The following essay is written as a companion to a lecture series in the Myths of Greece and Rome course at the University at Albany by Daniel Gremmler. It follows the translation and line numbering ofThe Essential Iliad (Hackett, 2000) and The Essential Homer (Hackett, 2000).
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Book 3 is split between scenes on the battlefield and behind the walls of Troy. The major event of the chapter is a duel between Menelaus and Paris. The driving focus of our analysis will be to decode the ways in which cultural values are affirmed in the language of honor and shame, both on the battlefield and in the bed chamber. As is the case with most Homeric episodes, the events of Book 3 will also reinforce the audience’s understanding of the relationship between gods and humans that we outlined in the previous chapter.
Book 3 picks up where Book 2 left off: The Greek and Trojan armies have been marshalled and stand across from each other on the precipice of battle. But before the lines of the two armies can clash,
Paris…stepped out from the Trojan ranks,
Leopard skin on his shoulders, curved bow, sword,
And shaking two bronze-tipped spears at the Greeks
He invited their best to fight him to the death. (22-5)
In this way, Paris challenges the Greeks to send forth their best warrior to duel him. This type of duel epitomizes the core values of Homeric (heroic or warrior) culture: It is honorable combat that tests the martial prowess of individuals in a sort of vacuum. No friends, allies, or enemies will interfere, as they may during pitched warfare on the battlefield, so the outcome of the duel provides a decisive measure of one’s prowess vis-à-vis his opponent. Yet as necessary as one’s martial prowess is to the Iliad, another virtue is perhaps more important: courage. Each battle, each duel, each encounter on the battlefield is as much a measure of the warrior’s courage as it is his actual skill in battle. For while it is shameful to lose, particularly when you have the larger force as Agamemnon pointed out during his mock withdrawal speech in Book 2, it is even more shameful to run away. Paris’ challenge to the Greeks exemplifies these Homeric values and emphasizes the pride of place given to courage in the Homeric values system.
It’s unclear if Paris’ challenge was genuine or simply an attempt to motivate his Trojans and their allies. What the poem makes abundantly clear, however, is that Paris is not prepared to fight the best Greek hero…or Menelaus:
Menelaus grinned as he hefted his gear
And stepped down from his chariot. He would
Have his revenge at last. Paris’ blood
turned milky when he saw him coming on,
And he faded back into the Trojan troops
With cheeks as pale as if he had seen –
Had almost stepped on – a poisonous snake
In a mountain pass. He could barely stand
As disdainful Trojans made room for him in the ranks,
And Hector, seeing his brother tremble at Atreus’ son,
started in on him with these abusive epithets:
“Paris, you desperate, womanizing pretty boy!
I wish you had never been born, or had died unmarried.
better that than this disgrace before the troops.
[…]
You’re nothing but trouble for your father and your city,
A joke to your enemies and an embarrassment to yourself.
No, don’t stand up to Menelaus: you might find out
What kind of man it is whose wife you’re sleeping with.
You think your lyre will help you, or Aphrodite’s gifts,
Your hair, your pretty face, when you sprawl in the dust?
It’s the Trojans who are cowards, or you’d have long since
Been dressed out in stones for all the harm you’ve done. (34-63)
When Paris saw Menelaus step forward to accept his challenge, the Trojan prince’s “blood turned milky.” He was struck with fear and retreated to the safety of the Trojan lines. Note the reaction of Paris’ own men to this retreat: “disdainful Trojans made room for him in the ranks.” The very men that Paris leads into battle look at him disdainfully, making room for him as though his cowardice were a contagion that might infect them as well. There is a humorous moment before the first gladiatorial fight in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) that makes light of a cowardly “warrior” in a similar situation as Paris. Just moments before the gate opens, he urinates on himself. Maximus, Russel Crowe’s character, notices the mess and takes a token step back as if to distance himself from the taint of the slave’s cowardice.[1] Hector drives the point home in the Iliad: Paris is an embarrassment to himself and his people; he is, like Briseis, Chryseis, and Helen, a pretty thing; like Thersites, the tip of his tongue is more dangerous than that of his spear; death would be a better fate than the shame Paris has wrought for himself, his family, and all of Troy by his display of cowardice here and the violation of xenia when he stole away Helen. In a sense, Paris has made cowards and thieves of them all.
This scene parallels the interaction between Nestor, Agamemnon, and Achilles in Book 1. Like Agamemnon and Achilles, Paris runs afoul of cultural expectations; he acts inappropriately. Hector, like Nestor, addresses this transgression in clear terms. The entire Trojan army affirms the inappropriateness of Paris’ retreat by showing disdain as he tries to shrink behind them. Recall in Book 1 that a similar communal appraisal occurred when Chryses first approached Agamemnon, a murmur rippled through the ranks exhorting Agamemnon to accept the ransom.
However, the most striking corollary between these scenes is Paris’ reply to Hector, significant both for its similarity to and difference from Agamemnon’s reply to Nestor in Book 1:
“That’s only just, Hector”
[….]
But don’t throw golden Aphrodite’ gifts in my face.
We don’t get to choose what the gods give us, you know,
And we can’t just toss their gifts aside.
So all right, if you want me to fight, fine.
Have the Trojans and the Greeks sit down,
And Menelaus and I will square off in the middle
To fight for Helen and all her possessions.” (64-74)
On the one hand, Paris agrees with Hector. The shame that Hector heaps upon his wayward brother is, in Paris’ words, “only just.” Compare Paris’ response to that of Agamemnon’s when Nestor criticized his actions: “Yes, old man, everything you’ve said is absolutely right” (1.301). In both cases, Paris and Agamemnon fail to meet the cultural expectations of proper behavior; when this failure is pointed out to them, they admit the validity of the respective criticisms.
The actions that Agamemnon and Paris take in light of – or despite – their respective acknowledgments is also telling. Recall that although Agamemnon endorsed Nestor’s criticism, he did not act on the old king’s advice. Agamemnon continued his inappropriate behavior and confiscated Achilles’ war prize despite Nestor’s explicit pleas that he not do so. In the present scene, Paris not only acknowledges the justice of Hector’s criticism, but he takes action to rectify his prior misstep.
In summary, Paris and Agamemnon find themselves in parallel situations in Books 1 and 3, having acted inappropriately, been directly criticized for the inappropriateness of their actions, and then explicitly acknowledging that what they did was inappropriate. The actions they took after that acknowledgement, however, were notably different. The shame of acting inappropriately was enough to override Paris’ fear of battle with Menelaus. As we noted in Book 1, the shame of unjustly confiscating a hero’s prize was not strong enough to override Agamemnon’s anger over the divinely sanctioned loss of his war prize.
We meet Helen for the first time in Book 3 while the Greeks and Trojans prepare for the upcoming duel between Paris and Menelaus. Iris, the female herald of the Gods, visits Helen during this lull on the battlefield:
Iris, the gods’ herald (who is also the rainbow),
Came to white-armed Helen disguised as Laodice,
Her sister-in-law and Priam’s most beautiful daughter.
She found Helen in the main hall, weaving a folding mantle
On a great loom and designing into the blood-red fabric
The trials that the Trojans and Greeks had suffered
For her beauty under Ares’ murderous hands. (124-30)
This is also the first time we encounter an aristocratic woman in the relatively normal setting of home life. Helen weaves a “mantle” that, not unlike the Bayeux Tapestry from Medieval Europe,[2] visually narrates the war that has unfolded beneath the walls of Troy over the past nine years. Immediately, then, the poem reinforces two significant cultural expectations: one about the role of women in the household and the other about the role of art.
A detail of cavalry and foot soldiers in battle (reproduction based on photo of the tapestry).
The tapestry is made of embroidered wool on linen, is 20 inches high and almost 230 feet long.[3]
We begin with the latter. History as a discipline was absent in the Homeric world.[4] However, that does not mean the practices of recording and analyzing the past were absent. The mechanisms of memory and inquiry[5] were subsumed by other skills, most notably those associated with entertainment: visual arts, song, and stories (muthoi or myths).[6] In this introductory glimpse of Helen, we see an aristocratic woman crafting a visual representation of noteworthy events from the past. The tapestry that she weaves glorifies the warriors (both victorious and fallen) and memorializes the events that took place in the recent past. Thus, memory of those events is preserved and given a “spin” on the loom.
Concerning the role of women, just as we were able to glean societal norms and expectations for warriors and aristocratic men in Paris’ interaction with Hector and the Trojan warriors, so too can we locate cultural expectations for women by their portrayals in the poem. When we meet Helen for the first time, we also meet our first aristocratic wife in the Homeric world, and we find her performing a stock task: she weaves fabric at the loom. Additionally, Helen, like Briseis and Chryseis in Book 1, is a prize: “Paris and Menelaus are going to fight a duel with lances, and the winner will lay claim to you as his beloved wife” (139-41).
Helen’s response to this news may seem odd to a 21st century reader:
The goddess’ words turned Helen’s mind
Into a sweet mist of desire
For her former husband, her parents, and her city.
She dressed herself in fine silvery linens
And came out of her bedroom crying softly. (142-6).
In most Greek sources, including the Iliad, the rape of Helen was far from a violent act. If anything, it was portrayed as a violation done against Menelaus rather than Helen. As Homer tells it, Aphrodite manipulated Helen, and Classical visual sources support this version of the myth; one such painting depicts the seduction of Helen by Aphrodite with the aid of Peitho (Persuasion) and Himeros (Longing, Desire).[7] Another excellent example is shown below:
Red-figure amphoriskos (perfume bottle) by the Heimarmene Painter (c. 430 BCE).
Peitho (Goddess of Persuasion) looks on at left while Aphrodite seduces a pensive Helen (seated on the Aphrodite’s lap). the goddess places a conspiratorial (or consoling) arm over the mortal’s shoulder.
Photo credit: ArchaiOptix. Creative Commons Copyright.
The fact that Helen willingly departed Sparta with Paris influences how we interpret her turn of “mind” at lines 142-6 (above). She will more explicitly rationalize her change of mind atop the ramparts and in the aftermath of the duel (below). For now, however, let us note that she is depicted as a woman torn: her mind has clearly turned toward Menelaus, but her heart presumably remains with Paris. In this sense, she finds herself in a similar predicament to Agamemnon from Book 1: her rational faculties conclude that she belongs with Menelaus (duty) just as Agamemnon agreed, rationally, that Nestor was correct, and he should not have taken Achilles’ prize. These cognitive deliberations are at odds, however, with Helen’s emotional desire, which is to maintain her relationship with Paris – this is a psychological rationalization that modern adaptations are particularly fond of reinforcing.[8] Although this dichotomy runs the risk of oversimplifying Helen’s status in the Iliad, it is useful to highlight the fact that, like Agamemnon, Helen implicitly acknowledges that she acted inappropriately in running away with Paris, and while she continues to live in Troy with him, her tears at the conversation with Iris suggest a seemingly greater ambivalence about her decision than Agamemnon showed in Book 1. Put another way, the parallel predicaments of Agamemnon and Helen juxtapose the desire of the individual with norms and mores of their community, societal ideals that both figures have internalized, thus affirming a baseline “right” and “wrong” for audiences of the epic.
Helen leaves the shuttle and loom behind and ascends the ramparts of Troy to look down on the duel that will determine her fate. As she does so, unnamed Trojan voices murmur, marveling at her beauty, her inhuman eyes, and the more penetrating assessment that she is to blame for the suffering of Troy and should be sent back to Menelaus where she belongs. It is in this milieu of murmurings that Priam calls to her:
“Come here, dear child, sit next to me
So you can see your former husband
And dear kinsmen. you are not to blame
For this war with the Greeks. The gods are.” (170-3)
The Trojan War is fought ostensibly for Helen’s beauty: “Who could blame either the Trojans or Greeks for suffering so long for a woman like this,” utters one of the murmurers. Helen’s is, “the face that launched a thousand ships,” after all (Goethe). Yet her beauty and her hand in marriage are rarely the underlying reasons for the conflict. Just as the strife narrated in the Iliad is Zeus’ will (1.6), so too is that of the war itself. Destiny or Fate is the driving force that binds the universe in Greek myth, and Zeus is generally portrayed as its shepherd (see Book 16). Thus, it is no surprise that Priam, who is as much to blame for this war as Helen or Paris because he gave them sanctuary in Troy, shirks off these criticisms of Helen or her cursed beauty in deference to the will and machinations of the gods. Indeed, it was the gods (Aphrodite, Peitho, and Himeros in our amphoriskos scene above) who convinced Helen to run away with Paris. This does little, however, to assuage Helen’s guilt or the shame she feels for having violated the social expectations the she has lived with and internalized since childhood:
“Reverend you are to me dear father-in-law,
A man to hold in Awe. I’m so ashamed.
Death should have been a sweeter evil to me
Than following your son here, leaving my home,
My marriage, my friends, my precious daughter,
That lovely time in my life. None of it was to be,
And lamenting it has been my slow death.
But you asked me something, and I’ll answer.
That man is Agamemnon, son of Atreus,
A great king and a strong warrior both.
He was also my brother-in-law – shameless bitch
That I am – if that life was ever real.”
The conflicted nature of Helen’s world is poignant. Not only do nameless faces in a crowd of murmurers blame her for the devastation of this war, but she blames herself for violating her marriage vows and shirking her duty as wife to Menelaus. She looks back longingly on that life, leaving behind all the cultural coinage associated with wives and motherhood: home, husband, children, friends. For this, she is ashamed and expresses a desire to die rather than live with the dishonor and pain that her decision has wrought on herself and the city of Troy.
Helen, like all mortals, is subject to the whims of the gods and the dictates of Fate, but such was the case for Achilles and Agamemnon in Book 1. This divine manipulation of events does not indemnify humans of responsibility for their actions; they remain subject to the norms and mores of their respective cultures. The Iliad, as is the case with heroic epic in general, takes pains to clarify those cultural expectations. Agamemnon unjustly offended Apollo and then Achilles. Achilles ignored his position in the command structure of the Greek armies. Although Priam is certainly correct that the gods exert an influence on all human activities, societal expectations, blame, and consequences remain entirely on the shoulders of the humans who commit such actions. In other words, the fact that Aphrodite manipulated Helen does nothing to acquit her of the guilt that she violated the moral code of the Iliad. Nor was Paris wrong in his reply to Hector’s chiding: “don’t throw golden Aphrodite’s gifts in my face. We don’t get to choose what the gods give us, you know, and we can’t just toss their gifts aside” (68-70). Helen’s situation is a magnification of the precarious position in which all humans find themselves in the poem. The painful question of agency is a popular one that has troubled Greek scholars for centuries, but what is perfectly clear is that the human lot is one of suffering and endurance. Regardless of external (divine) manipulations, mortals must live and die by their actions, “owning one’s actions” in modern parlance.
Oaths are sworn, libations are poured, lambs are sacrificed, and the duel between Menelaus and Paris for the hand of Helen, the glory of victory, and the gentle hand of peace throughout the Aegean is at stake. The fight begins with a prayer on the part of Menelaus:
“Lord Zeus, make Paris pay for the evil he’s done to me,
Smite him down with my hands so that men for all time
Will fear to transgress against a host’s offered friendship.” (375-77)
Menelaus speaks of xenia, the customs of hospitality or guest-friendship. Earlier, we discussed the rape of Helen as being more an affront to Menelaus than to Helen, who went away with Paris willingly. It was, in fact, a transgression of xenia. Xenia is one of the more important concepts in Greek society, and its importance is reinforced throughout the heroic myths (klea andrōn): “Next to religious and family obligations, and valiant conduct in war, the codes of hospitality towards guests were given the highest value. The duty of the host was to act as though the guest were kin: what one would provide for a relative, one should also provide for a stranger.”[9] Although there are many myths and rationalizations for the Trojan War, the campaign was viewed as enforcing the justice of Zeus against Paris for stealing Helen and against Troy for harboring the man who violated xenia. The war effort was particularly attached to an aspect of Zeus himself, Zeus of Guest-friendship (Zeus Xenios). Xenia is an important concept in the Greek world and Greek myth; it will be a recurring theme in the Iliad.
The duel commenced after Menelaus’ prayer, and it didn’t go well for his opponent. Menelaus was in the process of dragging a dazed and beaten Paris back to the Greek lines to obtain another sword (his original had shattered),
But Aphrodite, Zeus’ daughter, had all this
In sharp focus and snapped the oxhide chinstrap,
Leaving Menelaus clenching an empty helmet,
Which the hero, spinning like a discus thrower,
Heaved into the hands of the Greek spectators.
Then he went back for the kill. But Aphrodite
Whisked Paris away with the sleight of a goddess,
Enveloping him in mist, and lofted him into
The incensed air of his vaulted bedroom. (400-409)
Thus, Paris escaped certain death in mortal combat at the hands of Helen’s aggrieved Greek husband, exchanging death on the battlefield for a comfortable bed and the company of a beautiful woman. Aphrodite’s work continues: “Then she went for Helen and found her in a crowd of Trojan women high on the tower.” Appearing in the guise of an old handmaid whom Helen brought with her from Sparta, Aphrodite implores Helen to tend to Paris in their bedchamber:
“Over here. Paris wants you to come home.
He’s propped up on pillows in your bedroom,
So silky and beautiful you’d never think
He’d just come from combat, but was going to a dance,
Or coming from a dance and had just now sat down.”
Aphrodite does not simply ask Helen to tend to Paris’ wounds. She highlights his sex appeal. The implications from the Olympian goddess of love are clear: you should sleep with Paris. Helen, though, is unmoved. Knowing that she speaks to Aphrodite, Helen replies,
“You eerie thing, why do you love
Lying to me like this? Where are you taking me now?
Phrygia? Beautiful Maeonia? Another city
Where you have some other boyfriend for me?
Or is it because Menelaus, having just beaten Paris,
Wants to take his hateful wife back to his house
That you stand here now with treachery in your heart?
Go sit by Paris yourself! Descend from the gods’ high road,
Allow your precious feet not to tread on Olympus,
Go fret over him constantly, protect him.
Maybe someday he’ll make you his wife – or even his slave.
I’m not going back there. It would be treason
To share his bed. The Trojan women
Would hold me at fault. I have enough pain as it is.”
This exchange is intriguing and worth the time to unpack. First, Helen accuses Aphrodite of lying to her. This suggests a close affinity to our amphoriskos vase painting and, perhaps, sheds light on the Greek view of seduction. Peitho, Persuasion, appears on the vessel along with Aphrodite. Peitho’s presence is not unusual in seduction scenes. She appears on an ancient relief of uncertain date depicting the Seduction of Helen (below) in which she oversees the drama in a fashion almost identical to the 5th century amphoriskos (above), and she also aids Zeus in his seduction of Helen’s mother, Leda, in a 5th century louthrophoros (water jar).
1st century CE relief (possibly 4th Century Athenian).
"Peitho looks down on the scene from the top left while Aphrodite sits atop Helen’s lap, breast exposed and arm wrapped consolingly (or conspiratorially) over Helen’s shoulder. Eros stands off to the right (in Helen’s sightline)."[10]
Photo: @Sarah404BC (twitter)
To what extent was Helen “convinced” (persuaded) to run away with Paris, and to what extent was her autonomy compromised in the typical fashion we attribute to one of Cupid’s arrows in an Ovidian tryst? The distinction may be entirely modern in nature. In Homer and elsewhere, the gods do invade and manipulate the emotional and cognitive faculties of humans from within (hence the dilemma of agency in ancient myth). However, the fact that Homeric vocabulary refers to Aphrodite as “lying” rather than a daemonic[11] hijacking of one’s faculties combined with the association of persuasion in the process might at least suggest that Helen was convinced (albeit via lies) rather than bereft of all agency and magically controlled to abandon Menelaus for Paris.
A second aspect that stands out in Helen’s reply is the sheer boldness of it. Aphrodite has manipulated her mortal half-sister,[12] but she remains her mortal half-sister. A thematic link in all klea andrōn is the separation between human and the divine. Disrespect on the part of a mortal toward a god is met with harsh repercussions. We witnessed this in Book 1 when Agamemnon slighted Apollo, and Dionē will more explicitly detail this relationship in Book 5. For now, let us simply note that Helen does not act submissively or respectfully toward Aphrodite, so the goddess is quick to correct her misstep:
“Don’t vex me, bitch, or I may let go of you
And hate you as extravagantly as I love you now.
I can make you repulsive to both sides, you know,
Trojans and Greeks, and then where will you be?” (442-5)
Aphrodite puts the fear of god in Helen,[13] and the mortal immediately capitulates, allowing the goddess to guide her to Paris’ bedchamber.
Helen may have been cowed by Aphrodite, but there is still the matter of Paris’ cowardice. Rescued from certain death by the machinations of a goddess though he was, Paris still fled from his responsibility, in this case finishing a duel to the death. Much as Hector had done earlier, Helen attempts to shame Paris:
“Back from the war? You should have died out there,
Beaten by a real hero, my former husband.
You used to boast you were better than Menelaus,
When it came to spear work and hand-to-hand combat.
Why don’t you go challenge him to fight again,
Right now? I wouldn’t recommend it, though,
A fair fight between you and Ares’ redhead darling.
You’d go down in no time under his spear.” (456-63)
Paris does not deny that Menelaus (would have) defeated him, but as was the case in his reply to Hector to begin the Book, so too his reply to Helen; the gods work through us, and we cannot but obey: “Menelaus beat me this time – with Athena’s help. Next time I’ll beat him. We have gods on our side too” (466-7).
The Book began with a physical agon (contest) between Paris and Menelaus that went unfinished. It ends with a verbal agon between Paris and Helen, and here, in the bedroom, Paris earns conclusive victory: “Enough of this. Let’s go to bed now and make love…. He walked to the bed, and Helen followed” (469-75).
[1] The moment of relevance to this chapter occurs at the 2-minute mark of the clip. The entire clip is valuable in comparative studies of the heroic death and ways in which memory functions as a motivator for heroic action in literature and life.
[2] The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres (230 ft) long and 50 centimeters (20 in) tall, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy, and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years after the battle. It tells the story from the point of view of the conquering Normans, but is now agreed to have been made in England. (Bayeux Tapestry, Wikipedia)
[3] Dr. Kristine Tanton. The Bayeux Tapestry. Khan Academy.
[4] History defined as critical inquiry into the past.
[5] “Inquiry” or “investigation” was the meaning of the term “history” when Herodotus coined it in the mid-fifth century BCE while recounting his history of the Persian Wars.
[6] Muthos, the Greek word from which we derive the word myth, meant “story,” “tale,” or “narrative.”
[7] Himeros (Desire) is the twin of Eros (Love) and child of Aphrodite. The two are practically identical in name as well as physical features. But it is Eros whose fame is more well known under his Latin name, Cupid.
[8] In Wolfgang Peterson’s Troy (Warner Bros. 2004) Helen is deeply in love with Paris and seeks to escape an abusive and barbaric husband of an arranged marriage. In John Kent Harrison’s Helen of Troy (Universal 2003) Menelaus is a far more sympathetic character – the film’s narrator, in fact! – but once again, Helen’s true love is Paris. Finally, in the Netflix/BBC One mini-series, Troy: Fall of a City (2018), Menelaus is a petulant, abusive man-child, and Helen’s heart belongs to Paris, but she finds herself conspiring with Greek spies to escape Troy. In every case, Helen is the victim of an arranged marriage with Menelaus, and Paris represents the freedom of choice that 21st sensibilities aspire to.
[9] Tony Allan and Sara Maitland. Ancient Greece and Rome: Myths and Beliefs. World Mythologies. Rosen (2012).
[10] Andrew Scholtz. Persuasion in Ancient Greece. SUNY Binghamton.
[11] Supernatural.
[12] Aphrodite is the child of Zeus and Dionē in the Iliad rather than the more poetic genealogy crafted for her in Theogony.
[13] To be “god fearing” is an important marker of civilization. Although it’s a thread woven throughout the klea andrōn, it takes on special importance during the wandering portions of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus employs it as a measure to test the civility of the various peoples and creates he encounters on his way home.