Helen

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 691 sections

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shining through the air on the wings of a snow-white swan. What evil is not yours? What life have you not endured? Your mother is dead;
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the twin beloved sons of Zeus do not enjoy happiness; and you do not see your fatherland, while through the cities a rumor goes, mistress, which hands you over
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to the bed of a barbarian; your husband has lost his life in the salty waves, and never again will you bring glee to your father’s halls and Athene of the Bronze House.
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Ah! Who was it, either from Phrygia
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or from Hellas, who cut the pine that brought tears to Ilion? From this wood the son of Priam built his deadly ship, and sailed by barbarian oars
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to my home, to that most ill-fated beauty, to win me as his wife; and with him sailed deceitful and murderous Kypris, bearing death for the Danaans.
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Oh, unhappy in my misfortune! But Hera, the holy beloved of Zeus on her golden throne, sent the swift-footed son of Maia. I was gathering fresh rose leaves in the folds of my robe,
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so that I might go to the goddess of the Bronze House; he carried me off through the air to this luckless land, and made me an object of miserable strife, of strife between Hellas and the sons of Priam. And my name
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beside the streams of Simois bears a false rumor.
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Dear friends, I welcome your advice. Come in, come into the house, to learn within about my struggles.
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You are calling on one who is wholly willing.
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Oh, what an unhappy day! What tearful word shall I hear, unhappy as I am?
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Do not be a prophetess of sorrow, dear friend, anticipating lamentation.
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What has my poor husband suffered? Does he see the light and the sun’s chariot and the paths of the stars? Or does he have a lasting fate
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among the dead beneath the earth?
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Take a brighter view of the future, whatever will happen.
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For I call on you, I swear to you, Eurotas green with watery reeds,
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if this rumor of my husband’s death is true—and what was obscure in those words?—I will stretch a deadly noose about my neck, or drive inward a murderous thrust of slaughter that gushes from the throat,
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a contest of the blade through my flesh, as a sacrifice to the three goddesses and to the son of Priam, who once sat on the hollows of Ida, near the ox-stalls.
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May sorrow be turned aside elsewhere, and may your lot be fortunate!
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Oh, unhappy Troy! Through deeds not done by yourself, you are ruined, and have suffered pitiably; for the gift that Kypris gave me has caused much blood
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and many tears; it has added grief to grief and tear to tear, sorrows. . . . Mothers have lost their children and virgin sisters of the slain have cut off their hair by the swollen tide of Phrygian Skamandros.
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And Hellas has cried aloud, aloud, and broken forth in wailing, beating her head, and drenching her soft-skinned cheek with the bloody strokes of her nails.
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O maiden Kallisto, blessed once in Arcadia, who climbed into the bed of Zeus on four paws, how much happier was your lot than my mother’s, you who in the form of a shaggy-limbed beast—the bearing of a lioness with your fierce eye—changed your burden of sorrow;
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and also the one whom Artemis once drove from her chorus, as a deer with horns of gold, the Titan girl, daughter of Merops, because of her loveliness; but the beauty of my body has destroyed the Dardanian towers, it has destroyed them and
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the lost Achaeans.
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O Pelops, who once held that chariot-race contest with Oinomaos over Pisa, if only, when you were persuaded to make a banquet for the gods, you had left your life then, inside the gods,
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before you ever begot my father, Atreus, to whom were born, from his marriage with Airope, Agamemnon and myself, Menelaos, a famous pair; for I believe that I carried a mighty army—and I say this not in boast—in ships to Troy,
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no tyrant commanding any troops by force, but leading the young men of Hellas by voluntary consent. And some of these can be counted no longer alive, others as having a joyful escape from the sea, bringing home again names thought to be of the dead.
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But I wander miserably over the swelling waves of the gray ocean, ever since I sacked the towers of Ilion; and although I long to come home, I am not thought worthy by the gods to achieve this. I have sailed to Libya’s deserts and all its inhospitable landing-places;
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and whenever I draw near my native land, the blast drives me back again, and no favoring wind has ever entered my sails to let me come home.
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And now I am cast up on this shore, a miserable shipwrecked sailor who has lost his friends; and my ship is
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broken into many pieces against the rocks. But out of its cleverly-wrought fastenings the keel was left, on which I made my difficult escape by an unexpected chance, and also Helen with me, whom I dragged away from Troy. But I do not know the name of this country
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and its people; for I was embarrassed to burst into a crowd and make inquiries, and so I concealed these shabby clothes, in shame over my misfortune. For whenever a man of high degree is badly off, he falls into an unaccustomed state which is worse than that of one who has long been unfortunate.
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But poverty is wearing me away; for I have neither food, nor clothes around my body; one can compare what I am wearing to rags cast out of the ship. The sea snatched away all the robes I once wore, splendid clothes and ornaments. Deep in a cave
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I hid the woman who caused all my troubles, and have come here, after compelling those of my friends who survived to guard my wife. I have come alone, seeking help for those friends there, if I may find it somehow after careful search.
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When I saw this home, surrounded by walls, and the majestic gateways of some prosperous man, I came near; sailors can hope to get something from wealthy homes; but from those who have no livelihood—they could not help us, even if they wanted to.
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Hello! Is there some gatekeeper who might come from the house and announce my troubles within?
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Who’s at the door? Get away from the house and don’t annoy my master by standing at the court-yard gate! Or else you will die because you are
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a Hellene, and they have no business here.
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My good woman, you can say these same words in a different tone, for I shall be persuaded; but let go your angry speech.
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Go away! Stranger, my orders are to let no Hellene come near this house.
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Ah! Do not push me, or thrust me away by force.
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You are to blame, for not heeding what I say.
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Announce to your master inside—
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I think someone would be sorry, if I announced your words.
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I come as a shipwrecked man and a guest; such people are safe from violence.
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Well, go to some other house instead of this one.
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No; I am going inside. You listen to me.
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Know that you’re only causing trouble; and soon you’ll be thrown out by force.
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Alas! Where are those glorious armies of mine?
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Perhaps you were grand somewhere, but not here.
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O my fortune, how we have been unworthily dishonored.
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Why are your eyes wet with tears? To whom are you lamenting?
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To my fortunes, which were happy before this.
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Well then, why don’t you go away and give these tears to your friends.
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What is this land? Whose palace is this?
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Proteus lives here, the land is Egypt.
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Egypt? O wretched, that I have sailed here!
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And why do you blame the bright gleam of the Nile?
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I do not blame it; I am sighing for my fate.
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Many people are doing badly; you are not the only one.
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Is the king you name in the house?
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This is his tomb; his son rules the land.
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And where might he be? Abroad, or in the house?
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He is not inside; he is most bitterly opposed to the Hellenes.
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What cause does he have? I have felt the consequences of it!
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Helen, the daughter of Zeus, is in this house.
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What do you mean? What did you say? Tell me again.
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The daughter of Tyndareus, who once lived in Sparta.
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Where did she come from? What is the meaning of this?
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She came here from the land of Lakedaimon.
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When? Surely I have not been robbed of my wife from the cave?
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Before the Achaeans went to Troy, stranger. But get away from the house; for something is happening within, by which the palace is thrown into confusion. You have not come at the right time; and if my master
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catches you, death will be your guest-gift. For I am well-disposed to Hellenes, for all that I spoke harshly to you in fear of my master.
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What can I say? For after my former troubles, this present event that I hear of is an unhappy one,
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if I have come here, bringing my wife who was taken from Troy, and she is kept safe in the cave, but some other woman who has the same name as my wife lives in this house. She said the woman was born the child of Zeus.
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Can there be a man with the name of Zeus by the banks of Nile? For there is only one in heaven. Where in the world is there a Sparta, except by the streams of Eurotas, with its lovely reeds? The name of Tyndareus is the name of one alone.
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Is there any land of the same name as Lakedaimon or Troy? I do not know what to say; for there are probably many things in the wide world that have the same names, both cities and women; there is nothing, then, to marvel at.
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Besides, I will not run away from a servant’s fears; for no man is so barbaric at heart as to refuse me food when he has heard my name. The fire of Troy is famous, and I, Menelaos, who lighted it, am well known in every land.
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I will wait for the master of the house; he gives me two things to look out for: if he is a cruel sort of person, I will keep myself hidden and go back to the shipwreck; but if he shows any softening, I will ask for help in my present state.
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This is the worst evil for me in my misery, to beg the means of life from other kings, when I am myself a king; but it is necessary. The saying is not mine, but it is a wise word: nothing is stronger than dreadful necessity.
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I have heard the prophetic maiden, who gave a clear answer within the palace: Menelaos is not yet dead and buried, gone to the land of shadows where darkness takes the place of light;
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but he is still wearing out his life on the ocean swell and has not yet reached the haven of his country, wretched in his wandering life,
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bereft of every friend, approaching every land in his sea-going ship from the land of Troy.
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Here I am, once again coming back to the sanctuary of this tomb, after learning the welcome words of Theonoe,
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who knows all things truly; she says my husband is alive and sees the light of day; he is roaming here and there on countless voyages, not without practice in wandering, and he shall come here when he finds an end to his suffering.
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But she left one thing unsaid: if he will escape when he has come? And I refrained from asking that question clearly; I was so glad when she told me he was safe. She said that he was near this land somewhere, cast up, shipwrecked, with a few friends.
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Oh, when will you come? How much I long for your arrival!
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Ah! Who is this? I am not being ambushed by the plots of Proteus’ impious son, am I? Shall I not, like a young racehorse or a worshipper of Bacchus, reach the tomb? There is something wild
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about the looks of this man who is hunting me down.
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You there! the one trying with fearful effort to reach the base of the tomb and the pillars of burnt sacrifice, stay where you are. Why do you flee? I am amazed and speechless at the sight of your body.
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Women, I am being ill-treated. This man is keeping me from the tomb, and he wants to take me and give me to the king, whose wooing I was seeking to avoid.
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I am no thief, nor a servant of evil men.
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And yet the clothes you are wearing are unsightly enough.
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Put fear aside and stop your rapid flight.
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I do so, now that I have reached this spot.
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Who are you? Whom do I see in you, lady?
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But who are you? The same reason prompts us both.
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I never saw a closer resemblance.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0006.tlg014.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.