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Helen, formerly the queen of Sparta and wife of Menelaus, was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the ancient world. Under the guidance of Aphrodite, Paris stole her away and took her to Troy, subsequently sparking the Trojan War. Homer is slightly critical of Helen; he treats her with sympathy but also blames her for giving in to her Trojan captors and thereby costing many Greek and Trojan men their lives. Interestingly, the bulk of Helen’s scrutiny comes not from the other characters, but from Helen herself. Unlike Paris, Helen does not take her role in the carnage lightly. For example, in Book 3, she refers to herself as a “hateful” creature as she watches the Greek troops march past the city walls. Her expressions of shame and self-loathing continue as she wonders whether her brothers, whom she cannot find in the crowd, have refused to join the Greeks because they resent her. She continues that she wishes that she had died the day that Paris brought her to Troy so that she would not have to witness the aftermath. She expresses the same sentiment in Book 6 as she preemptively mourns the infamy that she and Paris have obtained. She tells Hector that she fears her story will be spread “wide” and “last through ages long, Example sad! and theme of future song.” This moment is rendered all the more tragic because Helen’s prediction has come true; her abduction and the carnage that followed has been recorded for all of time in the pages of The Iliad, the story told over and over again. It’s worth noting that some dispute the idea that Helen was abducted, suggesting instead that she may have gone with Paris willingly, though this distinction is perhaps less significant than the fact that, on a grander scale, the Trojan War’s very existence was the will of the gods and therefore unavoidable.
