Epeisodion 3
Helen
so Pallas offered him command of all the Phrygians, and the destruction of Hellas; Hera promised he should spread his dominion over Asia, and the utmost bounds of Europe, if he would decide for her; but Cypris spoke in rapture of my loveliness,
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and promised him this gift, if she should have the preference over those two for beauty. Now mark the inference I deduce from this; Cypris won the day over the goddesses, and thus far has my marriage proved of benefit to Hellas, that you are not subject to barbarian rule, neither vanquished in the strife, nor yet by tyrants crushed.
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What Hellas gained, was ruin to me, sold for my beauty, and now I am reproached for that which should have set a crown upon my head. But you will say I am silent on the real matter at hand, how it was I started forth and left your house by stealth.
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With no small goddess at his side he came, my evil genius, call him Alexander or Paris, as you will; and you, villain, left him behind in your house, and sailed away from Sparta to the land of Crete.
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Enough of this! For all that followed I must question myself, not you; what thought led me to follow the stranger from your house, traitress to my country and my home? Punish the goddess, show yourself more mighty even than Zeus, who, though he lords it over the other gods,
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is her slave; therefore I may well be pardoned. Still, from this you might draw a specious argument against me; when Paris died, and earth concealed his corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet, since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods.
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That was what I was eager to do; and the warders on the towers and watchmen on the walls can bear me witness, for often they found me seeking to let myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements but there was that new husband, Deiphobus, that carried me off
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by force to be his wife against the will of Troy. How then, my lord, could I be justly put to death . . . by you, with any show of right, seeing that he wedded me against my will, and those my other natural gifts have served a bitter slavery, instead of leading on to triumph? If it is your will indeed
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to master gods, that very wish displays your folly.
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Chorus Leader
O my royal mistress, defend your children’s and your country’s cause, bringing to nothing her persuasive arguments, for she pleads well in spite of all her villainy; this is monstrous!
Hecuba
First I will take up the cause of those goddesses,
and prove how she perverts the truth. For I can never believe that Hera or the maiden Pallas would have been guilty of such folly, the one to sell her Argos to barbarians, or that Pallas ever would make her Athens subject to the Phrygians,
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coming as they did in mere wanton sport to Ida to contest the palm of beauty. For why should goddess Hera set her heart so much on such a prize? Was it to win a nobler lord than Zeus? or was Athena hunting down among the gods a husband,
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she who in her dislike of marriage won from her father the gift of remaining unwed? Do not seek to impute folly to the goddesses, in the attempt to adorn your own sin; never will you persuade the wise. Next you have said—what well may make men jeer—that Cypris came with my son to the house of Menelaus.
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Could she not have stayed quietly in heaven and brought you and Amyclae as well to Ilium?
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No! my son was exceedingly handsome, and when you saw him your mind straight became your Aphrodite; for every folly that men commit, they lay upon this goddess,
and rightly does her name It is almost impossible to reproduce the play on words in Ἀφροδίτη and ἀφροσύνη; perhaps the nearest approach would be sensuality and senseless. begin the word for senselessness; so when you caught sight of him in gorgeous foreign clothes, ablaze with gold, your senses utterly forsook you. Yes, for in Argos you had moved in simple state, but, once free of Sparta,
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it was your hope to deluge by your lavish outlay Phrygia’s town, that flowed with gold; nor was the palace of Menelaus rich enough for your luxury to riot in.
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Enough of this! My son carried you off by force, so you say; what Spartan saw this? what cry for help
did you ever raise, though Castor was still alive, a vigorous youth, and his brother also, not yet among the stars? Then when you had come to Troy, and the Argives were on your track, and the mortal combat had begun, whenever tidings came to you of
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