Homeric literature provides us with two detailed examinations of Helen. Telemachus encounters her back in Sparta in the Odyssey (Book 4 & 15). Here in Book 3, she interacts with Priam as he watches the Achaeans from the Scaean Gate, as well as with Aphrodite and Paris after the duel.
Task: See if you can find a parallel from this book to the following traits highlighted in the Odyssey.
Trait | Odyssey Quote: | Iliad Quote: |
Her beauty is view as divine. | …from her tall, scented room came Helen, like Artemis of the golden spindle… [Book 4] | |
She has great domestic skills | …a golden spindle, and a silver basket on wheels, with a golden rim. This was what Phylo, her maid, brought, placing it beside her. It was full of fine-spun yarn, and the spindle was laid across it, charged with dark purple wool... [Book 4] | |
She regrets leaving Menelaus | ‘While the rest of the Trojan women were wailing their grief, my spirit was glad, since my heart was already longing for home … abandoning daughter and bridal chamber, and a husband lacking neither in wisdom nor looks.’ [Book 4] | |
She is at odds with Aphrodite | …and I sighed at the blindness Aphrodite had dealt me, drawing me there from my own dear country… [Book 4] | |
She is astute and her opinion is valued. | ‘… it stuns me to look, as the likeness of this man to great-hearted Odysseus: surely this is the son whom he left at home...’ Yellow-haired Menelaus replied: ‘I see the likeness now, wife, as you do…’ [Book 4] |
N.B. a version of this table can be found in the appendix of your Iliad Book III booklet.