Helen
The woman whose abduction to Troy launched a decade of war, Helen now presides beside Menelaus at Sparta, sharp-eyed enough to recognize Odysseus' son on sight.
Helen in the Odyssey
Helen, the woman whose flight with Paris started the Trojan War, is back in Sparta at Menelaus' side when Telemachus arrives. Homer shows her as a calm and lucid queen, aware of the ruin her story caused.
She is the first to recognize Telemachus by his likeness to his father. To ease the guests' grief she slips into their wine a drug from Egypt that banishes sorrow, then tells how she recognized Odysseus when he entered Troy disguised as a beggar, and kept his secret.
Key moments
- Book 4
She recognizes Telemachus at once from his resemblance to Odysseus.
- Book 4
She mixes nepenthe into the wine and tells of Odysseus' secret mission inside Troy.
- Book 15
She reads an eagle omen as a sign that Odysseus will return home and take revenge.
Relationship to Odysseus
She recalls recognizing Odysseus in disguise when he slipped into Troy as a spy, and recounts testing the hidden Greeks inside the Trojan Horse — a trap only Odysseus had the discipline to resist.
Where this figure enters the journey
Helen's own memories of wartime Troy fill in a piece of Odysseus' legend that even Nestor couldn't offer.
Open the map locationSparta