For a coda to his abduction narratives, Herodotus returns to Io, relating an alternative Phoenician account in which she was not abducted at all. Instead, Io willingly engaged in premarital sex with the captain of the vessel and got pregnant. Rather than face the anger of her parents, she chose to flee with her lover to Egypt. Now, in the original story, the Phoenicians were only in Argos for five or six days, so Io would have needed a longer timeline for all that. Herodotus will make a habit throughout The Histories of giving us multiple accounts of events and letting us decide for ourselves what is most believable. That said, he does not present the account of Io's transformation into a heifer. Nor, when discussing the origins of the Trojan War, does he bother to present the beauty contest for the golden apple among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite judged by Paris and pictured in the above vase at the National Archeological Museum in Athens, Greece.
Herodotus brings up the gods and other supernatural events in later chapters, but perhaps the idea of Aphrodite offering Paris Helen's love in exchange for awarding her the golden apple was too much even for him, much like Helen herself being hatched from an egg after her mother Leda made love to Zeus in the form of a swan, as pictured in the following vase at the same museum.
I just can't get enough of this dramatic confrontation. The two women have at it in front of Menelaus, Helen advocating for her innocence and Hecuba calling for Helen's death. If you can't make it to a live performance of the play, please check out the Michael Cacoyannis's 1971 film starring Katherine Hepburn as Hecuba and Greek legend Irene Papas as Helen. You can watch the whole scene on YouTube. Some of Cacoyannis's other films are in Greek, but this one is in English.
Unfortunately for Hecuba, Helen's celebrated beauty wins out and Menelaus takes her back to Sparta, where she will be by the time of Homer's Odyssey. Speaking of the far wandering Odysseus, Hecuba was claimed as a slave by him, but according to several sources, including the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, she did not make the famously eventful journey to Ithaca, as the intensity of her grief magically transforms her into a dog. The fall of Troy is a good example of Herodotus's statement in this section that "Humans and prosperity never endure side by side for long." On that note, we have finished the semi-mythical abduction narratives and now move on the the first extended subject of Book 1, the Lydian saga.
Little girls hatched from eggs and golden apples aside, Herodotus does tend to give us both sides. So does Euripides in The Trojan Women, which I mentioned in a previous post. Back in 2009, I worked stage crew for a production of this play at the Experimental Theatre Wing. I only have a few blurry photos taken of the old monitor I used backstage, but I find the images quite atmospheric. I heard the performance so many times that even today I can recite long stretches of dialogue by heart.
The scene is set at the still smoldering ruins of Troy the morning after the Greeks achieved victory by way of the infamous wooden horse. The heroine, if we can call her that, is Hecuba, the widow of King Priam and the mother of Paris. The chorus is made up of the titular women of Troy as they wait to be claimed as slaves by their new Greek masters.
Three women cross Hecuba's path on their way out of Troy. The first is her mad prophetess daughter Cassandra, famously cursed to foretell the future while powerless to prevent it. Cassandra has been claimed by Agamemnon as a sexual slave, but she can sense they will both die at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra upon reaching Argos. Fun fact, in mythology Clytemnestra was hatched from the same egg as Helen, except she is entirely mortal being fathered by Leda's husband Tyndareus rather than Zeus.
Three women cross Hecuba's path on their way out of Troy. The first is her mad prophetess daughter Cassandra, famously cursed to foretell the future while powerless to prevent it. Cassandra has been claimed by Agamemnon as a sexual slave, but she can sense they will both die at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra upon reaching Argos. Fun fact, in mythology Clytemnestra was hatched from the same egg as Helen, except she is entirely mortal being fathered by Leda's husband Tyndareus rather than Zeus.
Hecuba next encounters her daughter-in-law Andromache, widow of the great warrior Hector, whose fight to the death with Achilles formed the climax of Homer's Iliad. To add insult to injury, Andromache faces enslavement to Neoptolemous, the son of Achilles and the killer her father-in-law Priam. The great tear jerker scene of the play is when Andromache must give up her baby son Astyanax to be thrown from the walls of Troy by the Greeks. Finally, just when the audience is all worked up from so much horror, Helen takes the stage.
I just can't get enough of this dramatic confrontation. The two women have at it in front of Menelaus, Helen advocating for her innocence and Hecuba calling for Helen's death. If you can't make it to a live performance of the play, please check out the Michael Cacoyannis's 1971 film starring Katherine Hepburn as Hecuba and Greek legend Irene Papas as Helen. You can watch the whole scene on YouTube. Some of Cacoyannis's other films are in Greek, but this one is in English.
Calling back to the beauty contest among the goddesses, in which Helen places the blame not upon herself but on Aphrodite. As she tells Menelaus in the clip, "Punish her! Be mightier than the gods, who rule the world, but are her slaves." Helen also blames Hecuba for giving birth to Paris, Priam for allowing Paris to travel to Sparta, Menelaus for leaving her alone with Paris, and Paris himself for taking her "by force."
Hecuba will not have any of it. She shoots down all of Helen's points one by one, including blasting her with the absolutely withering comeback, "By force, you say, he took you? You cried out? No one in Sparta heard you!" Hecuba is a straight up savage and I'm totally here for it.
Unfortunately for Hecuba, Helen's celebrated beauty wins out and Menelaus takes her back to Sparta, where she will be by the time of Homer's Odyssey. Speaking of the far wandering Odysseus, Hecuba was claimed as a slave by him, but according to several sources, including the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, she did not make the famously eventful journey to Ithaca, as the intensity of her grief magically transforms her into a dog. The fall of Troy is a good example of Herodotus's statement in this section that "Humans and prosperity never endure side by side for long." On that note, we have finished the semi-mythical abduction narratives and now move on the the first extended subject of Book 1, the Lydian saga.
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