tradition. It opens with Helen speaking on the banks of the Nile, just in case anyone were in any doubt. Are you sure it's Egypt? I don't know. Could someone check? What river is this? And so, you know, that version I've seen staged once, I think, the version translated by Frank McGuinness that was on at the Globe, which I'm going to say is five years ago and definitely is probably closer to ten or longer.

I'm hopeless at modern time. But that version doesn't appeal to us in the same way. We like the idea of her being a sort of a terrible adulteress who we can pile blame onto. And we do see that version of her in the Iliad. But the version of her that's in the Odyssey, when Telemachus goes looking at Telemachus is the son of Odysseus and after his father has been missing for 20 years he goes looking for him

because you know 10 years for a war 10 years coming home everybody else got home 10 years ago the news has dried up so I suppose he's only been missing i.e. no one knows where he is for 10 years but absent for 20. Telemachus goes to Sparta to try and get some information and that's where Menelaus and Helen have reunited after the war and they live together still seemingly happily and Telemachus visits and he says you know what can you tell me about my dad and Menelaus starts talking about the battlefield and fallen comrades, and he starts to cry. And Helen signals to a maidservant and gets her to bring her a bag of herbs that she has from her friend Polydamna, I think, in Egypt. The connection is still there, you note. And she doesn't say anything to anyone, but she just puts this drug, which Homer talks about for a few lines.

He calls it nepenthes, grief banishing. She drugs the wine that Menelaus is drinking, and they all have drugged wine. I mean, she basically gives him Rohypnol to stop him from crying. And so when people say, you know, but in the original version, what happens when they're reunited at the end of the war? It's like, well, you'd be surprised how creepy it is. the answer is she drugs him every night so he doesn't cry and annoy and so it is really that version of helen is really quite frightening and you suddenly see that this is the daughter of zeus you know that she is not just a beautiful woman but she is incredibly scary in this version but the version that we see in the iliad

attributed to the same author although very probably not by the same author is much more full of self-reproach full of recrimination and blames herself for starting the war which is good news because thousands of years of male authors will blame her for starting the war as well so and it's quite interesting today like when you think of the character of Helen you your mind can't help but for someone like me you know you'll you'll think immediately of say the 2000 2000 something film Troy or the portrayal of Helen there wasn't it absolutely so you kind of also get that image don't you so that other image that more scary of an image that you might get in the Odyssey or there's different Helens these different Helens shall we say yeah in Euripides and I think there's kind of Ptolemy

the Quail who we definitely talk about in a bit everyone loves Ptolemaeus Kenos. But well apparently we do absolutely but like we can delve into these different types of Helen can't we that there's not just one type. Even Euripides has three different ones you know one in the play Helen where she goes to Egypt and you know when Menelaus arrives on his way home from Troy and they're reunited for real this time as opposed to being reunited with the image, the Edelon. I really recommend the Frank McGuinness version because there's a real sexiness to it. You're like, oh, yeah, I really get how you two would have been a couple. Whereas often you get the sense with Menelaus and Helen, it's like, what were you thinking?

Why would you say yes? He's such an idiot. And then in the version that we have in Trojan Women, it's one of the most impressive pieces of rhetoric that Euripides writes, all the more impressively because it's in verse. But Helen arrives on stage, it is kind of brilliant. Hecuba, who is the queen of the fallen city of Troy, is with the other Trojan women who have survived. Their menfolk are all dead. They've been enslaved. Some of them are going to get sacrificed. It's just horrendous. It's one awful tragedy after another. It's a really, really difficult, upsetting play to watch. Wonderful, but hard. And Hecuba, who is pretty well a broken woman in this version of her, says to Menelaus, I will praise you if you kill your wife. She's so vicious, so angry about everything that's happened.

And at that point, Helen walks on stage and it's like, how are we going to introduce this character? I'll praise you if you kill her. Hi, everyone. And she realizes that she has been condemned to death in her absence by the Greek army. And she feels that she should have had a chance to plead her cause. And so that's what she does. She makes her case for why she is, in fact, not responsible for the Trojan War. And it's an absolute masterpiece. You know, she's, it's, why does everyone say it's her fault? Why is it never Paris's fault? And if it's going to be Paris's fault, how come it's not Hecuba's fault? She's Paris's mother. And they had a prophecy when Paris was born. In fact, I think just before he was born, that he was going

to be, she would give birth to a flaming torch, a firebrand that would destroy the city. So why didn't they kill him as a baby? Now, I do see from a modern audience, why didn't you kill your child may not seem like the strongest argument, but this is a sort of greater instance of elective infanticide, let's say, in Greek myth than we might expect to find in any civilized society. in Greek myth than we might expect to find in any civilized society. And so she makes this extremely articulate plea for her life. And it works because Menelaus literally can't respond. Hecuba has to step up and say, you know, I'll do the talking here. I'll reply because he quite clearly isn't qualified to, you know, jostle with Helen in arm wrestling let alone in difficult legalish arguments and so Hecuba tries to rebut her arguments you know even she's so smart and so angry can't really do it and

we know that it's game over anyway the minute Menelaus saw her it was game over if Hecuba had had her way someone else would have killed Helen off stage and Menelaus would never have laid eyes on her because as soon as he does it's all over. So keeping on the Trojan woman a bit longer then so we have this amazing defense speeches of Helen by Helen as it were do we know what actually then therefore happens to Helen after this speech after Hecuba's refute after that? Yeah in this version she and Menelaus are reunited and they go back to Sparta and I guess we can imagine that they end up although it's later than Homer they end up like the couple that we see in the Odyssey living together quite happily

with or without Helen's assorted narcotic aids for ease of companionship I suppose so yeah they are successfully reunited which doesn't happen to everybody who comes home from Troy that's for sure but I mean she is the daughter of Zeus it's a hard thing to walk away from I suppose for Menelaus well you mentioned the daughter of Zeus there so let's take a step back and look at the background that the the parents of Helen as it were because these stories of Helen's her parents are there a couple of versions of it with the swan and all of that? Yeah, I mean, the most usual version has Zeus as her father and later the Spartan queen or leader, if you prefer, as her mother. But there are some versions where her mother is Nemesis, the goddess Nemesis. But almost always she's born from an egg. And that comes up in the

Euripides Helen, where she says, you know, I'm Helen, I was born from an egg. And you go, oh, OK, yeah, no, fine. And that is in in the case of Nemesis it's because Nemesis takes on the form of a goose in the process of being impregnated with Helen but more usually Leda is in human form and Zeus takes on swan form in one of the more unlikely couplings of Greek myth in which Zeus turns up at least according to the version that Helen tells in the Helen, Zeus turns up as a swan and says, I'm being pursued by birds of prey. Could you sort of protect me? And then of course takes advantage of Leda's soft heart to seduce her as a swan. I would consider myself a reasonable degree of authority on deviant bird sex in Greek myth,

but I'm not going to lie, it's like, who is hotter as a swan? Why didn't you just come as a god? You're a god. At no point ever does anyone I know go, oh, I wish, really long for that beak. If only my lover were featherier. Yeah, it just doesn't. I can't defend it and I won't try. And he's like, oh, yeah, I have to become a swan because I'm being pursued by birds of prey. Surely a swan is a terrible, become like a, what don't they eat? Rhino. It's just so weird. Become the king of the freaking gods. That's your one job. But anyway, I suppose he must have some weird pervy desire to impregnate later as a swan and that's what he does so she then has eggs which contain Helen and Clytemnestra who has a mortal father but the same mother and also Castor and Polydeuces the Romans will call them Castor and Pollux and again one of them has Zeus's father and the other has

a mortal father Tyndareus the king of Sparta and so there are these sort of double there's always pairs in this and then of course the sisters go on to marry two brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaus. So there's lots of pairing going on in every sense in this story. But yes, I can't get around it. Deviant swan sex is very much part of Helen's background. Now return to the likes of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides in a minute. But just away from the Trojan War and Helen and the Trojan War for a minute, because is it the likes of Plutarch and the like, you have figures like Theseus

who actually feature in Helen's story early on, infamously so. We don't talk about it at all. I find it really interesting that we can see Helen as this sort of temptress and that she is consistently viewed in those terms and destructively so because she starts a war. And not only do we basically remove any responsibility from Paris which just annoys me but additionally we absolutely

gloss over a much uglier part of Helen's story which is told by amongst other people Plutarch that when she is a child she's either seven or in some versions of the story, she is 10. And you know it's grim when ancient sources are starting to fudge the year because they aren't normally screamish about the things that we are screamish about. But Theseus and his friend, his name is Perithous, I think,

decide that they would both like to marry a daughter of Zeus. And so they decide that the smart thing to do is they draw lots. And Theseus will have Helen, daughter of Zeus, aged at the time seven or ten. Theseus is in his fifties at this point. So feel free to be feeling wholly grimy. And Perithous will go for Persephone, who's married to Hades, king of the underworld.

So good news. One's a child and the other one's going to involve you going to the underworld. And it's obviously a disaster. So Theseus kidnaps Helen, and they take her and hide her in Attica, so the area around Athens. I think he hides her with his mother, I think, whose name is Ithra, perhaps. And her brothers, Castor and Polygeses, invade to get her back. And obviously, the Athenians can't return her because they don't know where she is, and so on and so on. But eventually a lengthy war is fought.

In some versions of the story, Helen has grown old enough to have a child by Theseus by the time they reclaim her. Now, girls were married in 5th century Athens at the age of 12. So in myth, which obviously is sort of to the 5th century Athenians is ancient history, but with more dragons and sphinxes and things. So, you know, I guess you could argue it'd be about the same, 12, 13, something like that. It's still really grim. It just doesn't matter which way you dress. It's just really, really grim. And Pritheus, I think, gets stranded in the underworld, but I find it awfully hard to care, I'm afraid. But I find it really interesting that we obviously we would not I hope blame a child for being abducted but the echoes of that abduction are absolutely present in the Paris version of history so we

just forget about the first one well okay it is horrible nobody wants to think of children being abused but it's like well do we not think there might be any connection for Helen you know if we think of this from Helen's perspective you you know, she must have been thinking, OK, this again, huh? You know, I'm responsible for a big war with thousands of men dying again, am I? You know, so first time, seven or ten, and second time, a little older.

But, yeah, I find it really interesting that we just don't look at that part of the story. And, of course, when you hear the story of Theseus, we absolutely never hear about him as a middle-aged sex pest yeah absolutely we never think of him as you know what he undeniably is which is at least according to the versions of the story that we have and i should say this is not an anachronistic way of describing him because plutarch does he is a serial rapist and killer of women he is a serial killer of wives and other sexual partners he's really horrible and we're all like oh these isn't his incredible guile finding his way through the maze

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podcasts. as you say we sometimes we overlook those parts and focus in on the trojan war but there's that other part isn't there before the trojan war erupts which is where she's once again seems to be used as a pawn very young when she's married off to menelaus and that whole scheme around that it's interesting isn't it because in some versions of her story certainly in the seeming backstory to the version that we get in euripides she has chosen menelaus in some versions it's her father stepfather since her father is busy you know chucking thunderbolts at things. But Tyndareus chooses. So Helen is the most beautiful girl in all the world and also, you know, the daughter of Zeus.

And so every man in Greece wants to marry her because with her comes status and also she's very beautiful. And so they all pitch up to, or in some versions they stay and send messages, but it's more fun when they all turn up. pitch up to, or in some versions they stay and send messages, but it's more fun when they all turn up. And it's Odysseus who steps back from the contest of whatever kind it's going to be. He sees her cousin, who he would rather marry, the daughter of Icarius, Penelope. And so he offers up a suggestion, which is that it would be better, because it's very obvious that if everybody wants to marry Helen the absolute best case scenario is that only one person can be happy and everyone else will be miserable and then they might be you know miserable and heavily armed and so Odysseus suggests that you

can only be in the running to marry Helen if you swear a pledge and so all the potential suitors for Helen have to promise that if she is then removed from her husband, who either she or Tyndareus has chosen, that they will all together go and get her back. And as always with Odysseus' plans, it's almost great. It's like, okay, this is good. So if she won't get abducted again, I imagine she would like that.

In versions of the story where she has chosen her husband, much as I disagree with her choice, I respect it. So it's like, okay, so she's with Menelaus. She's safe there. And it's all great, except for the fact that she's abducted by someone who's not Greek and didn't sign up to the pledge. So, yeah, I mean, it's sort of archetypally Odysseus, really, that he's focusing entirely on the Greeks and not on anyone else.

And yes, it's nearly a good idea, but in the way that it isn't a good idea, it inadvertently causes the death of countless men. If Theseus is the most dangerous man to know as a woman in Greek myth, Odysseus is really, don't be an Ithacan. And if you are an Ithacan, run, run the other way. He kills every single Ithacan. And if you are an Ithacan, run. Run the other way. He kills every single Ithacan by cat-candidness on the way back from Troy to Ithaca at the end of the war. He is the only Ithacan who

returns. All the others, not so much. Some of them get eaten either by Cyclops or by Charybdis or by Scylla or by the Lystrigonians. Some of them get drowned. I guess that could also be Charybdis or by scylla or by the lystrigonians some of them get drowned i guess that could also be charybdis because whirlpool hods say does she eat them swallow them drown them i mean sort of all of the above you know the vengeance of the sun god because they eat his cows the vengeance of the sea god because they blind his son don't get anywhere near don't go on a holiday with odysseus no and don't be in his house when he comes home from holiday, because then he slaughters all the suitors who've been trying to marry his wife. The man is just pure, toxic. Insane.

Oh, my God. Men, avoid him. He is dangerous to you. Well, you mentioned there, of course, and we mentioned it earlier, you know, that other key parts, the Helen story, you know, she goes to Troy with Paris after Paris has gone to Sparta with Menelaus. But sometimes that's, you know, that's portrayed,'s portrayed in Helen's fault once again, as you say. But there's divine help in that, isn't it?

The whole source of that is Paris and these three goddesses and this judgment and all of that. Yeah, it never fails to entertain me that it's a story in which every single character is female apart from Paris. And so it's always called The Judgment of Paris. I have a question. It's in three parts.

So yeah, the contest happens because the goddess Eris, Strife or Discord, takes a golden apple on which are inscribed the words Ter Calistae for the most beautiful woman. It's obviously a gorgeous kind of bauble or trinket and she tosses it amongst the goddesses at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, parents of Achilles. I mean they're obviously not the day they get married, I'm not suggesting they had a shotgun wedding, they will go on to become the parents of Achilles at some later point. So she tosses this

apple amongst the goddesses and three of them claim it, Athene, Aphrodite and Hera and they all want to own it and nobody can decide who should have it or nobody will decide who should have it because picking a fight with any of those goddesses is absolutely well as the Trojans will see is a disastrous idea and so they are sort of dumped on Mount Ida, which is the mountain outside Troy. And Paris is herding cows or sheep there. And so he is chosen to be the judge between them. And they all try bribing him. So Hera offers him kingdoms if he'll give it to her. Athene offers him prowess in war so he can maintain his kingdoms,

because there's not much point having one if you can't keep it. And Aphrodite famously offers him the most beautiful woman there is and that's Helen and the fact that she's married doesn't seem to enter Aphrodite's equation at all but the gods and goddesses in Homer and later in Euripides are incredibly they're like toddlers they're pure id really with no sort of holds on their behavior at all they'll just you know take what they want she wants the apple so you can have helen and it's like i have a question too late so she's no role in it whatsoever absolutely as you mentioned yeah well certainly in the iliad helen i mean we see it in action she blames herself for the war but we see her try to not be with Paris in book three of the Iliad. Paris and Menelaus fight a duel which is as so many duels are in the Iliad both unsatisfying and incomplete and Menelaus

almost has Paris he's sort of holding on to the chin strap of his helmet or hat. He has like a cap. And Aphrodite, not wanting her favourite handsome young man to choke, spirits him off the battlefield and deposits him back in Troy. And Helen is really unkeen to go anywhere near him, partly because she's not particularly hot for him because he's bad at fighting. And it's like, well, that isn't the sexiest thing about man in a war in this context. I can completely understand that.

And she says, I don't want to go to him. And obviously go to him is being used as a euphemism here, which is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting. And Aphrodite tells her that she has to. You know, she sort of outright threatens her and says, basically, you've been my favourite up to now. Do what I say or you won't be my favourite anymore. And you realise that this version of Helen has no free will at all.

She's basically like an organic robot. So she has to do, you have to do what Aphrodite tells you. When I wrote about this scene in Ships, I created a horrible noise that was sort of like a buzzing in her ears that just wouldn't quit if you try to not do what a god or goddess tells you to do. I wanted this sense of it being like a physical torment to try and resist it because I couldn't think of a better way of explaining it really, because how else do we explain the notion of having no free will at all? So what do we know, therefore, about her relationship in that version, therefore,

with other prominent Trojans, for instance, like with Hector? is it a bit different is it a bit better affectionate yeah it's really nice actually her relationship with hector we can see it in book six of the iliad when hector comes off the battlefield and goes into the city he's looking for well first he's looking for his mother to say they need to sacrifice to athene because he's been told by his brother helenus that they need to make sacrifice to the goddess. Won't work, spoiler alert, won't win her over. Still smarting about that lost apple. Not that Homer mentions the lost apple, I should add. And then he's looking for Andromache for his wife, but he sort of bumps into Helen on the way. And they have a really nice exchange. And it's not at all flirty, you know,

it's just like brother and sister and I suppose they're brother-in-law and sister-in-law aren't they but it's really affectionate and when he spoiler dies and they hold his funeral in the very last bit of book 24 of the Iliad Helen speaks at that funeral and she says we might see it as being a bit I don't know self-absorbed I suppose I think at a funeral now we would expect people to talk about the dead person, and people do. There are three, four speakers at Hector's funeral. And Andromache, his widow, has spoken about him,

and his parents will. But Helen talks about, not about his prowess on the battlefield, but about how kind he was to her. So it sort of gives us a sense of Hector as a rounded man rather than just as a warrior. We already know he was a brilliant warrior. We've seen it over 22 books before he's killed. So by the time we get to book 24, it's like, well, what have we lost?

And the answer is that Andromache has lost a husband, that Hecuba and Priam have lost a son. And it may seem quite casual that Helen's lost a sort of friend and brother-in-law, but they're obviously words right from the heart. And again, I think it's interesting because we get a sense that she's not particularly popular in Troy. There is a movement among the Trojans to give her back so that the war might be over.

And she talks in her funeral oration, she talks about Hector being kind to her when you know other people weren't always and you think oh that's we don't think of her as being sort of unpopular character who has to tolerate being kind of frozen out by all her sisters and sisters-in-law but that's what she is. It was incredibly refreshing therefore when writing the book A Thousand Ships you know from the women's perspective to be able to include that side of of Helen even in the Homer version of the Iliad where you can bring to the fore that no, she's not just this hated person all the time

there is so much more to this character that we can talk about. Yeah, it was lovely actually. I didn't give her a chapter. I tried really hard to and I thought in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it because Calliope, the muse of the book, muse of epic poetry was just so cross whenever I tried she was always you know and in the end I think what was going to be Helen's chapter I cut back I want to do the Odyssey bit where it's like you can't just casually throw in abusive drug dosing even in a novel it's just too it felt anachronistic, even though it's in Homer, it just felt like it was from the wrong time and in the wrong place. So I let her have some good moments in the Trojan women scenes and it seemed like the right way to do it.

We've kind of mentioned about those various other versions of Helen that we have from antiquity. You mentioned Euripides' Trojan women and the Helen. A couple of other figures I'd talk about who do talk about Helen's story as well and have different versions of Helen. The first of all is another of these lost plays by Sophocles, because we have Helen mentioned in one of those, too. The demand for Helen's return. Yeah. So there's a really brilliant scholar at Exeter University called Matthew Wright, who's done incredible research into lost Greek tragedies and often there's only tiny tiny fragments and you know references in scolia the sort of ancient literary criticism that to a play which is long since lost and the demand for Helen's return is just such a play and there are two I think or

three fragments of it and that's it and this version of Helen is incredibly self-reproaching, really like the Iliad version, but more so. So in one fragment, she says she wants to drink bull's blood, which is poison. She's talking about killing herself. And the other fragment, as though I were in a slightly cliched film, I literally dropped a pen when I read this. I was like, what? I must have just misread this. when I read this I was like what I must have just misread this where this version of Helen is so full of guilt and remorse and trauma for all these things that have happened that she feels responsible for that she is gouging at her face with like a writing implement like a pencil and I was like this cannot be a fragment from two and a half thousand years. This must be in the translation.

So I tracked it down and looked at the Greek. Okay, because it felt so modern, the response of self-harm. The Greeks, for sure, do self-harm, as we would consider it, in moments of great grief. You know, you rake your nails down your face when you're bereaved. You tear your hair, you tear your garments. But this idea that you would the thought that had gone into it of this sort of destruction of her beauty using the exact

weapon that has made her world renowned for being beautiful you know there isn't telly people don't know what she looks like what they know is the descriptions of what she looks like that are in as the descriptions of what she looks like that are in poems and songs or painted onto objects or whatever and so it's like she can't stand the idea either of being beautiful or of the tools which have been used by men to spread the to propagandize her beauty as perceived by their desirous and destructive male gaze it's like this cannot be two and a half thousand years old. And there it was. Incredible. It's so interesting to have a different version, as you say.

And you kind of hinted at it there. I mean, like even in, I'm guessing in like ancient Greece as well, over 2,500 years ago, at the time of Sophocles and the like, there would have been lots of vessels with figurative decoration, depictions of Helen shown everywhere, I'm presuming. I mean, Helen is really interesting to track through time because our idea, with figurative decoration, depictions of Helen shown everywhere, I'm presuming. I mean, Helen is really interesting to track through time because our idea, I think you maybe get it to a slightly lesser degree with Cleopatra, but the version of Helen that you see absolutely 100% reflects the ideals of beauty of the time in which that Helen is created. And if you are

looking for a better illustration, I don't think there is one of this necessary truth that myth is a mirror. It's not just its own time, but it reflects back the time in which this artwork, this telling of the myth is created. So all myths have multiple timelines. When I wrote Ships, of course, it has, I hope, the Bronze Age when the Trojan War theoretically happened, the late 13th, early 12th century BCE. But then also there's the timeline of Homer. So late 8th, probably early 7th century BCE. The timeline of all those Euripides plays, 5th century, late-ish 5th century BCE. The timeline in the Penelope letters of Ovid, of Ovid's Heroides, on which they heavily drew slash I stole. And then, you know know all of that right

the way through to the fact that I'm writing it in the 21st century a 21st century feminist perspective on top of all of that so I tend to think of them as like super thin you know when in old days now people who do lighting tech will be laughing at how old I am because they do it all electronically but in olden times of yore a theatre light would have gels in front of it that were you know these very thin layers of coloured cellophane. And you could make different colours by putting, for example, red and blue in together. And I always think it's a little bit like that, you know, these endless layers and layers and layers and layers of very, very thin bits of the story that somehow all give you this one unique perspective. But all myths have multiple

timelines in and sometimes sometimes certainly when I'm doing it you know it might be 10 or 20. Ptolemy the quail yes this figure yes who is he and what is this link with heaven? He's really obscure he's a really obscure strange writer called Ptolemaeus Kenos which translates as Ptolemy the quail and there is just this very strange little moment when he is writing about, is he writing about Stesichorus, I think? I think that's what gets him onto the subject. He's writing about this poet who was married to a Helen, but not the same one who, you know, was Helen of Sparta, another one. And then he goes on a little list and talks about other versions

of Helen, or maybe other Helens. So it's like a list of celebrated Helens of the ancient world. And he mentions one that eats three kid goats a day, which no matter how many times I think about it, still makes me laugh. Even as a vegetarian, it's like, is that keto? Three kid goats a day? How big is a kid goat? Isn't that a lot? So I always have visions of her being like, you know, Louisa in Encanto, who can sort of bench press nine donkeys. Like, come on. Well, I sit there weekly eating lentils. And then my absolute favourite Helen that he mentions is one who raises a bilingual sheep. And then that's it. That's all he says. And as a reader, you're like, what? What? What? One, how do you know the sheep is bilingual? Two, which

languages does the sheep speak? Is it sheep and another animal language, e.g. goat? Or is it like Greek and Trojan? What is it? But that's all he says. And then he moves on in his mercurial, quailish way. So I'm afraid I can't tell you further details of the bilingual sheep, but I can tell you it's my favourite Helen, my favourite version of Helen from the Hitchwell. It is so interesting isn't it Natalie, you know all these different versions of Helen that we've kind of talked about you know varying from Homer to Ptolemy, you mentioned Ovid earlier as well because he has another version of Helen too doesn't he? Yeah his version in Heroides is really interesting because it's one of the paired letters at the end of the collection so there are 15 letters from heroines,

women of Greek myth, to their absent menfolk. And then there's a set of three paired letters where a man, shockingly, writes a letter to a female character and then she writes a reply. And so Paris makes his case in these letters to Helen and basically says, you should come away with me. We can presume it's set around about the time where they've met in Sparta and he has tried to charm her and said you know elope with me and she's gone nah and so he's trying to make his case a bit more articulately in writing form and so he's full of sort of charm and like I'm like this I'm a prince of Troy I'm really impressive you wouldn't be downgrading if you

eloped with me. And she writes back, she's so sort of canny, you know, she's like, I actually would be downgrading because, and we might find this sort of colonialist attitude a bit stressful, but it reflects obviously the time when Ovid is writing and indeed probably the way Helen might be imagined by him to have thought. And she's she's like well you're a barbarian and I'm a Greek so why would I what that is the downgrade doesn't matter how rich you are you're still not Greek and Greek is you know the for Helen as Ovid tells it that's the sort of pinnacle of civilization whereas of course by Ovid's time Roman clearly trumps Greek and so she's very cautious but still kind of quietly flirty. There's still this suggestion that if he tries hard enough,

you know, if he's charming enough, she might give it a bit more thought. But basically, her response is to say, my life is set up very nicely, thank you for asking. So I'm pretty sure I won't be coming with you. What did you say you were wearing? It's very kind of, she's very respectable and just a little bit naughty at the same time. I love Ovid.

Well, Natalie, this has been great. And one last thing before we wrap up completely on Helen. We mentioned, of course, all these visual representations of Helen down through the ages and it reflects beauty of the time, how they perceive beauty always with these artistic depictions of Helen.

But one thing I'd actually quite like to focus in on of all the various aspects of Helen's legacy is Star Trek because Helen also appears in Star Trek in one form as well original series Star Trek yeah it's a really lovely episode I mean there are moments in it which are hard to watch not least because Elan as I think she's called, at one point hits Captain Kirk and it is the 60s, he simply hits her back and it's like, Captain Kirk's hitting a woman. But it's, you know, time makes ancient good uncouth.

There's no point being cross with Star Trek for not having the values of the 21st century when it was being made in the 1960s. And its colonial attitudes are probably as problematic to us because she is for sure presented as a sort of noble savage. So she is supposed to be, I think what's in a way the most interesting thing about it is that this suggestion that this version of Helen could cause peace by getting married rather than causing a war by eloping with a man. So, you know, there's a sort of ambassador trying to persuade her to marry this sort of rather sappy man that we're expecting her to meet. And she is, you know, incredibly martial.

She's very tough, very emotional. And she's very unconvinced by this whole thing. But they're hoping that this marriage will be a peace deal, basically. And so her feelings have been sort of sidetracked. And so her feelings have been sort of sidetracked. And as one might expect, the excellent Starship Enterprise gets involved in escorting her to this sappy man that she is supposed to marry. But no fool she, of course, on seeing Captain Kirk. She is furious because everyone's involved in, you know, essentially a sort of quasi consensual kidnapping since she doesn't want to to do it even if she's agreed to do it.

But of course she falls for Captain Kirk. And then the great tragedy is that if you see her cry, you will be in love with her and her slave forever. And Captain Kirk does see her cry and we're like, he's never going to be free. But it turns out that he is going to be free because his great love, of course, was the Enterprise all along. It's so lovely.

It's interesting, you know, these various depictions of Helen or Helen-like interesting, you know, these various depictions of Helen or Helen-like figures, you know, even into the TV and media age. And it's, I mean, surely, you know, in the years, in the decades, maybe in the centuries to come, the figure of Helen should still be around us in various forms. Is it important just to show off that, you know, there were various types of Helen in antiquity, and there will be various types of Helen in the years to come too. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's exactly right. And when we look at any version of Helen from any

time in history, you know, a pre-Raphaelite painting of Helen versus, you know, the sort of ghost version of her that we sort of see in Marlowe's Faustus. And it's like, oh, okay, so she's sort of a dream there. She doesn speak at all and you compare that with this incredibly articulate version in Euripides and then yes this sort of slightly queasy making version of her that we get in Star Trek which has this sort of heavily colonialized overtones it's like well who knows which version will arise you know our ideals of beauty to have changed literally beyond recognition I think you see it more maybe with Cleopatra where people are so baffled by the idea that this woman who doesn't have a sort of modern idea of sort of tiny nose you know giant Disney princess eyes you know how

is she considered this incredibly beautiful woman well it's like it's almost as if these things are culturally specific oh I don't know it's a thought isn't it so yeah i think there are so many helens to come it's impossible not to look forward to them absolutely exciting indeed i mean natalie has mentioned this has been great last but certainly not least your book we can even mention your books about helen and various other women from the Trojan War and from Greek myths they're called so a thousand ships is the novel which has Helen in it tells the story of the Trojan War from the perspectives of not all but a lot of the women involved in it the Trojan women the Greek women the goddesses who caused the whole thing in the first place and then I wrote

a book called Pandora's jar which a non-fiction book about Greek myth. So Helen is a chapter in there too. So you can get all the mad versions of Helen, or at least a goodish number of mad versions of Helen from her chapter in that. Absolutely. That's what we want to hear. And just as we say, Natalie, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Pleasure. Well, there you go. There was Natalie Haynes talking all about Helen of Troy, the many versions of Helen of Troy in antiquity,

and a bit on her legacy too. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Now, if you're looking for more ancients content and can't wait until Sunday when our next episode will be released, then why not subscribe to our weekly ancients newsletter? We release the newsletter every Thursday and it includes a bit of a blurb written by myself all about what's been happening in the ancient history hit world that week,

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