Helen

Euripides’s Helen has been variously called a tragedy and a comedy (or what is perhaps a third genre altogether, a romantic drama), and one can see both the tragic and the comic possibilities in the opening section. The style, setting, and subject matter better match traditional Greek tragedy than comedy, and tragic overtones are immediately present in the themes of death that weave throughout Helen’s opening monologue, from King Proteus’s tomb to the depiction of thousands dying at Troy. Further, there is the tragedy of Helen herself, the victim of the goddesses’ capricious plans and “the passive sufferer in it all” (58), whose name and reputation are now unjustly linked to the greatest catastrophe of her age, a disaster that has wrought devastation not only on the Greek world, but on her own family, too.

Nevertheless, hints of comedy also appear, setting up what will ultimately be a comic, rather than a tragic, ending to the play. The first comic twist comes in the opening premise of the play: Contrary to the audience’s expectations, Helen is a noble heroine rather than a villain, and she is not at all to blame for the horrors of the Trojan War. While this was not the first time someone had offered this take on the famous story, which first appeared in the works of the Sicilian poet Stesichorus, its use here would have been something of a surprise to the audience.

Yet even in making use of this unexpected twist, Euripides is holding tragic elements close at hand to comic ones. His Athenian audience in 412 BCE would have understood that his portrayal of the devastating cost of the Trojan War paralleled their own recent failed invasion of Sicily in the context of the Peloponnesian War, arguably another needless and preventable tragedy. Nevertheless, the fact that Helen is a heroine rather than a villain means that Euripides is already suggesting that an element of redemption is possible, that the established narrative can be rewritten in a kinder key, and that some healing might still come after the pain of a needless, costly war.

Three prominent themes beyond the comedy/tragedy question also make their appearance in the opening section. First, there is the exploration of appearance versus reality, which runs throughout the play. Euripides deals with this theme primarily through the contrast between Helen and her phantom copy, but it is also apparent in the setting of the play, wherein the beautiful palace is not the home of a civilized monarch, but of a barbarian king intent on subjugating Helen to his own plans for her. This point is tied into a corollary theme, that of virtue and reputation. Helen’s reputation is a central concern throughout this opening sequence, as she laments the fact that her name is now directly tied to the sufferings of the Trojan War. Nevertheless, that reputation is a trick of false appearance, as it is not true to who Helen actually is. While her widely known reputation tends toward the appearance of vanity and selfish carelessness, the reality of Helen’s character is one of virtue and empathy.

Second, Euripides brings one of his favorite themes quickly to the forefront: the intelligence and strong moral character of women. Whereas Teucer appears as something of a flat character, serving only to provide information to Helen (and even then, only rumored information), Helen and the Chorus emerge as characters of intelligence, dignity, and emotional depth.

Third, Euripides’s Helen consistently focuses on the brutal fallout of war. One aspect of ancient war-making that he criticizes outright is the practice of divination, consulting the gods to find out the future (commonly done in the ancient world before deciding to launch an attack). Helen is a victim of the goddesses’ capricious plots against each other, and so her story is presented as a warning against those who try to discover knowledge of the gods’ plans, since those plans can turn on a whim.