Helen
Also known as: Helene, Helena, Euripides' Helen
Euripides relocates Helen to Egypt, asserting that a phantom went to Troy while the real queen remained chaste at Proteus’ court. Shipwrecked Menelaus arrives, the pair recognize one another, deceive the Egyptian king, and escape by sea; the Dioscuri confirm the tale’s divine design.
Description
Set at the palace of Proteus in Egypt, the play opens with Helen repudiating the Trojan adulteress image by revealing the gods sent a look-alike eidolon to Troy. Euripides fuses romance, recognition drama, and tragedy, testing reputation against truth. Menelaus, wrecked on Egyptian shores, at first disbelieves the real Helen; a carefully staged anagnorisis restores marital trust. The prophetess Theonoe resists her brother Theoclymenus’ impiety, enabling the couple’s ruse: a feigned funeral voyage for Menelaus that becomes their escape. A messenger narrates the daring sea-flight, and the Dioscuri appear ex machina to sanction events and delineate fates. The work interrogates appearance versus reality, divine manipulation, and the ethics of hospitality, ending unusually for tragedy with survival and vindication.
Historiography
The play was transmitted through medieval codices of Euripides along with scholia, with additional support from papyrus fragments. Ancient Alexandrian editors recognized its innovative treatment of the Helen myth. Euripides likely drew on Stesichorus’ Palinode and a variant recounted by Herodotus that placed Helen in Egypt. Later reception noted its blend of tragic form with recognition-and-escape motifs and its philosophic play on semblance and truth.
Date Notes
First produced at the City Dionysia in 412 BCE; reworks earlier treatments (Stesichorus' Palinode; Herodotus 2.112–120) that place Helen in Egypt while a phantom goes to Troy.
Major Characters
- Helen
- Menelaus
- Theoclymenus
- Theonoe
- Eidolon of Helen
- Hermoine
Myths
- The Phantom Helen
- Menelaus’ Recognition of Helen in Egypt
- The Escape from Theoclymenus
Facts
- Set before the palace of Proteus in Egypt, not in Troy or Sparta.
- The plot assumes a divine eidolon went to Troy while the real Helen remained chaste.
- First performed at Athens’ City Dionysia in 412 BCE.
- Theonoe protects Helen by privileging piety and truth over her brother’s will.
- Helen and Menelaus escape by staging a sham funeral at sea.
- A messenger narrates the successful flight and the Greeks’ seizure of a ship.
- The Dioscuri appear ex machina to ratify outcomes and assign futures.
- Blends tragic form with romance and recognition (anagnorisis) motifs.
- Engages earlier mythic revisions associated with Stesichorus and with Herodotus’ Egyptian variant.
- Ends with an unusually positive resolution for a Greek tragedy.