The Greek Plays
Page 82
Euripides framed his Helen as a kind of sequel to Herodotus’ account. Proteus, protector of Helen, is now dead, and his son, Theoclymenus, is on the Egyptian throne—a less noble ruler than his father, especially in his lust to have Helen for his own. But Euripides also makes use here of Stesichorus’ eidolon, and indeed amplifies its unsettling implications. In Euripides’ version, the phantom, still taken to be the real Helen, has accompanied Menelaus and his crew on their homeward voyage, until—poof!—it melts into thin air (as a servant describes, lines 605–15), revealing in a parting speech that the Greeks and Trojans had fought for nothing. This idea must have disquieted Athenians who not only revered Homer’s more heroic account of the Trojan War—scenes from it were at this moment being carved for their new temple of Athena Nike—but had suffered enormous losses in their own war against Sparta, a conflict that by this time had stretched out twice as long as the Trojan one. A meditation by Helen’s Chorus (1151–65), probably inspired by Herodotus’ idea that the Trojans and Greeks could have avoided bloodshed and negotiated their differences, has often been seen as an object lesson for contemporary Athens and Sparta, in line with Aristophanes’ war-weary comedy Lysistrata, produced less than a year after Helen.
But Euripides leaves implicit the question raised by the phantom’s disappearance: that of whether the Trojan War—or any subsequent war—had any point that could justify its terrible cost. He focuses instead on the joyous, passionate reunion of husband and wife, a reunion sweetened by a wholly unexpected twist: Helen is here portrayed as a fiercely loyal wife who has steadfastly resisted Theoclymenus’ attempts to possess her by taking refuge at Proteus’ tomb (where the play is set). One can almost see the mischievous smile on Euripides’ face as he contemplated the inversion by which he made Helen, the most notorious tramp of Greek mythology, tenaciously chaste. Helen’s sexual fidelity, and Menelaus’ relief at learning of it, looks back to the story of Penelope in the Odyssey, but it also looks ahead to the New Comedies that would dominate the Athenian stage in the century after Helen, and to the romance novels that circulated through the Greek world thereafter. These genres eschew the public concerns of the polis for those of a domestic realm in which ardent love and happy pair-bonding are the supreme marks of divine favor. With its emphases on these personal, familial objectives, Helen has been termed a romance, set at the start of a Greek literary trend that would continue to evolve for centuries.
That is not to say that the larger cosmos of classical Greek tragedy has been left behind in this play. Thanks to the remarkable Theonoë, a seer who knows all things, we learn that the Olympian gods are, at the moment the play takes place, deciding among themselves the fates of Helen and Menelaus—even if her report of their deliberations (lines 878–886) is so brief, and focused on such petty concerns, as to be nearly parodic. At the play’s end, the appearance ex machina of Helen’s divine brothers, the Dioscuri, frames the preceding action as the working out of the will of Zeus, similar to the closing epiphanies in other Euripidean dramas (compare, in this volume, Bacchae and Hippolytus). The old questions posed by Greek tragic poets throughout the fifth century are voiced again here, as urgently as ever, by the Chorus of Greek maidens:
What mortal can think it all through and explain
what is god, what is not god…? (1138–39)
But the hope of obtaining answers seems to be increasingly remote:
The most one can hope is to glimpse how their works
leap around, back and forth and around,
in a world of surprises and self-contradiction. (1140–42)
Thus the lives of Helen and Menelaus, proceeding from helplessness and near-destruction to salvation, restored happiness, and, as forecast by the Dioscuri, redemption from death, reveal the vicissitudes of ever-changing Fortune more than they do the triumph of a coherent moral order.
Helen is one of nine plays that have survived not because they were selected by Byzantine schoolmasters as exemplary texts, but as part of a single papyrus scroll, preserved by random chance, from an alphabetically arranged collection of Euripides’ plays. It stands today as a reminder that Athenian “tragedy” had many different tones, timbres, and techniques. In some cases, especially in the late plays of Euripides, the pity and fear that (according to Aristotle) gave the highest tragic pleasure took a backseat to other kinds of enjoyment: exotic locales, reunions of long-parted lovers, and the timeless thrill of a narrow escape from peril.
HELEN
Translated by Emily Wilson
I have used the text printed in William Allen’s edition (Cambridge: Green and Yellow, 2008) and have been much helped by his commentary; I have also consulted the edition by Peter Burian (Aris and Philips, 2007).
CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
HELEN, wife of Menelaus
TEUCER, a Greek hero from Salamis
CHORUS of Greek maidens
MENELAUS, king of Sparta
SERVANT
THEONOË, priestess and sister of Theoclymenos
THEOCLYMENUS, ruler of Egypt
MESSENGER
CASTOR and POLLUX, semidivine brothers of Helen (also known as the Dioscuri)
Setting: The play takes place in front of the palace of Theoclymenos, ruler of Egypt.
HELEN: So beautiful, so chaste! This river Nile
waters the plain of Egypt with white snow
instead of rain from heaven. Long ago
when Proteus was alive, he ruled this land,
<—living in Pharos, but the king of Egypt—>*1
and married one of the maidens of the sea,
Psamathe, when she left Aeacus’ bed.*2
She bore two children in this house: a boy,
10
named Theoclymenos,*3 and a noble girl,
named Belle*4—her mother’s joy when she was small.
But since she’s reached the age when girls get married,
they call her Theonoë, since she knows
the gods, and all that is and is to come,*5
a power inherited from Nereus.*6
And as for me, my country, too, is famous.
I come from Sparta; Tyndareus was my father.
There is another story—if it’s true,
that Zeus became a swan and flew disguised,
20
chased by an eagle, into my mother’s bed,
and tricking Leda, he achieved his end.
I am named Helen. I would like to tell
the things I’ve suffered. Once, for the sake of beauty,
three goddesses met Paris in the cave
on Ida, so that he could judge their looks:
Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena.*7
My beauty was what Aphrodite offered—
if curses count as beauty—and she won,
by promising him me. So Paris left
30
his cowsheds and arrived in Sparta, seeking
my bed.*8 But Hera, hating having lost,
turned my affair with Paris into wind.
She gave king Priam’s son an empty image,
not me but something like me, made of air
but breathing. So he thought that he had me,
but it was just an empty false appearance.
The plans of Zeus in turn brought further trouble.
He set the Greeks at war with those poor, suffering
people of Troy. He hoped to lighten earth,
40
our mother, weighted down by all these humans,
and bring renown to the best man of Greece.
So “I”—not I, my name—was made the prize,
a gift for Greeks, a test for Trojan valor.
Hermes concealed me in the folds of air,
with clouds for blankets, since Zeus cared for me.
He set me in this house of Proteus,
picking the most self-disciplined of humans,
to save the purity of my marriage-bed
for Menelaus. That is wh
y I’m here,
50
while my poor husband’s gathered up an army,
to hunt for my abduction off in Troy.*9
And by Scamander’s streams, so many souls
have died for me. I’m cursed: it looks as if
I cheated on my husband and I caused
a massive war for Greece! That’s what I suffer.
Why am I still alive? Because I heard
Hermes—who knew I never went to Troy—
say I would live again in famous Sparta
with my own man—if I keep faith with him.*10
60
As long as Proteus saw the light of day,
my bed was safe. But now he’s dead, dark earth
covers his body, and his son is hunting
to marry me. I’m here to throw myself
on Proteus’ tomb. I’m praying to save myself
for my original husband, whom I honor.
Even if my name is smirched through Greece,
my body never will be tainted here.
TEUCER: Who has control of this strong citadel?
This is a regal palace, fit for Plutus,*11
70
with all its splendid cornices and walls.
(seeing Helen)
Hey!
O gods, what’s this? It looks like that most hated
murderess, of me and all the Greeks.
May the gods curse you, counterfeit of Helen!
If I were not on foreign earth, you’d die
by my unerring arrow,*12 as reward
for looking so much like that child of Zeus.
HELEN: Poor man! Who are you? Why do you turn from me,
and hate me for that woman’s circumstances?
80
TEUCER: Sorry! I lost my temper, I was wrong.
You know all Greece hates Zeus’s daughter, lady.
So please forgive me for the things I said.
HELEN: Where did you travel from? And who are you?
TEUCER: I’m one of those most wretched Greeks, my lady.
HELEN: It’s not surprising, then, that you hate Helen.
But who exactly are you? What’s your name?
TEUCER: I’m Teucer, the son of Telamon; the country
that bore and nourished me was Salamis.
HELEN: Then why did you come here, beside the Nile?
90
TEUCER: I’m wandering in exile from my home.
HELEN: Poor you! Who drove you from your fatherland?
TEUCER: My father, Telamon! My next of kin!
HELEN: But why? What kind of trouble made this happen?
TEUCER: My brother Ajax’ death in Troy destroyed me.
HELEN: You surely didn’t kill him with your sword?
TEUCER: No, no, he leapt on his own sword, himself.
HELEN: Had he gone mad? No sane man would do this.
TEUCER: Well—do you know of someone named Achilles?
HELEN: Yes!
He once came courting Helen—so I’ve heard.
100
TEUCER: In death, his friends competed for his arms.*13
HELEN: But why did that hurt Ajax?
TEUCER: Someone else
attained the armor, and he killed himself.
HELEN: So you are sick because of what he suffered.
TEUCER: Yes, and because I did not die with him.
HELEN: Stranger, did you go to Troy?
TEUCER: I did
but I myself was ruined, when we sacked it.
HELEN: Is Troy already burned down to the ground?
TEUCER: Yes, you could hardly see a trace of walls.
HELEN: Poor Helen! It’s through you the Trojans died.
110
TEUCER: And through the Greeks! Great wrongs have been committed.
HELEN: When was the city sacked? How long ago?
TEUCER: It’s almost seven harvest-times since then.
HELEN: And how much more time did you spend in Troy?
TEUCER: So many moons! We stayed there ten long years.
HELEN: And did you ever take the Spartan woman?
TEUCER: Yes, Menelaus dragged her by the hair.
HELEN: Did you see that poor girl, or is it rumor?
TEUCER: I saw her face to face, as I see you.
HELEN: Was it an apparition from the gods?
120
TEUCER: Let’s change the subject—no more talk of her!
HELEN: But can you trust this sighting? Was it her?
TEUCER: I saw her with my own eyes, and my mind.
HELEN: Is she already home with Menelaus?
TEUCER: No, he’s not yet in Argos, nor in Sparta.
HELEN: Oh, no! This is bad news, for some at least.
TEUCER: They say he’s disappeared, with his wife.
HELEN: But didn’t all the Greeks sail back together?
TEUCER: Yes, but a storm sent them all different ways.
HELEN: In which particular part of the salty sea?
130
TEUCER: Just as they crossed the middle of the Aegean.
HELEN: And since then, no one’s heard of Menelaus?
TEUCER: No, and the word in Greece is that he’s dead.
HELEN: I’m done for!—What about the child of Thestius?
TEUCER: Leda, you mean? She’s definitely dead.
HELEN: Was it—I hope not!—Helen’s shame that killed her?
TEUCER: It was. She wound a noose around her neck.
HELEN: And what about her sons? Alive, or dead?
TEUCER: They’re dead, and not dead. There’s a double story.*14
HELEN: How terrible! Which story is the best?
140
TEUCER: They say they’re gods, transformed to look like stars.*15
HELEN: That’s good! But what about the other story?
TEUCER: They killed themselves for what their sister did.
Enough! I have no wish to weep again.
I traveled to this palace here to see
the prophetess: her name is Theonoë.
Please introduce me, so she can divine
which way I ought to turn my sails to catch
a fair wind on to Cyprus, where Apollo
foretold that I should live, and name the island
150
in honor of my homeland: Salamis.*16
HELEN: Stranger, the journey will reveal itself.
But you must leave this land, before you’re seen
by Proteus’ son, the king. He is away,
hunting wild animals with his faithful hounds.
He kills all Greeks that come here, if he finds them.
Don’t ask the reason why: I will not tell you,
since if I did, what good could it do you?
TEUCER: Thank you, my lady. May the gods reward
your kindness with the gifts that you deserve.
160
Your body is like Helen’s, but your heart
is very different, not at all alike.
May she die, and never reach the banks
of the Eurotas. But to you, good luck!
HELEN: I’m overwhelmed by grief. How can I sing
to match my pain? What muse can I discover
for wails and keening, tears and lamentation?
strophe 1
Fly to me on your wings
young daughters of the Earth,
Sirens, bring to my cries of mourning
170
a Libyan oboe or pipes
to harmonize with my grief.
Tune your tears to mine and sing my songs,
match your melody to my lament,
so that the Queen of Death, Persephone,
may gain a gift from me
of a tearful hymn
to the dead.
antistrophe 1
180
CHORUS: Beside the dark blue water
I was drying purple clothes
out on the tangled grasses
in
the golden sunlight
by the sprouting reeds.
There I heard a dreadful wailing,
a sad song that no lyre could play,
that once a girl was screaming,
wailing like a Naiad,
crying a song of grief
as she runs away across the mountains,
then screeches in the rocky caves,
190
as Pan is raping her.
strophe 2
HELEN: Women of Greece!
Hunted and captured by the oars of barbarians!
Somebody came, an Achaean, a sailor,
and brought to me tears and more tears.
The ruins of Troy
now belong to the enemy’s fire,
and I am the killer of many,
my name is the cause of the pain,
and Leda is dead,
200
she hung from a noose,
in despair at my shame.
And my husband has wandered all over the sea,
and is finally dead and gone,
and the light of my homeland, my brothers the twins,
Castor and Pollux,
are not to be seen, they have vanished,
leaving the plains that once shook with their horse-hoofs,
leaving the training arena beside the reedy Eurotas,
210
where they exercised once in their youth.
antistrophe 2
CHORUS: My lady, what you have suffered,
from the griefs caused by fate and the gods!
The life you received is like no life at all.
Down through the air, Zeus dazzled on wings
of a snowy white swan, and he fathered you.
You’ve had every misfortune,
endured every pain life could bring.
Your mother is gone,
220
your beloved twin brothers, the children of Zeus,