Note 746 — Chapter XXII · THE RING OF HELEN

Op. cit., IV. 16. In his palinode, of which a few lines (frag. 32, Bergk4) are extant, Stesichorus asserts that it was not Helen herself, but only her semblance or wraith, which Paris carried off to Troy. Greeks and Trojans slew one another for a mere phantom, while the real Helen never left Sparta. Hdt., 2, 112 ff., gives a rather different turn to the story. According to him, Helen eloped from Sparta with Paris, but was driven back by a storm to Egypt, where Paris told lies and was punished by Proteus. Euripides in his Helena combines the two versions. Like Stesichorus, he makes the truant a mere phantom, an ‘eloping angel.’ Like Herodotus, he sends the real Helen to Egypt. Menelaus, who, escorting the phantom home from Troy, arrives in Egypt, is there confronted with the real Helen and is sadly puzzled. Just as he begins to think himself a bigamist, the misty Helen evaporates!