Queen of Sparta and wife of Menelaus, whose departure with Paris became the cause of the Trojan expedition; mother of Hermione and, in one Argive tradition, Iphigenia.1
Homer calls Hermione the only child the gods granted Helen after her birth. Back in Sparta with Menelaus, Helen presides over a household still defined by the memory of Troy.2
When Telemachus came from Pylos with Peisistratus, Helen entered the feast like Artemis of the golden arrows and at once read the stranger: never had she seen one so like another as this youth was to the son of great-hearted Odysseus. While Menelaus told of Odysseus' long absence, the boy wept at his father's name and hid his face in his purple cloak; Helen named him to her husband, and Peisistratus confirmed that prudent, shamefaced Telemachus was indeed Odysseus' son.3
Helen cast into the wine a drug to quiet all pain and strife and bring forgetfulness of every ill — healing drugs Polydamna, wife of Thon, had given her in Egypt — then at the table she and Menelaus traded tales of Troy for their young guest: how Odysseus entered Troy disguised as a beggar and she alone knew him until he returned to the ships with tidings, and how she thrice walked around the hollow horse while Menelaus and Diomedes sat inside and Odysseus held them back from answering her voice.4
Apollodorus says Paris carried Helen away from Sparta while Menelaus was absent, leaving nine-year-old Hermione behind. He also records the rival story that Hermes took the real Helen to Egypt and sent only a cloud phantom to Troy.5
After eight years of wandering, Menelaus returned with Helen. Apollodorus ends their story with Hera making Menelaus immortal so that the pair could dwell together in the Elysian Fields.6
Pausanias reports an Argive claim that Helen bore Iphigenia after Theseus abducted her, then gave the child to Clytemnestra. This makes Helen, not Clytemnestra, Iphigenia's mother in that local genealogy.7⚖
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
