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Helen is the queen of Sparta and the wife of Menelaus, and it was her abduction at the hands of Paris that started the Trojan War. While in The Iliad she absorbs much of the blame for the Trojan War as a whole and the sacrifices of the men who died during it, in The Odyssey Helen is merely a gracious hostess characterized sympathetically. For instance, she tells Telemachus that she was grateful for Odysseus’s role in defeating the Trojans because she was missing home, and “unhappy about the wrong that [Aphrodite] had done” her in taking her away from her “lawful husband.” Helen’s somber recollection of the grief that she suffered while being held in Troy depicts her as a victim as opposed to an active participant in the conflict.
Helen assists Telemachus on his journey to discover his father’s fate. She cheers a distressed Telemachus with tales of his father’s courage and cunning. She also drugs Telemachus’s wine with an herb that banishes sorrow so that Telemachus can rest easy for the first time since the suitors descended upon his home. These examples characterize Helen as a kind, empathetic figure who seeks to comfort a young man who is away from home for the first time in his life; perhaps she is remembering the not-so-distant past in which she was in a similar position.
Much has been said across many myths and epics about Helen’s unmatched beauty. However, The Odyssey illustrates a different part of her personality: her cleverness. To begin with, Helen instantly suspects that Telemachus is Odysseus’s son. Furthermore, right before Telemachus is set to sail from Sparta, he and the rest of the crowd spot an eagle with a goose in its talons. Menelaus fumbles for a few moments to interpret the omen but Helen is “too quick” for her husband and (correctly) predicts that the eagle is meant to represent Odysseus’s eventual triumph over the suitors, represented by a goose. In the tales she relates about Odysseus’s exploits, she mentions that she alone was able to see through his disguise when he infiltrated Troy—but, she allows, he was “too cunning” for her, suggesting that no matter how clever a character in The Odyssey may be,wily Odysseus, the hero, is cleverer still.
