Prelude to The Odyssey: the Story of the Trojan War * The Courting of Helen Helen, princess of Sparta, was the most beautiful girl in the world. When the time arrived for her to be married, her father King Tyndareus invited all interested suitors to come to Sparta. Every eligible prince or king of Greece came to seek Helen s hand. Tyndareus hesitated to make a choice, because he realized that it would be very dangerous to have so many disappointed suitors, each of whom commanded an army. One of the suitors, Odysseus of Ithaca, understood Tyndareus s problem, and offered a suggestion to the King: make all the suitors swear that, no matter who is chosen to be Helen s husband, they will come with their armies to defend her should anyone do her any harm. Tyndareus happily accepted Odysseus s idea, the suitors all swore to defend Helen, and Tyndareus then chose Menelaus, prince of Argos, to marry his daughter. Helen s sister, Clytemnestra, married Menelaus s brother, King Agamemnon, the most powerful King in Greece. Tyndareus retired, and Menelaus came to live in Sparta to reign as King. Odysseus, who later became the King of Ithaca, moved on and later married Penelope. Together they had one son, Telemachus. While Odysseus was able to put Helen out of his mind, Paris, a Trojan prince, struggled with the task, and one day an amazing opportunity appeared. The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis Thetis, a sea goddess, fell in love with a mortal man, Peleus. She went to Zeus to beg him to grant her permission to marry Peleus and to make him immortal. Zeus agreed (but Thetis forgot to ask as well that Peleus be given eternal youth, so even though he lived forever, he kept aging). Thetis and Peleus had a grand wedding, with all the gods of Olympus in attendance, except one: Eris, the goddess of Discord, was not invited. Bent on revenge, she fashioned a golden apple with the words For the Fairest inscribed on it. She opened the door of the banquet hall, and rolled the apple into the midst of the celebrations. All the goddesses began fighting over it, but eventually three goddesses remained as contestants: Hera, the wife of Zeus; Athena, the goddess of wisdom; and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. These three goddesses went to Zeus, but he refused to decide which of them was the fairest. Instead, he told them to go to Troy and ask the young prince, Paris, to judge among them. The Judgment of Paris When Paris was born in Troy, a prophecy foretold that he would cause the ruin of his people. King Priam and Queen Hecuba couldn t bear to kill the baby, but when he was old enough, they sent him out to herd sheep, far away from the city where (they thought) he couldn t cause any trouble. When the three goddesses went to look for him, they found him all alone in a grassy valley with his herds. Paris was shocked, of course, to have three goddesses of Olympus appear before him suddenly. When they told him what they wanted, he laughed. Do you think I am so foolish? he said. If I say one of you is the most beautiful, the other * This is a modified form from a source that is not originally mine. I do not know who the original creator is.
two will torment me the rest of my days. I m sorry, you ll have to find someone else to be your judge. So they all swore not to harm him, no matter what he decided. With that guarantee, Paris agreed. Each goddess in turn offered him extra inducements to choose her as the fairest. Hera said that if he chose her, she would make him lord of all Asia, and the richest man in the world. Athena promised to make him the wisest man on earth, and give him victory in all his battles. Finally, Aphrodite promised that if he chose her, he would have the most beautiful woman on earth as his wife. Paris proclaimed that Aphrodite was the most beautiful goddess. The Abduction (?) of Helen Shortly thereafter, Paris went on a journey, and eventually he arrived in Sparta. There he was greeted by King Menelaus, who explained that, unfortunately, he was just about to leave for a few days. But please stay and make yourself at home, said Menelaus. Helen will entertain you, and when I return we shall go hunting together. When Menelaus returned, however, Paris was gone, and Helen was gone with him. Some say Helen left willingly with Paris. Others say she was taken against her will. Still others say that the real Helen was stranded on a small island, and that the Helen who went to Troy was a phantom double created by Aphrodite. When Menelaus discovered that Helen was gone, he was distraught. He sent a message to Agamemnon, and Agamemnon in turn sent a delegation to Troy to demand that King Priam return Helen. King Priam, however, along with all the other people of Troy, had by that time fallen in love with Helen, and refused to send her back. As a result, Agamemnon contacted all of Helen s former suitors, as well as some other kings and princes, and asked them to bring their armies to lay siege to Troy. The Reluctant Warrior: Odysseus Odysseus, the original trickster, had just celebrated the birth of his son, Telemachus, and had no desire to leave his family to fight in Troy. When Agamemnon s messengers arrived, they found Odysseus pretending to be insane: he hitched an ox and a donkey together to the same plow, and was sowing his field with salt. The messengers put the baby Telemachus down in front of the on-coming plow. At the last moment, Odysseus turned the plow aside, thus confessing that he was indeed in his right mind. So Odysseus went off to war. The End of the War The Greeks, despairing after nearly ten years of war, were almost ready to pack up and go home, but Odysseus came up with an idea. They tore apart their ships and used the boards to build a giant wooden horse with a secret compartment in the belly. Their best fighters hid inside the horse, and everyone else packed up and pretended to leave. In truth, however, the ships went only as far as the nearest island, and waited there. The Trojans found the horse, as planned, and captured the deserter who told them this lie: the horse, he said, is a gift demanded by the gods, and the prophecy given says that if the horse is taken inside the walls of Troy, the city will never be conquered. The Trojans argued about whether they should believe this story. In the argument, one of the loudest voices belonged to Cassandra, daughter of Priam. Apollo, the god of prophecy, fell in love with her, and in his attempt to win her affection gave her the gift of prophecy. She continued to refuse his advances, however. In anger at this rejection, because he could not take back what he had already given, he added to it: Cassandra would be able to foresee the future, but no one would believe her warnings until it was too late. When Cassandra warned against taking the horse inside the city walls, the Trojans did not believe
her. Because the horse was so large, they had to tear down part of the walls to make the gate wide enough. Once it was inside, they began celebrating, having won a great victory after ten terrible years of war. In the middle of the night, the Greeks inside the horse climbed out, and their comrades streamed into the city through the broken walls. The Trojans, asleep, drunk, and unarmed, were slaughtered. Some took refuge in the temples of the gods, but the Greeks, enraged by ten years of suffering and death, violated the sanctity of the temples and killed the Trojans wherever they were. The men were killed, the women and children either killed or enslaved, and the city was burned to the ground. The Trojans ceased to exist as a people. Going Home Because the gods were angry at their behavior in Troy, many of the Greeks had trouble getting home from the war. Menelaus took seven years to get home, Odysseus, of The Odyssey, an epic poem, took ten, and many others were lost at sea.
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