Helen
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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For I will not disgrace my Trojan fame, nor, on my return to Hellas, will I receive great blame—I who robbed Thetis of Achilleus, and saw the slaughter of Aias, son of Telamon, and the son of Neleus made childless;
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shall I not resolve to die for my wife? Most certainly; for if the gods are wise, they lightly bury in the earth a brave man who has been killed by his enemies, while cowards they cast up out of the earth onto a harsh rock.
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Chorus Leader
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O gods, may the race of Tantalos be fortunate at last, and may it be set free from evils!
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Helen
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Ah, I am unhappy, for so is my fate! Menelaos, we are destroyed. The prophetess Theonoe is coming out of the house; it resounds as the
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bolts are unfastened. Try to escape! But what is the use of trying? For whether she is absent or present she knows of your arrival here. Oh, I am lost, unfortunate! Saved from Troy and from a barbarian land, you have come only to fall upon barbarian swords.
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Theonoe
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Please lead the way with blazing torches, and purify, according to the sacred law, the inmost corners of the air, so I may receive the pure breath of heaven; and you in turn, if someone has harmed the path by treading with unholy foot, submit it to the cleansing fire,
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and strike the torch in front of me, so that I may pass through. And when you have paid back to the gods my customary observance, take the household flame within.
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Helen, what about my prophecy—how is it? This man, your husband Menelaos, has openly arrived,
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robbed of his ships and of your counterfeit. O unhappy man! What troubles you have escaped to come here; nor do you know whether you are to return home or to stay here. For there will be strife among the gods, and a solemn assembly held by Zeus on your account this very day.
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Hera, who was hostile to you before, is now friendly and wants to bring you safely home, with this woman, so that Hellas may learn that the marriage of Paris, Kypris’ gift, was false; but Kypris wishes to ruin your journey home,
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so that she may not be convicted, or seem to have bought the prize of beauty by a marriage that was profitless as regards Helen. Now the decision rests with me, whether to ruin you, as Kypris wishes, by telling my brother of your presence here, or to save your life by taking Hera’s side,
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keeping my brother in the dark, for his orders are for me to tell him, whenever you happen to come to this land.
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One of you, go show my brother this man is here, so that I may secure my position.
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Helen
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Maiden, I fall at your knees as a suppliant,
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and seat myself in this sad posture on behalf of myself and of this man; I am on the point of seeing him slain, after I have found him with such difficulty. Please do not tell your brother that my husband has returned to my loving arms,
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but save us, I beseech you; do not forsake the piety that was once yours for your brother’s sake, buying favors that are wicked and unjust. For the god hates violence, and commands everyone to have their possessions without robbery.
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Wealth that is unjust, though it may bring some power, ought to be avoided. Heaven is common to all mortals, and so is the earth, where people ought to fill up their homes without having another’s property, or taking it away by force.
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At a critical time, but unhappily for me, Hermes gave me to your father to keep safe for my husband, this man who is here and wishes to have me back. But how could he recover me if he is dead? How could your father ever restore the living to the dead? Now examine the will of the god and of your father;
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would the deity and your dead father be willing to give back again their neighbor’s goods, or would they not? I think they would. It is not, therefore, right that you should attach more importance to a thoughtless brother more than a good father. If you, who are a prophet and believe in divine affairs,
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ruin the lawful intention of your father and gratify your lawless brother, it is disgraceful that you should have full knowledge of divine matters, both what is and what will be, and yet not know what is right. Save me, the unhappy one, enveloped in these troubles,
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and give me this addition to my fate; for there is no mortal who does not hate Helen; I am famous throughout Hellas as the one who betrayed my husband and lived in Phrygia’s golden halls. If I come to Hellas and set foot once more in Sparta,
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they will hear and see how they were ruined by the wiles of gods, while I was no traitor to my friends after all; and so they will lead me back to virtue again, and I shall betroth my daughter, whom no man now will marry; and, leaving this bitter beggar’s life here, shall enjoy the goods that are in my home.
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And if this man were dead and slaughtered on a funeral pyre, I would be cherishing his memory with tears far away; but shall I be robbed of him when he is now alive and safe?
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Ah! not that, maiden, I beseech you:
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grant me this favor, and imitate the character of a just father; for this is the fairest glory for children, when the child of a good father resembles its parents in character.
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Chorus Leader
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The arguments here proposed are worthy of pity,
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and so are you. But I am anxious to hear what Menelaos will say to save his life.
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Menelaos
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I could not endure to fall at your knees, or wet my eyes with tears; for if I were cowardly, I would greatly dishonor Troy.
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And yet they say that it is fitting for a noble man to let tears fall from his eyes in misfortune. But I will not choose this honorable course, if it is honorable, in preference to bravery. But, if you think it right to save a stranger
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seeking justly to recover his wife, then restore her and save us in addition; if not, I would be wretched, not now for the first time but as often before, and you will seem to be an evil woman. What I consider honest and worthy of me,
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and what will touch your heart most closely, these things I will say at the tomb of your father, with regret for his loss.
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Old man, dwelling in this tomb of stone, give her back, I demand of you my wife, whom Zeus sent here for you to keep for me.
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I know you will never restore her to me yourself, for you are dead; but this woman here will not think it right that her father, invoked from below, once so glorious, should bear a tarnished name; for she is the one in authority now.
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You, too, Hades of the world below, I call as an ally;
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you who have received so many bodies slain by my sword for Helen’s sake, you have your payment; either restore them to life again now, or compel this woman to show herself better than her pious father, and give me back my wife.
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But if you will rob me of her, I will tell you what she omitted in her speech. So that you may know, maiden, I am bound by an oath, first to go into battle with your brother; he or I must die; the matter is simple.
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If he refuses to meet me face to face, but hunts us down, two suppliants at the tomb, by starvation, I am resolved to kill this woman, and then to plunge this two-edged sword through my heart, on the surface of the tomb, so that streams of blood may
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run down the grave; we will lie, two corpses side by side upon this polished slab, a deathless grief to you, and a reproach to your father. Your brother will never marry this woman, nor will any other; but I will carry her off,
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if not to my house, at any rate to death.
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Why do I say this? If I turned to women’s ways with tears, rather than being active, I would be pitied more. Kill me, if it seems good to you; you will not kill those who are without fame; but it is better to yield to what I say,
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so that you may act with justice, and I recover my wife.
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Chorus Leader
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You must judge these arguments, maiden. Decide in such a way as to please all.
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Theonoe
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My nature and my inclination lean towards piety; and I respect myself, and I would not defile
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my father’s fame, or gratify my brother at the cost of seeming infamous. There is a great temple of justice in my nature; and having this heritage from Nereus, I will try to keep it, Menelaos.
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Since Hera wishes to serve you, I will cast my vote on her side. May Kypris be gracious to me; but she has had nothing to do with me, and I will try to remain a virgin always. As for your reproaches against my father at this tomb,
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I have the same words to say. I would be doing wrong if I do not give her back; for that man, if he were alive, would have given her back for you to have, and you to her.
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For truly there is retribution for these things, both among the dead and among all men living. The mind
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of the dead does not live, yet it has eternal thought as it falls into eternal ether. So as not to give advice at length, I will be silent as to what you have entreated, and I will never aid my brother’s folly with my counsel.
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For I am doing him a service, though he does not think it, if I turn him from his godless life to holiness. You yourselves devise some course of action; I will stand out of your way by my silence. Begin with the gods, and beg
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Kypris to allow you to return to your country, and Hera that her intention to save you and your husband may remain the same. And you, my own dead father, never, as far as I have strength, shall you be called impious instead of pious. Exit Theonoe.
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Chorus Leader
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No one born lawless ever prospered, but in a lawful cause there is hope of safety.
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Helen
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Menelaos, as far as the maiden is concerned, we are safe. For the rest, you must contribute your advice and frame a device to save ourselves.
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Menelaos
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Then listen; you have been in the house for a long time and are intimate with the king’s servants.
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Helen
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What do you mean by that? You are offering hope, as if you were really about to do something useful for both of us.
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Menelaos
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Could you persuade someone in charge of the wagons
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and horses to give us a chariot?
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Helen
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I might; but how will we escape, in our ignorance of the country and the barbarian land?
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Menelaos
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You are right; a dilemma. Well, what if I were to hide in the house and kill the king with this two-edged sword?
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Helen
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His sister would never be silent or allow you to intend her own brother’s death.
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Menelaos
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Nor indeed is there a ship in which we might safely escape; for the sea holds the one we had.
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Helen
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Listen to me, if even a woman can say something wise.
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Are you willing to be called dead in word, though you are not dead?
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Menelaos
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It is a bad omen; but if I profit by it, I am ready to be called dead in word, though I am not dead.
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Helen
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And truly I would mourn you, as women do, with hair cut short and laments before this impious man.
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Menelaos
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What saving remedy does this have for us two? There is a flavor of deception in your scheme.
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Helen
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I will beg the tyrant of this country for permission to bury you in an empty tomb, as if you had really died at sea.
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Menelaos
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Soppose he allows it; then how shall we escape with no ship,
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when we have buried my body in the empty tomb?
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Helen
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I will urge him to give me a vessel, from which I shall have the offerings from your tomb let down into the sea’s embrace.
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Menelaos
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You have spoken well, except for one thing: if he commands you to set up a tomb on the dry land, your pretext comes to nothing.
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Helen
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But I will say it is not the custom in Hellas to bury those who have died at sea on the dry land.
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Menelaos
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You are setting this right, too; then I will sail with you, and help let down the funeral offerings, in the same ship.
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Helen
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You must above all be at hand,
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with your sailors who escaped from the wreck.
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Menelaos
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Be sure that if I have a ship at anchor, they will be posted, man beside man, each with his sword.
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Helen
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You must direct everything; only let there be winds in our sails to guide us, and a speedy ship.
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Menelaos
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It will be so; for the deities will bring my troubles to an end. But from whom will you say that you heard I was dead?
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Helen
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From you; allege that you were the only one to escape death, when you were sailing with the son of Atreus, and that you saw him dead.
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Menelaos
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It is true that these rags thrown around my body
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will bear witness with me as to the shipwreck.
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Helen
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They have come at the right time, although then they seemed an ill-timed loss. Perhaps that misery may turn to good fortune.
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Menelaos
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Should I to enter the house with you, or am I to sit quietly here at this tomb?
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Helen
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Stay here; for if he does something harsh to you, this tomb and your sword would protect you. But I will go into the house, cut off my hair, exchange my white robe for a dark one, and tear my cheek with nails that make the flesh bloody.
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For the contest is a great one, and I see two turns of the scale: either I must die if I am detected in my plot, or else come home and save you as well.
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Lady Hera, you who lie in the bed of Zeus, grant relief from their labors to two pitiable creatures;
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we beg you, casting our arms straight towards heaven, where you have your home in an embroidery of stars. And you, who won the prize of beauty at the price of my marriage, Kypris, daughter of Dione, do not destroy me utterly. You have maltreated me enough before now,
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handing over my name, though not my body, to barbarians. Let me die, if you want to kill me, in my native land. Why are you so insatiable for mischief, practising arts of love, deceits, and treacherous schemes, and magic spells that bring bloodshed on families?
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If you were only moderate, in other ways you are by nature the sweetest of gods for men; I don’t deny it. Exeunt Helen and Menelaos.
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Chorus
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Let me call on you, beneath leafy haunts, sitting in your place of song, you, the most sweetly singing bird,
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tearful nightingale, oh, come, trilling through your tawny throat, to aid me in my lament, as I sing the piteous woes of Helen and
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the tearful fate of Trojan women under the Achaeans’ spears; when he sped over the surging plains with foreign oar, when he came, came bringing to Priam’s race from Lacedaemon
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you, Helen, his unhappy bride—Paris, fatally wedded, under the guidance of Aphrodite.
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Chorus
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Many of the Achaeans have breathed out their last amid the spears and hurling stones and have gone to unhappy Hades; their wives have cut off their hair in sorrow,
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and their homes are left without a bride; an Achaean man, who had only a single ship, lit a blazing beacon on sea-girt Euboia, and destroyed many of them, casting them onto the rocks of Kaphareus
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and the sea-shores of the Aegean, by the treacherous flame he kindled. The mountains of Malea provided no harbor, in the gusts of the storm, when Menelaos sped far away from his country, bearing on his ships a prize of the barbarian expedition, no prize but strife
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with the Danaans, Hera’s holy phantom.
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Theoklymenos
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Greetings, tomb of my father! For I buried you, Proteus, in the passageway so that I could address you; and always as I leave and enter the house, I, your son Theoklymenos, call on you, father. You servants, take the hounds and hunting nets
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into the palace. I have rebuked myself many times; for do we not punish evil men with death? And now I have heard that some Hellene has come openly to the land, without the guards’ notice,
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either as a spy or thievishly hunting after Helen; he will die if only I can catch him. Ah! But it seems I have found everything in ruins; for the daughter of Tyndareus has deserted her seat at the tomb and has been carried away from the land.
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Ho there! undo the bars; loose the horses from their stalls, servants, and bring out my chariot, so that the wife whom I long for may not be carried away from this land without my notice, for want of effort.