Before examining the direct evidence with respect to the Homeric Helen, let us advert to some which is indirect. And in the first place it may be observed, that Menelaus never expresses the slightest resentment against her, or appears to have considered her as having in any manner injured him. Next, Priam, whose character is evidently intended to attract a good deal of our sympathy and respect, treated her as a daughter:
ἑκυρὸς δὲ, πατὴρ ὣς, ἤπιος αἰεί[1005].
Nor was this a mere figure; for in the Third Book he addresses her as φίλον τέκος[1006], and makes her sit down by his side. In conformity with this picture, her sister-in-law Laodice addresses her as νύμφα φίλη[1007]. Priam goes on to acquit her of all responsibility in his eyes with regard to the war:
οὔτι μοι αἰτίη ἐσσὶ, θεοί νύ μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν.
And that this was not meant to cover Paris, we may learn from the many passages, which show us how the general sentiment of Troy detested him. Had Helen been of the character which is commonly imputed to her, such an absolution as this would probably not have been ascribed to Priam; while most certainly it would not have been recorded to the honour of Hector that he always restrained those, who were disposed to taunt her on account of the woes she had brought upon Troy[1008].
She describes herself indeed as the object of general horror in Troy (πάντες δέ με πεφρίκασιν[1009]). But these words do no more than state the impression, at a moment of agony, on her own humbled and self-mistrusting mind: while, even had they given a faithful picture of the manner in which she was regarded by the Trojans, still they might well be explained with reference to the woes of which she had been at least the occasion, and the sentiment they describe might as naturally have been felt, even had she been the lawfully obtained wife of Paris.
There are two other passages, which may seem at first sight to betoken a state of mind adverse to her among the Greeks. But the explanation of them is simply this, that the cause of woe is naturally enough denounced on account of the misfortunes it has entailed, irrespective of the question whether or in what degree it may be a guilty cause[1010]. Thus Achilles calls Helen ῥιγεδάνη, ‘that horrible Helen;’ but it is only when her abduction has produced to him the bitter and harrowing affliction of the death of Patroclus. When he mentions her in the magnificent speech of the Ninth Book to the envoys, she is Ἑλένη ἠΰκομος, ‘the fair-haired Helen.’ Now, if she had been vile, the course of his argument must have constrained him then to state it. For he was reasoning thus: May I not resent the loss of Briseis, who was dear to me (θυμαρής[1011]), when the sons of Atreus have made their loss of Helen the cause of the war? Had Helen been worthless, it would have added greatly to the stringency of his argument to have drawn the contrast in that particular, between the woman whom Agamemnon had taken away, and the woman that he was seeking, by means of the convulsive struggle of a nation, to recover.
The other passage is in Od. xxiii., where Penelope, after the recognition of her husband, speaks of Helen in these words:—
τὴν δ’ ἤτοι ῥέξαι θεὸς ὤρορεν ἔργον ἀεικές[1012].