Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  “Hesione,” she said. “The sister of Priam, the king of Troy. She was kidnapped by Heracles and taken off to Salamis and given to Telamon. A long time ago.”

  “Has she been kept a prisoner all this time?”

  Clytemnestra shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps she grew to like Salamis and didn’t want to return. Perhaps she is fond of Telamon.” She rolled her eyes.

  As it turned out, Teucer’s skill was archery, and his demonstration was most impressive.

  The fourth day. Already this was becoming wearisome. Had it not been for Clytemnestra’s presence at my side and her evaluations and comments about each man, it would have been unendurable. This fourth day, Idomeneus, king of Crete, took his place facing Father and us.

  He was a bit older than the others had been; from the story of his life on the island kingdom and the battles he had fought, I assumed he was in his early thirties—at least twice my own age. After declaring his lineage—as a grandson of the mighty Minos—and recounting his wealth and the title as queen that he could offer me, he was confronted by Father’s asking, “Most kings do not come in person; they send an envoy to represent them. This is all the more true when the distance is great, and Crete is four days’ sail from Gytheum, our nearest harbor. Yet you have come all this way.”

  Idomeneus just smiled, not defensive at all. “I do not trust to rumors or to other men’s eyes. I wished to come in person to see for myself this Helen of Sparta, who is reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  I stood up, trembling. “Sir! That is not true!”

  “That I wished to see you in person, that is true.”

  “I am not the most beautiful woman in the world! You must stop this!” I looked around, pleading with all of them in the room.

  Idomeneus looked saddened. “Princess, you are.” He said it as if he were pronouncing an incurable illness.

  And by this time it felt like one. Silently I sank back down in my seat.

  “What do you bring to offer Helen as your wife?” Father asked.

  “I bring her the title of queen of Crete. I lay Crete at her feet, Crete to share with me, a goodly kingdom that is rich in pastures, in olives and vines and sheep, surrounded by the deepest seas, protected by our ships. “We are a proud people, Princess,” he said to me. “Come and live amongst us.”

  “And what is your skill?” Father went directly to the point.

  “Words, mighty king. I tell epic tales, fit them to verse. My lyre is best played by a more talented bard, but I taught him the words.” He indicated a young man who until then had remained quietly in the shadows of a column, clutching his tortoiseshell lyre.

  The bard took his place beside Idomeneus, and although it was full daylight and no wine had been drunk, the beauty of the poem and the music moved us first to silence and then to tears. He sang of the love of Adriadne for Theseus, and the bravery of that hero.

  But I could not choose him. Had I not promised myself that anyone who spoke the “most beautiful woman in the world” words would be disqualified? And, appealing as he was, he lived far away and the thought of being separated from the rest of my family by a wide stretch of ocean frightened me.

  * * *

  The moon, a crescent to begin with, grew full and waned and became a crescent again, and yet the contest dragged on. By that time we were so weary of speeches, of roasted ox, of wine, of lyres and archery and chariots and footraces, we vowed never to indulge in them again once this was over.

  Agamemnon, who had gone home to Mycenae after the first few days, returned to be the final contestant, speaking for his brother.

  Stocky, thick legs spread wide in challenging stance, he stood beside the megaron hearth, his manner impatient.

  “My brother Menelaus has trusted me to speak for him. A humble man cannot sing his own praises, even when they are deserved. And my brother is a humble man.” He made it sound like a fault. Or perhaps he just meant that his brother’s humility was now inconvenient for him, Agamemnon. “But of all men, he has least reason to be! His lineage is of the noble House of Atreus!”

  There. He had flung out his greatest liability as if it were his greatest asset. The House of Atreus—its founder Tantalus, and his son and grandson Pelops and Thyestes.

  “Yes, we carry a great burden, but so does Atlas! Atlas bears the world on his shoulders, but we bear the burden of the curse of a brother to a brother: that of Thyestes to Atreus. So be it. He cursed all of Atreus’ sons, forever and in all generations. But no mortal has the power to do that, only the gods. And Menelaus and I are living proof of that. We hold no enmity for one another—quite the contrary. We are close as brothers can be, and would go to one another’s defense on the instant. I am pledged to protect him, and he, me. The curse is dead!”

  I saw Father tighten his lips and frown. Beside me Clytemnestra was silent. Did she believe this?

  Agamemnon looked around, gauging the expressions in the room. But the faces were guarded. “Princess, at your feet he will lay the precious stores of oil and grain and robes and gold that fill the vaults of Mycenae, as well as twenty black-hulled ships and the spoils of the islands we raided. Besides that, there are all the cattle of the Plataean region.”

  He was promising more wealth on his brother’s behalf than he himself held.

  “And as a final bride-price, he dedicates the entire city of Asine, lately captured from the Tiryans.”

  Now the room stirred, and I saw anger flush across the broad face of Menestheus, until then the suitor with the greatest pledge. He was from Athens and immensely wealthy; he had pledged ships and palaces and gems, but nothing like this. He was outbid.

  “Had my brother a kingdom, Princess, he would pledge it all to you.” Agamemnon’s dark eyes bored into mine until I almost felt pain at the back of them. “I myself hold the kingdom of Argos and Mycenae, but on his behalf I pledge it all, all except the title itself.” He paused. “He offers you all he has.”

  “And much he does not,” muttered Clytemnestra.

  “With his body he will defend you, with all his treasure he will endow you, with this necklace he will wed you.” Agamemnon then drew out a thick chain of gold, its heavy links clanking as he held it up, its bright unmistakable luster proclaiming that its gold was pure. True gold is a piercing, almost garish yellow. He turned, holding out the necklace, so that everyone in the room could see it. Then he stopped, facing Father and me.

  “This is most generous,” was all Father allowed himself to say.

  Fortunately, I was not required to speak.

  “Now for your feat . . . ?” Father pressed.

  “It is not my feat, but Menelaus’s. Here it is: If you choose him, Princess, he will present himself here and undertake any task you set him. He will complete it, though it take all the rest of his life.”

  “But it is a requirement that he perform it now!” Father rose. “All the others have.”

  “What the others have done is perform a limited exhibition. What my brother proposes could require a lifetime—or, at the least, a warfaring season.”

  “You are asking for one man to compete on a promise, while the others performed for our eyes. There is no competition that cannot be won in the imagination, and a promised feat is always perfect.” Father’s fists were clenching. He was ready to disqualify Agamemnon.

  I rose. “Father is right. A promise is not a deed. Therefore let him prove himself. Let him—”

  “Princess, the condition was that you have chosen him first.” To my shock, Agamemnon interrupted me.

  “As I am the prize, I set the conditions,” I snapped back. “If he is really so eager for me as you claim, then he will comply. Let him race from Mycenae to Lerna, where Heracles slew the Hydra, without stopping. It is a full day’s walk, but he must not walk, he must run. Bring me word how he does. Mind you, if he stops and rests, or slows to walk, he has lost.”

  Agamemnon’s face flushed dark. I could see his mouth working, fighting not t
o spit out words of fury. “Very well,” he finally said in a low, cold voice.

  Around the room spirits now lightened. I had set, they believed, an impossible task for Menelaus. How could an ordinary man run so far without stopping?

  But I had not specified how fast he must run, and I had already known that Menelaus was a strong runner. He did not remember, but Agamemnon himself had told me at Mycenae while bragging about his own hunting prowess. He had complained that Menelaus seemed more content to chase the quarry than to slay it, and that he was capable of staying on his feet and running all day.

  So I aided Menelaus in his suit. Some might even say I fixed the contest, but that is not true, for he had given me leave to choose whatever feat I wished. Did I want him to win? Even today I cannot answer that.

  “You have prolonged the contest,” grumbled Father. “Who knows how long this will take now? Menelaus may be far away, and—What came over you?”

  “I could see that you were ready to dismiss the suit.”

  “You were right. It was absurd. Does Agamemnon think just because he’s king of Mycenae he doesn’t have to follow the rules?”

  “Clearly that is the case. But we should not punish Menelaus on his behalf.”

  “Menelaus is a fool if he chose Agamemnon to speak for him, and that alone should disqualify him!” Father barked. “It was most revealing of his character, his judgment—or lack of it!”

  “But Father—”

  “He is right, dear.” Mother was standing beside us. “For the most serious decision in his life, he chooses his hotheaded, arrogant brother to speak for him? A poor choice. A very poor choice. What does it say about Menelaus?”

  Now I felt compelled to defend him, to defend my soft-spoken companion in the moonlight. “Who else could he have chosen? Would it not have seemed most peculiar had he bypassed his brother the king and chosen someone else?”

  “Why didn’t he come himself ? Anything would have been better than Agamemnon, I don’t care how stumblingly he speaks.”

  “He doesn’t speak stumblingly!” I said.

  “Why, child, are you defending him?” Mother pressed.

  “I’m not!” I cried. “I don’t even know him!”

  “I’ll tell you why he didn’t come,” said Clytemnestra, pushing herself between us. “He was afraid. He was afraid he would fail, and then he could not live with himself. He could not trust his words, his feelings were so strong.”

  We all stared at her. She went on.

  “He wants you more than anything in the world,” she told me. “Menelaus does not want things, not like Agamemnon, who is greedy for everything he sees. Menelaus is content. But since he saw you, all those years ago, he finally found something he wanted. He was too afraid that he would lose it for himself.”

  “So he would allow another to lose it for him?” I was incredulous.

  “He thought Agamemnon, not caring so desperately, would actually speak better.” Clytemnestra paused. “I know this. I heard them talking. I have kept silent until now, so you could make up your own mind. But now, apparently, you have.”

  “No, I haven’t! Let me see first how he runs!”

  XII

  Deep night. Alone, lying silently on my bed, my chamber attendants—more like companions than slaves, in truth—stolen away to pallets of their own, I allow myself to relive the extraordinary closing day of the contest.

  It has not been as I imagined. I had longed for the end of it all, for the ceremonies and the presentations to cease. I was weary of judging men, of noting every nuance in their words, and more than that, of what lay beneath their words. Clytemnestra’s constant jokes and cynicism had worn thin, and I could feel the mounting strain on Father and Mother. For me there was the fear of making a wrong choice, for I wasn’t simply choosing a man, I was also choosing a way of life.

  Father was right to question me about what I had demanded of Menelaus, but I had no good answer. I was curious about Menelaus. His absent presence lit my imagination and created a man I was hungry to know.

  The night is chill, as nights in spring are. Yet I am so restless I keep throwing off the light wool covers and shivering in the darkness. Through my mind troop the suitors, in a ghostly file, looking at me accusingly.

  Choose me . . . look with favor upon me . . . I can give you . . . I am the best . . . I risk all . . .

  If I choose one, will they truly all go away? So they had vowed, bloodying themselves with the slain horse to do so.

  I do not want to marry a king. I do not want to go away to some foreign city or realm. If I marry someone less than a king, he can stay here with me in Sparta. I will not have to leave all that I know, family and home. As if by magic, the kings vanish from the ghostly line.

  I do not want to marry someone much older than I, or much younger. Someone older would treat me like a daughter, being either strict or stupidly fawning. Someone younger would defer too much to me, and would know less than I. Out fly Idomeneus, Menestheus, Patroclus, and the ten-year-old from Corinth.

  I do not want to marry anyone whose face—or the rest of him, for that matter—does not please me. Instantly the fat man from Euboea careens away, followed by a number of others whose looks displease me for one reason or another. Among them is Odysseus, although I know he is not a true suitor in any case. There is something in his eyes that makes me uncomfortable; I do not trust him. Although he affects a careless, amiable manner, I can see the calculating opportunist in him. Penelope was welcome to him.

  I open my eyes and lean against the frame of the window, gazing once more out into the night.

  There are still too many left, too many still to choose from. I cannot do it, and there are only a few days left until the contest must end. Oh, help me!

  To whom have I cried?

  “Oh, my dear goddesses, please look down and help me choose.” I search the heavens as if I believe I will see them. All I see are the scattered stars wheeling around me.

  “Hera, sweet goddess of marriage, guide me! You who hold marriage most dear, be merciful to me. Beautiful Persephone, who left maidenhood with such a struggle, help me in mine. To go from maid to wife is no light matter, and you were torn. Take my hand and guide me.”

  My senses strain, but I feel nothing in the black expanse.

  For long moments I stand shivering in the dark, waiting to feel their presence. The perfume from the fruit trees comes to me on puffs of wind, like the goddesses’ breath.

  I turn and seek my bed, believing all is well. But I had forgotten to include Aphrodite, I had slighted the greatest goddess of men and women and their love. As my father had once neglected her, thereby incurring her wrath, so did I.

  “He is on his way!” Clytemnestra grasped my forearm in a painful pinch. “He didn’t stop at Lerna! He’s still running, coming directly here!”

  “All that distance?” It seemed cruel, and I would never have set that task for him.

  “He is determined to meet your test and to go beyond it,” she said. She released my arm. “I didn’t know he had it in him.”

  We were surrounded by people; the suitors were still on hand to await the judging, but boredom had sowed its seeds and everyone was eager for distraction. Menelaus and his race were providing it. Now ears strained to overhear us. I had been told that the men had taken bets as to whom I would choose, and therefore anything they might overhear could help their odds.

  “Come.” I motioned to Clytemnestra and we retreated into the guarded inner courtyard of the palace. Seated on a low bench, we spoke in whispers.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “I just meant that Menelaus has seldom shown much passion about anything. So this is a surprise.”

  I could not imagine that it was for love of me, as he really did not know me. We’d had only those moments in the night long ago. “So you think he covets the throne he will get from Father?”

  She tilted her head and considered this. “Perhaps. To live in Agamemno
n’s shadow might have been difficult all these years, although he never showed it. He is a hard man to know.”

  “Perhaps he only wants to brag about winning me.”

  “My dear, they all do.”

  “So he is a lackluster fellow, one who shows no passion?” I pressed her.

  “Usually. Of course, Agamemnon has enough passion for both of them, and too much passion is as bad as too little.” She glanced around and lowered her voice even more. “But he does not even have a mistress. He never avails himself of any of the captured slave women, never requests any as his lot when spoils are divided.”

  I was apprehensive. “Could it be . . . does he prefer men?”

  “No. No men, either.”

  “Has he taken a vow to Artemis? But grown men do not—”

  “What are you two whispering about? You look like conspirators!” Castor bounded out of the palace toward us.

  “We are,” I said. “We are forced to be.”

  “Well, have you made your decision?” he asked, grinning. He crossed his arms and waited. “I won’t tell, I promise.” He made a silly sign of a solemn vow.

  “Who would you choose?” I asked him. I did value his opinion, and up until now both my brothers had kept remarkably quiet about the contest.

  “It would depend on what sort of life I wanted,” he said. “A quiet one—a warfaring one—a wealthy one—I’m not you, little sister.”

  “I haven’t chosen yet,” I admitted. “I have eliminated some impossible ones, but there are still far too many left.”

  “Dear, you should be flattered. No one in living memory, or even in legend, come to think of it, has been sought by so many.”

  “No, I’m only confused,” I said. “I don’t really want to be married at all, but I know I must.”

  “Don’t go away!” said Clytemnestra suddenly. “Don’t leave us!” She shook her head. “I’ve tried to say nothing, but just now, the thought of your going so far away was painful. I was lucky, Mycenae isn’t very far, and we’ve not been separated, but—oh, I don’t think I could bear it!”