Helen, also known as Helen of Troy, or Helen of Sparta, and in Latin as Helena, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda or Nemesis, and the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor, Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married first to King Menelaus of Sparta “who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also.” Her subsequent marriage to Paris of Troy was the most immediate cause of the Trojan War. Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides, and Homer (in both the Iliad and the Odyssey). Her story reappears in Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid.
Appearance List Literature: Homer’s Odyssey (c. 8th century BCE, English 1614), Homer’s Iliad (c. 8th century BC), Virgil’s Aeneid (29 to 19 BC), 5th century plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles (Ajax, Philoctetes), and Euripides (Hecuba, Rhesus, Cyclops), Plato’s Hippias Minor, Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602), Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1308–1320), Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (1842), The Story of Greece: Told to Boys and Girls by Mary Macgregor (191-?) [Internet Archive], Frederick Rolfe’s The Weird of the Wanderer (1912), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1918–1920), Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1938), Eyvind Johnson’s Return to Ithaca (1946), The Luck of Troy (1961), et. al. Film: The Mysterious Island (1905), L’Odissea (1911), Ulysses (1954), Ulysses (1955), The Trojan Horse (1961), The Fury of Achilles (1962), Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules (1962), The Lion of Thebes (1964), et. al. Comics: Blue Bolt vol. 2 #1-2, Treasure Chest vol. 14 #5.
Sample Read The Iliad (Translated by W. C. Bryant, August, 1869) [Standard eBooks]
Description Helen, also known as Helen of Troy, or Helen of Sparta, and in Latin as Helena, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda or Nemesis, and the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor, Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married first to King Menelaus of Sparta “who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also.” Her subsequent marriage to Paris of Troy was the most immediate cause of the Trojan War. Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides, and Homer (in both the Iliad and the Odyssey). Her story reappears in Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid.
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