by Jack Lindsay
Paris takes the rebuke well. ‘Hektor, I deserve all your reproaches. You haven’t said a word too much. Your heart always has a stubborn edge, like an axe driven through a beam by the hand of man who shapes a ship’s timbers with shrewd skill. It adds to the force of his swing. And that’s how it is with your undaunted heart. But don’t hold against me the gifts of golden Aphrodite. The precious gifts of the gods are not to be thrown away. They give them of their own grace and no man may win them by his sole will. But now, if you insist on my going out to fight this duel, make all the troops sit down and set me between the two armies to meet this Menelaos whom Ares loves. Then we can fight for Helen and all her property. The one that wins and proves himself the better man will gain the right to all the property and the woman, and he can carry them home. But let the rest of you swear friendship and binding oaths with sacrifice, and live on in deep-soiled Troy, while they return to Argos with its horse-pastures and to Achaia the land of lovely women.’
Note the way in which Helen is consistently linked with her property, ktēmata. It means movable goods, all the valuables she could carry off with her. By translating it as treasure, the hard facts of the case are somewhat romanticized. Ktēmata are individual property, unlike land or herds; they go with a dead chief into his tomb. The stress is on acquisition, through war, games, or gifts, not through a deal with merchants. Whether Helen has taken only valuables that she could claim as her own, or whether she has also taken household goods that Menelaos might consider his, we are not told. In any event she has with her a lot of highly esteemed objects which are mentioned as if they are inseparable from her personality; they are part of her ‘value’.
Agamemnon sees that Hektor has a proposal to make; he calls for a pause. Hektor stands between the two hosts and speaks on behalf of his brother Alexandros, ‘for whose sake strife has been stirred up’, and who challenges Menelaos to single combat ‘for Helen and all her property’. The winner is to take ‘all the property and the woman’. Menelaos agrees. ‘For on my heart sorrow has come above all others. It’s my mind now to see Argives and Trojans parted, as you’ve all suffered many evils through my quarrel and the troubles provoked by Alexandros.’ He wants Priam to be present to swear an oath with sacrifice, since the hearts of the young are unstable, but an old man looks before and after so that the issue may be best for both sides.
The two armies rejoice, thinking the war will now be ended. Hektor sends heralds to the city to fetch lambs and Priam, while Agamemnon sends his herald to the ships for a lamb. But Iris, the girl messenger of the gods, takes the form of Paris’ sister Laodike, ‘comeliest of Priam’s daughters’. In this form ‘she found Helen in the hall weaving a great purple web of double fold, embroidering on it many battles of the Trojans, those horse-tamers, and the bronze-coated Achaians, battles they had endured at the hands of Ares for her sake’. (The word iris is used for the rainbow by Homer, but Iris is not called the rainbow-goddess. She is the messenger of the gods in the Iliad, whereas Hermes, with his underworld links, has that office in the Odyssey.[5])
Iris-Laodike approaches Helen and says, ‘Come here, dear lady [nympha], and see the wonderful doings of the horse-taming Trojans and the bronze-coated Achaians. They have been used to waging grievous battle against one another on the plain, with their hearts set on deadly combat; but now they stand silent and the battle has halted and they lean on their shields and their long spears are fixed at their sides. But Alexandros and Menelaos whom Ares loves are going to fight with their long spears for you; and you’ll be called the dear wife of the winner.’
So the goddess spoke, ‘and put in her heart sweet longing for the man who was once her husband, her city, her parents. And at once she veiled herself with shining linen and went out of her chamber, shedding rounded tears — not alone, but followed by her two handmaids, Aithra daughter of Pittheus and ox-eyed Klymenē’. They went to the Skaian Gates where waited Priam and various Elders of the People, too old for battle, but skilled in speaking. They, the Leaders of the People, were chatting together, and when they saw Helen coming along the battlements, quietly they spoke winged words to one another. ‘No blame that the Trojans and the well-greaved Achaians should suffer such pangs, so long, for such a woman. Strangely she’s like the immortal goddesses to look at. But even so, for all that she’s such a woman, let her go off in the ships and not stay here, a curse for us and our children to come.’
The word for blame is nemesis; and in saying that there is no nemesis Homer implies that there is no moral offence and no retribution or vengeance to follow. Yet the old men add that she is a calamity for them all. Somehow she is innocent of the misery she causes; she is not to blame because of the power of her beauty that surrounds her with a fatality over which she has no control. In a sense she is the pawn of that beauty, moved by a power within her which links her with the gods and introduces a set of values that go far beyond the merely personal level. We shall have more to say of all this later, especially of nemesis, which is closely bound up with her though it does not bring doom on her own head. Homer does not seem to be personifying the term and thinking of a goddess Nemesis; he uses the term in a purely moral sense. The whole effect is strengthened by the word ainōs; strangely, terribly. Later Menelaos says to Agamemnon, ‘Ainōs am I afraid no one will undertake this task for you, go out alone and spy on the enemy in the ambrosial night.’ The shiver of fear that he gives comes from the thought of anyone daring to wander in the night that is thick with unknown spirit forces.[6] The ambrosial is what belongs to the gods. In the Odyssey when Athena appears to Telemachos in the form of a copper trader she says, ‘You are Odysseus’ son, ainōs like his your head and beautiful eyes.’
On the Skaian Gates Priam calls Helen kindly: ‘Come here, dear child, and sit before me, so you may see your former husband and your kinsfolk and people. You’re not at all to blame in my eyes. It’s the gods who to my mind are to blame. They stirred up against me the grievous wars of the Achaians.’ He asks who is the royal-looking man among the enemy host. ‘And Helen, supreme (dia) among women, answered him, “You are revered in my eyes, dear father-in-law, a man who awes [ainōs]. I wish that evil death had been my pleasure when I followed your son here, leaving my bridal chamber, my husband, my kinsfolk and my darling daughter, and all the lovely companions of my girlhood. But that was not to be. So I waste with weeping.”’ The man, she adds, is Agamemnon, a noble king and brave spearman. ‘And he is brother-in-law to shameless me, if ever there was such.’ Shameless is kynōpis, bitch-eyed or bitchfaced. In the Odyssey, when Hephaistos catches his wife Aphrodite in a snare with her lover Ares, he shouts that he will demand back the wooing-gifts he gave ‘for the sake of his bitchfaced girl’.[7]
Priam then asks who is the shorter broad-shouldered man. Helen tells him it is crafty Odysseus. Antenor breaks in to corroborate; for Odysseus and Menelaos came on an embassy about Helen before the attack on Troy began, and he entertained them. ‘Menelaos indeed spoke fluently, with few words but very clearly; he wasn’t a man of drawn-out speech or a rambler, though in years the younger man. But when Odysseus with his many wiles rose up, he stood and looked down with his eyes fixed on the ground, and he didn’t move his staff backwards or forwards, but held it stiff, like a man of no understanding. You’d have thought him uncouth, nothing but a fool; yet when he brought his great voice out of his chest, with words like snowflakes on a winter’s day, no mortal man could vie with him.’ The third man Priam asks about is the towering Aias. Helen tells about him and adds that the man near him is Idomeneus, like a god among the Cretans. ‘Often Menelaos used to entertain him in our house, whenever he came from Crete. And now I see all the rest of the Achaians with their quick glances. I could note them all and tell you their names. But there are two marshallers of the host that I don’t see: Kastor, horse-tamer, and the fine boxer, Polydeukes, my own two brothers, whom the same mother bore. Either they did not accompany the host from lovely Lakedaimon, or else they came in the seafaring sh
ips, but now lack heart to enter into the battle of warriors, afraid of the words of shame and the many revilings that are mine.’ The poet adds the explanation: ‘But before this they were held fast in the life-giving earth there in Lakedaimon, in their dear native land.’
Meanwhile the procedure for the duel goes on. The herald Idaios proclaims that ‘Alexandros and Menelaos whom Ares loves will fight with long spears for the woman’s sake; and whichever wins will get woman and property.’ Priam and Antenor drive out through the gates to the plain and join the crowd of watchers. Agamemnon sacrifices and makes a prayer to Zeus who rules from Ida, and to the Sun. He repeats the formula about the winner getting woman and property, adding that if Menelaos wins, the Trojans must pay him and his men suitable compensation or they will refuse to end the war. Priam says that he will return to the city as he cannot bear to watch the combat. The people pray. Hektor shakes the helmet in which lots, klēroi, have been put, and Paris’ lot comes out. Alexandros arms himself, ‘he, the lord of lovely-haired Helen’. He puts on greaves with silver ankle-pieces, a corselet that belonged to his brother Lykaon, a silver-studded sword of bronze slung about his shoulder. He takes up his great shield and puts on a helmet with horsehair crest; then seizes his spear. Menelaos also arms.
Each man is to throw a spear. Alexandros first throws his, but its point is turned on Menelaos’ shield. Then the latter’s spear goes through Alexandros’ shield and corselet, but he himself bends aside, unhurt. Menelaos draws his sword and strikes the horn of Alexandros’ helmet; the sword splinters. ‘Father Zeus,’ he cries, ‘no other god is more deadly than you. I thought I was avenged on Alexandros for his wickedness, but now my sword is broken in my hands and my spear flown out of my grasp in vain — I didn’t hit him.’ He leaps on his enemy, catches his helmet crest, and drags him along towards the Achaians. Paris is choked by the embroidered strap under his chin, but Aphrodite rushes to the rescue. She snaps the ox-skin thong and the helmet comes away in Menelaos’ hand. He throws it among his comrades and springs back to kill Alexandros with a spear. But Aphrodite snatches the fallen man up, shrouds him in thick mist, and transports him to his fragrant vaulted chamber; then she goes to fetch Helen.
‘Her she found on the high wall and round her in throngs were the women of Troy. With her hand the goddess took hold of her sweet-smelling robe, plucked at it, and spoke to her, assuming the likeness of an old woman, a wool-comber, who had been used to card fine wool for her when she lived in Lakedaimon, and of whom she was very fond. In this likeness dia Aphrodite spoke: “Come along, Alexandros calls you to go home. He’s there in his chamber — on his inlaid couch, shining with beauty and fine clothes. You wouldn’t think he’d just come from fighting with an enemy; you’d think he was going to a dance or that he sat there like someone who’s just left off dancing.”’
Despite the disguise, Helen ‘noticed the beautiful neck of the goddess, her desirable breasts and her flashing eyes’. Amazed she asked: ‘Spirit [daimoniē], why are you so concerned to fool and possess me like this? I see, you’ll lead me on yet further to one of the thriving cities of Phrygia or delightful Maionia, if there too is some mortal man you cherish. For now Menelaos has beaten dios Alexandros and wants to take loathsome me home. That’s why you’re here now with your tricky mind. Go and sit by him yourself and forget that you’re a goddess. Don’t let your feet carry you back to Olympos, but give yourself up to worrying about him. Look after him till he makes you his wife or perhaps his slave. But I won’t go there. It would be a blameable thing [nemessēton] to make up that man’s bed. All the women of Troy will reproach me from now on, and I’ve countless griefs in my own heart.’
Daimoniē is an adjectival form of daimōn. Homer uses daimōn of individual gods and goddesses, but also of divine force or spirit power in general. In the Odyssey we see it as a sort of power or fate linked with an individual. This meaning is already implicit in the Iliad; here for instance Aphrodite appears both as a universal goddess of love and sexuality, and as a daimōn especially connected with Alexandros and his fate. She protects him as Athena protects Odysseus. In one passage Hektor shouts at Diomedes, ‘I’ll give you your daimōn,’ meaning, ‘I’ll kill you, give you your fate.’ But daimoniē is also used as a mere form of address (good sir or lady) for both chiefs and commoners, especially for strangers , husbands and wives use it of one another. There its suggestion of strangeness, of the spirit power in someone else that needs to be respected, has been attenuated. (Dios, dia, usually translated godly, means strictly ‘belonging to Zeus’.) By the time of Attic tragedy daimōn often meant simply good or bad fortune.[8]
Helen’s show of defiance stirs Aphrodite to anger and she replies: ‘Don’t provoke me, you rash woman, or I’ll lose my temper and desert you and hate you — just as now I love you beyond all measure. I’ll stir up bitter hatred on both sides, Trojans and Danaans alike. Then you’ll come to a wretched end.’ (The hatred she threatens to work up must be hatred of Helen. We see again that neither side blames Helen for the war, though everyone recognizes that she is the cause of all the sufferings. What Aphrodite threatens is to stir up just that blame among them.)
Helen is frightened. She silently wraps herself in a bright mantle and is led away by the goddess without the Trojan women noticing her departure. They reach the domos or palace of Alexandros. Helen’s handmaids turn to their tasks and she goes into the high-roofed chamber. Aphrodite gets her a chair and sets it facing Alexandros. Helen sits down with averted eyes and speaks to her husband: ‘You’ve come back from the battle. I wish you’d died there, beaten by a brave man who used to be my husband. Before this you kept on boasting that you were a better man than Menelaos whom Ares loves — in the strength of your hands and as a spearman. Go on now. Challenge yet again Menelaos whom Ares loves, to fight with you, man to man. No, I myself tell you to give up and try no more outright fights with fair-haired Menelaos. Don’t be a fool and come up against him or you’ll soon be tamed by his spear.’
Paris replies, ‘Lady, don’t turn on me with hard reviling words. For the moment, with Athena’s aid, Menelaos has beaten me, but next time I’ll beat him. On our side too there are gods. But come on, let’s enjoy ourselves and lie together in love. For never yet has desire so come over me, not even when at the start I snatched you from lovely Lakedaimon and sailed with you in my seagoing ships and made you mine in love on that bed of Kranae’s isle. Not till this moment have I loved you so much and felt such sweet desire for you.’
He goes over to the bed and she follows. They lie on the corded bed. But on the battlefield Menelaos is raging about in search of the godlike Alexandros, whom the Trojans and their allies cannot find anywhere. ‘Not that indeed they wanted to hide him, if they caught sight of him, for all of them hated him like black death.’ So Agamemnon proclaims Menelaos the victor and demands the surrender of Helen and her property, with suitable compensation.
Where Kranae was is unclear. Some ancient commentators took the word as an adjective: kranaos means rugged and is used by Homer always of Ithaka. Others identified it with a small island called Helene (now Makronisi) near Cape Sounion: but Pausanias says that that island got its name because Helen and Menelaos landed there on their homeward journey. Others took Kranae to be Kythera, Aphrodite’s island, while Pausanias says that in Lakedaimonian legend it was an island near Gytheion. Tzetzes takes it to mean Salamis, while Lykophron speaks of the lovers mating on the Dragon’s Isle of Akte (Attika). The adjective is indeed used of Athens and the people of Attika were called Kranaoi. The island near Gytheion off the Lakedaimonian coast makes the best sense; for the lovers after their flight from Sparta down to the sea might have found it the first place where they felt able to halt with safety.[9]
A passage from Book V gives a glimpse of the preparations of Paris-Alexandros for his voyage to Sparta. We learn that Phereklos, son of Tekton (Carpenter, Joiner), a wonderful crafts-man loved by Pallas Athena above all men, built ‘the shapely ships, source of evils, whi
ch were made the evil of the Trojans and of his own self’, for he was killed in the fighting; a spear pierced through his right buttock to his bladder. The odd thing about this passage is that it makes Athena a patron of Paris; otherwise her beloved craftsman would not have worked for him. She plays the same role here in the shipbuilding as she does with Jason and his Argo. But whereas she continues to be the protectress of Jason, she becomes in the Trojan story the deadly enemy of Paris and the Trojans. Either then we see here an intrusion from an old legend in which Athena helps in the construction of the primal boat, or she becomes Paris’ enemy only after Helen has been carried off.
