Smyrnaeus.]


The character and history of Helen of Troy have been conceived of in
very different ways by poets and mythologists. In attempting to
trace the chief current of ancient traditions about Helen, we cannot
really get further back than the Homeric poems, the Iliad and
Odyssey. Philological conjecture may assure us that Helen, like most
of the characters of old romance, is "merely the Dawn," or Light, or
some other bright being carried away by Paris, who represents Night,
or Winter, or the Cloud, or some other power of darkness. Without
discussing these ideas, it may be said that the Greek poets (at all
events before allegorical explanations of mythology came in, about
five hundred years before Christ) regarded Helen simply as a woman of
wonderful beauty. Homer was not thinking of the Dawn, or the Cloud
when he described Helen among the Elders on the Ilian walls, or
repeated her lament over the dead body of Hector. The Homeric poems
are our oldest literary documents about Helen, but it is probable
enough that the poet has modified and purified more ancient
traditions which still survive in various fragments of Greek legend.
In Homer Helen is always the daughter of Zeus. Isocrates tells us
("Helena," 211 b) that "while many of the demigods were children of
Zeus, he thought the paternity of none of his daughters worth
claiming, save that of Helen only." In Homer, then, Helen is the
daughter of Zeus, but Homer says nothing of the famous legend which
makes Zeus assume the form of a swan to woo the mother of Helen.
Unhomeric as this myth is, we may regard it as extremely ancient.
Very similar tales of pursuit and metamorphosis, for amatory or other
purposes, among the old legends of Wales, and in the "Arabian
Nights," as well as in the myths of Australians and Red Indians.