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HELEN

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 219 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HELEN ., or See also:

HELENA (Gr.'EXivrl),in See also:Greek See also:mythology, daughter of See also:Zeus by See also:Leda (wife of Tyndarcus, See also:king of See also:Sparta), See also:sister of See also:Castor, See also:Pollux and Clytaemnestra, and wife of See also:Menelaus. Other accounts make her the daughter of Zeus and See also:Nemesis, or of See also:Oceanus and Tethys. She was the most beautiful woman in See also:Greece, and indirectly the cause of the Trojan See also:war. When a See also:child she was carried off from Sparta by See also:Theseus to See also:Attica, but was recovered and taken back by her See also:brothers. When she See also:grew up, the most famous of the princes of Greece sought her See also:hand in See also:marriage, and her See also:father's choice See also:fell upon Menelaus. During her See also:husband's See also:absence she was induced by See also:Paris, son of See also:Priam, with the connivance of See also:Aphrodite, to flee with him to See also:Troy. After the See also:death of Paris she married his See also:brother DeYphobus, whom she is said to have betrayed into the hands of Menelaus at the See also:capture of the See also:city (Aeneid, vi. 517 ff.). Menelaus there-upon took her back, and they returned together to Sparta, where they lived happily till their death, and were buried at Therapnae in See also:Laconia. According to another See also:story, Helen survived herhusband, and was driven out by her stepsons. She fled to See also:Rhodes, where she was hanged on a See also:tree by her former friend Polyxo, to avenge the loss of her husband Tlepolemus in the Trojan War (See also:Pausanias iii. 19).

After death, Helen was said to have married See also:

Achilles in his See also:home in the See also:island of Leuke. In another version, Paris, on his voyage to Troy with Helen, was driven ashore on the See also:coast of See also:Egypt, where King See also:Proteus, upon learning the facts of the See also:case, detained the real Helen in Egypt, while a phantom Helen was carried off to Troy. Menelaus on his way home was also driven by stress of winds to Egypt, where he found his wife and took her home (See also:Herodotus 11. 112-120; See also:Euripides, Helena). Helen was worshipped as the goddess of beauty at Therapnae in Laconia, where a festival was held in her See also:honour. At Rhodes she was worshipped under the name of Dendritis (the tree goddess), where the inhabitants built a See also:temple in her honour to expiate the See also:crime of Polyxo. The Rhodian story probably contains a reference to the See also:worship connected with her name (cf. See also:Theocritus xviii. 48 aiSou µ', 'EMVas Ovr6a eiuL). She was the subject of a tragedy by Euripides and ah epic by Colluthus. Originally, Helen was perhaps a goddess of See also:light, a See also:moon-goddess, who was gradually transformed into the beautiful heroine See also:round whom the See also:action of the Iliad revolves. Like her brothers, the Dioscuri, she was a See also:patron deity of sailors.

See E. See also:

Oswald, The See also:Legend of See also:Fair Helen (1905) ; J. A. See also:Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets, i. (1893) ; F. See also:Decker, See also:Die griechische Helena in Mythos and Epos (1894); See also:Andrew See also:Lang, Helen of Troy (1883); P. Paris in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire See also:des antiquites; the exhaustive See also:article by R. Engelmann in See also:Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie ; and O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, i. 163, according to whom Helen originally represented, in the Helenephoria (a mystic festival of See also:Artemis, See also:Iphigeneia or Tauropolos), the sacred See also:basket (Wan) in which the See also:holy See also:objects were carried ; and hence, as the personification of the See also:initiation ceremony, she was connected with or identified with the moon, the first See also:appearance of which probably marked the beginning of the festivity.

End of Article: HELEN

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