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kxowledge's review
5.0
Building upon Stesychorus’ version, in this play Helen is in Egypt and has been there for the entire Trojan War, while the Helen at Troy was only an ειδολον, so we know right from the prologue that things are not as they appear to be and as a result the whole play is contradictory. Segal counts more than 30 times in which appearance is contrasted with reality and you can interpret it you want: haste might explain imperfection, or it could be a signal that we could be going towards the trope of the double that will later appear in the New Comedy. I personally choose to believe that the play is elusive because it offers a multifaced answer.
I’m really invested in the phantom Helen – did she know she wasn’t real? what happens to her next? what effect has this knowledge on her? what if she loved Paris? will she be reunited with him in the underworld? why no one ever noticed anything? why does this reminds me of AI? – but aside from this, if appearance and reality are not the same, what are the implications?
The obvious one is that the Trojan War was fought over nothing and many died in vain. The play’s pacifist message indeed could be a direct response to the recent failed Sicilian expedition. However, does this correspond to the reality of the characters’ actions? Menelaos once again goes against a foreign kind to have his wife back, which can be both a parallel with him going against Troy (human actions are the same, the outcome is different only thanks to changed behaviour of the gods) but also a parallel with Paris ‘stealing’ Helen if we assume that he did so because she loved him back even if that mean starting a war. So, even if the characters agree that the war was pointless, they don’t seem to have learned the lesson (this easily applies to different periods and different players, even today).
Menelaos is indeed faced with a very human dilemma: he has invested so much in getting Helen back, he could save himself and not risk another war by letting it go and accepting that he spent years fighting a pointless war (or rather, not pointless, but a war in which the trigger and objective of it was not real); or, he could persevere as to assign some meaning to his quest, possibly dying trying. Well, for him this is not a dilemma, he has already chosen what to do, and many of us make the same choice in our daily life.
Another implication is Helen’s innocence: much like in Gorgia’s Encomium, Euripides redeems Helen. But what will happen once they return to Greece? How can you convince everyone of what happened?
A few other things of interest are Theonoe, who knows everything (she possess the truth, we might say) and yet is still capable of lying, and the chorus, which in case of Antigone doesn’t intervene even though the Old Thebans are somewhat sympathetic towards her and her cause while here we hear the chorus saying “I am, if I judge better” in response to Theoklymenos “You are not my judge”
I’m really invested in the phantom Helen – did she know she wasn’t real? what happens to her next? what effect has this knowledge on her? what if she loved Paris? will she be reunited with him in the underworld? why no one ever noticed anything? why does this reminds me of AI? – but aside from this, if appearance and reality are not the same, what are the implications?
The obvious one is that the Trojan War was fought over nothing and many died in vain. The play’s pacifist message indeed could be a direct response to the recent failed Sicilian expedition. However, does this correspond to the reality of the characters’ actions? Menelaos once again goes against a foreign kind to have his wife back, which can be both a parallel with him going against Troy (human actions are the same, the outcome is different only thanks to changed behaviour of the gods) but also a parallel with Paris ‘stealing’ Helen if we assume that he did so because she loved him back even if that mean starting a war. So, even if the characters agree that the war was pointless, they don’t seem to have learned the lesson (this easily applies to different periods and different players, even today).
Menelaos is indeed faced with a very human dilemma: he has invested so much in getting Helen back, he could save himself and not risk another war by letting it go and accepting that he spent years fighting a pointless war (or rather, not pointless, but a war in which the trigger and objective of it was not real); or, he could persevere as to assign some meaning to his quest, possibly dying trying. Well, for him this is not a dilemma, he has already chosen what to do, and many of us make the same choice in our daily life.
Another implication is Helen’s innocence: much like in Gorgia’s Encomium, Euripides redeems Helen. But what will happen once they return to Greece? How can you convince everyone of what happened?
A few other things of interest are Theonoe, who knows everything (she possess the truth, we might say) and yet is still capable of lying, and the chorus, which in case of Antigone doesn’t intervene even though the Old Thebans are somewhat sympathetic towards her and her cause while here we hear the chorus saying “I am, if I judge better” in response to Theoklymenos “You are not my judge”
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