Menelaus and Helen
After Andromache’s lament comes the scene in which Helen defends her behavior to Menelaus, who is determined to kill her for eloping. Helen’s remarkable performance backfires through its sophistic arguments, arrogance, and appropriation by a woman of the male prerogative of public speech. But it also draws attention to Helen’s body and its visual power. Hecuba, who speaks in response, rebuts Helen’s arguments but cannot compete with her self-display. Euripides thus stages a contest between visual “persuasion” and the power of rational discourse. The judge, Menelaus, is convinced by Hecuba, but the play ends with signs that Helen’s beauty will overcome his better judgment.
The Greeks so far have been a dimly perceived offstage force, unstoppable but invisible. Now Menelaus enters. He has come in search of a very specific prisoner, his wife Helen, the woman who caused the war by eloping with the Trojan prince Paris, who is now dead. Helen has yet to be punished and Menelaus intends to take Helen home and kill her. For Hecuba this offers hope of another sort; it provides an opportunity for some kind of justice from the gods. She is however suspicious of Helen's power over Menelaus and Menelaus' ability to resist. Helen herself now enters, the only female in the play not abased, abashed and humiliated. She is dressed to kill. She enters not pleading but complaining at the undignified treatment she has received from Menelaus' guards. Her arrival triggers a formal debate of a sort loved by Euripides, in which she is virtually put on trial by Hecuba in the presence of Menelaus, who is judge. Helen's case like her first entrance is brash and confident and well…. shameless. Having betrayed her husband, she places the blame on everyone but herself. It is Hecuba's fault; she should have had her son Paris killed in infancy after dreaming that he would destroy the city. It is also the goddess Aphrodite's fault; Aphrodite gave her to Paris as prize for his infamous judgement in the divine beauty contest. Aphrodite also inspired Helen's desire for Paris; Helen was an innocent victim of overwhelming divine power. So far from being happy in Troy she tried hard to escape. By an obscure logic she even claims that she has brought benefit to Greece, since the alternative to Aphrodite's victory in the beauty contest was the bribe offered to Paris by Athena, that Paris would rule over Asia and Europe. Aphrodite's gift of Helen to Paris substituted the departure of one woman for the Asiatic conquest of Greece.
Hecuba is able to refute Helen point by point, both her attempt to shift the blame and her false claims of attempted escape. It's important here also to note that she speaks second and it's the golden rule in Greek dramatic debates that the second is the stronger case. But even if we accept some of Helen's points - and not everything she says can be dismissed - her insistence on locating blame everywhere but herself leaves a hole in her logic. The chorus are satisfied that Hecuba is right. They would of course, as Hecuba's countrywomen. More importantly Menelaus finds for the prosecution. Helen is to die. But she will not die now. He will instead take her home. But no member of the original audience could fail to see the irony in all of this. No myth told of Helen's punishment. Menelaus famously failed to punish her and she returned home with him, as we know for instance from Homer's Odyssey, to a life of domesticity. Equally important, Hecuba too knows that if Helen travels with Menelaus on his ship, she will win him over. So the one prospect Hecuba had of extracting some satisfaction from her situation comes to nothing.
After Andromache’s lament comes the scene in which Helen defends her behavior to Menelaus, who is determined to kill her for eloping. Helen’s remarkable performance backfires through its sophistic arguments, arrogance, and appropriation by a woman of the male prerogative of public speech. But it also draws attention to Helen’s body and its visual power. Hecuba, who speaks in response, rebuts Helen’s arguments but cannot compete with her self-display. Euripides thus stages a contest between visual “persuasion” and the power of rational discourse. The judge, Menelaus, is convinced by Hecuba, but the play ends with signs that Helen’s beauty will overcome his better judgment.
The Greeks so far have been a dimly perceived offstage force, unstoppable but invisible. Now Menelaus enters. He has come in search of a very specific prisoner, his wife Helen, the woman who caused the war by eloping with the Trojan prince Paris, who is now dead. Helen has yet to be punished and Menelaus intends to take Helen home and kill her. For Hecuba this offers hope of another sort; it provides an opportunity for some kind of justice from the gods. She is however suspicious of Helen's power over Menelaus and Menelaus' ability to resist. Helen herself now enters, the only female in the play not abased, abashed and humiliated. She is dressed to kill. She enters not pleading but complaining at the undignified treatment she has received from Menelaus' guards. Her arrival triggers a formal debate of a sort loved by Euripides, in which she is virtually put on trial by Hecuba in the presence of Menelaus, who is judge. Helen's case like her first entrance is brash and confident and well…. shameless. Having betrayed her husband, she places the blame on everyone but herself. It is Hecuba's fault; she should have had her son Paris killed in infancy after dreaming that he would destroy the city. It is also the goddess Aphrodite's fault; Aphrodite gave her to Paris as prize for his infamous judgement in the divine beauty contest. Aphrodite also inspired Helen's desire for Paris; Helen was an innocent victim of overwhelming divine power. So far from being happy in Troy she tried hard to escape. By an obscure logic she even claims that she has brought benefit to Greece, since the alternative to Aphrodite's victory in the beauty contest was the bribe offered to Paris by Athena, that Paris would rule over Asia and Europe. Aphrodite's gift of Helen to Paris substituted the departure of one woman for the Asiatic conquest of Greece.
Hecuba is able to refute Helen point by point, both her attempt to shift the blame and her false claims of attempted escape. It's important here also to note that she speaks second and it's the golden rule in Greek dramatic debates that the second is the stronger case. But even if we accept some of Helen's points - and not everything she says can be dismissed - her insistence on locating blame everywhere but herself leaves a hole in her logic. The chorus are satisfied that Hecuba is right. They would of course, as Hecuba's countrywomen. More importantly Menelaus finds for the prosecution. Helen is to die. But she will not die now. He will instead take her home. But no member of the original audience could fail to see the irony in all of this. No myth told of Helen's punishment. Menelaus famously failed to punish her and she returned home with him, as we know for instance from Homer's Odyssey, to a life of domesticity. Equally important, Hecuba too knows that if Helen travels with Menelaus on his ship, she will win him over. So the one prospect Hecuba had of extracting some satisfaction from her situation comes to nothing.
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