λευκώλενος, the white-armed; Il. iii. 121; Od. xxii. 227.
τανύπεπλος, the well-rounded; Il. iii. 228; et alibi.
And lastly, Ἀργείη, the Argive; Il. ii. 161; and in no less than twelve other places.
No one of these appellations carries the smallest taint or censure. The epithet δῖα in all probability applies to her personal beauty and majesty, as we find it used of Paris and of Clytemnestra. It would appear, however, that the use of the term Argive or Argeian, in many passages where it is not required for mere description, has a special force. For Homer never exhibits that which is simply Greek in any other than an honourable light; and in calling Helen Argeian, he certainly expresses something of general sympathy towards her. No other person, except only Juno, is called Argeian. Plainly the effect of his epithets for her as a whole is quite out of harmony with the ideas, which the later tradition has attached to her name. A yet more marked indication in her favour, than any of them taken singly will supply, may be derived from his likening her, in the palace of Menelaus, to Diana:
ἤλυθεν, Ἀρτέμιδι χρυσηλακάτῳ εἰκυῖα[1013].
He certainly would not have associated by this comparison one, of whom he meant us to think ill, with the chaste and even severe majesty of his ever-pure Diana (Ἄρτεμις ἁγνή).
So much with regard to the designations applied to Helen in the Iliad and Odyssey. Next, with regard to her demeanour. It is admitted to be, so far as the matter of chastity is concerned, without any fault other than the inevitable one of her position. Besides other qualities that will be noticed presently, she appears in the light of a refined and feeling, a blameless and even matronly person; a character, which, as we shall see, her abduction by Paris from Menelaus did not disentitle her to bear.
We must beware of applying unconditionally, to women placed under conditions widely different, ideas so specifically Christian as those that belong to the absolute sanctity of the marriage tie. We must rather look for the moral aspect of the case in the opinions of the period, and in the particular circumstances which attended the rupture of the bond in the given instance, than assume it from the naked fact that there was a rupture.
The case of Bathsheba.
It may seem not unfair to compare the case of Helen with the somewhat similar case of Bathsheba among the Jews. If on the one hand we are bound to bear in mind the inferior station of the latter personage, on the other it is to be remembered that the Greeks were further removed from the light of Divine Revelation. Now we are not accustomed to look upon the character of Bathsheba as infamous, though she lived with King David as one among his wives, while Uriah, her former husband, who had been robbed of her, was sent to certain death on her account; and this, so far as we are informed, without awakening in her any peculiar emotions of sympathy, sorrow, reluctance, or remorse. And this, as I take it, mainly for two reasons—first, that we have no signs of any passion, and in particular of any antecedent passion, for the offending king on her part; secondly, that she does not appear to have been otherwise than passively a party to the abduction.