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| Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus intends to strike Helen; captivated by her beauty, he drops his sword. A flying Eros and Aphrodite (on the left) watch the scene. Detail of an Attic red-figure krater, c. 450–440 BC (Paris, Louvre) |
Men who have sex with sluts are called MCSFs, expalined at
http://thebattlefieldoflove.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/all-spossms-are-mcsfs-but-not-all-mcsfs.html
Helen To Menelaos
Well, in any case, since you see me as your enemy, you won’t be responding to my arguments, even if they are just. So, all I can do is argue against the accusations I think you’ll be making against me.
[Indicating Hekabe]
First of all, you should direct your accusations at her.
It was she, Hekabe, who gave birth to Paris and it was then when our troubles began.
The destruction of Troy –and of my own- came about because of Priam, her husband, who should have killed Paris. He should have done that when Paris was a baby. 920
That baby visited her in her dream when she was pregnant with him, as a blazing torch.
But listen to what followed his birth, the birth of Paris.
It was this man who judged the three goddesses in a beauty contest.
Palas Athena bribed him by promising him that he would head the Trojan army against Greece and destroy her utterly.
Hera’s promise, on the other hand, was that, if he gave her the prize, he would be made ruler of all Asia and Europe but Aphrodite, who knew and admired my beauty, told him that her prize to him, if he declared her the most beautiful of the three goddesses, would be me.
So, now listen to what happened after that. 931
Aphrodite, of course, won the contest and that victory brought about my relationship with Paris a relationship, Menelaos, that proved to be of benefit to Greece.
How? Because the Greeks are not ruled by barbarians which would have happened if Paris had chosen one of the other two goddesses.
You were neither beaten by a foreign army nor were you ruled by a foreign king.
Greece benefited from my misfortune. Greece has gained happiness whilst I gained misery. Because of my beauty, I was sold; and, instead of crowning my head with garlands, the Greeks now treat me with disdain.
Of course, I know, you’ll now tell me that all this doesn’t explain my sliding out of your house secretly.
The explanation is that Paris came to Sparta with an ally, an ally who is not at all insignificant. The goddess Aphrodite herself was with him and so – call him Paris or call him Alexandros – it was he who has destroyed this land.
And it was you, you despicable man, you who let Paris come into our palace and then left him there while you went off to Crete! 942
Never mind!
As for what happened afterwards, it’s not to you I’ll direct my questions my to me!
What got over me?
What on earth made me leave my country and my home to follow him here?
If you must punish anyone, Menelaus, then punish Zeus!
Come, are you strong enough to do that?
Punish that god because even though he rules all the other gods, he is Aphrodite’s little slave!
Go on! Punish him and pardon me!
This is where you could make some wise comments: You could say that since Paris was killed and hurled into the underworld and my god-driven marriage dissolved, I should have left my marriage home and come to the Greek ships. 951
But that’s exactly what I wanted to do!
Ask the guards of the walls and the watchmen at the towers. They will be my witness. They will tell you that they’ve caught me often enough using ropes, trying to sneak down from the battlements of the city but my second husband, Deiphobus would always catch me and drag me back into his house, even against the will of the rest of the Trojans.
Well then, my husband? After all my efforts to come to you, should you not be giving me an award for bravery instead of killing me? Another man has taken me into his home and made me his slave. Would not the award rather than the death be more just? 961
Who can argue against the will of the gods? And if that’s what you want to do, then someone better tell you quickly how stupid that would be!
HECABE :
My son was handsome beyond all other men, when you saw him your became the goddess. All the indiscretions of mortals pass for Aphrodite and it is appropriate that the goddess's name begins with folly. You saw him resplendent in his foreign costume and you went out of your mind. For, living in modest circumstances as you were in Greece, you hoped that, once you had shaken off the dust of Sparta, you would enjoy a riot of extravagance in the city of the Phrygians that flowed with gold. Menelaus' palace gave little scope for the life of luxury you wanted to revel in.
So much for that idea. Force was used by my son, you say, when he took you away. Why then was this not noticed by any of the Spartans? Did you scream for assistance from Castor or his brother? They were still there, young and strong, as yet not raised to the stars. When you came to Troy, with the Greeks hot on your trail, and the deadly clash of spears began, any news of Menelaus' success you greeted with, 'My brave Menelaus, hoping to vex my son with the thought he had a powerful rival for your love. But if ever Fortune favoured the Trojans, Menelaus was forgotten. You kept an eye on chance and and studied how to follow in her footsteps, but virtue held no such attractions for you.
Then you describe how you were so reluctant to stay that you used a rope to lower yourself in secret from the battlements. Were you discovered anywhere tying a noose to your neck or sharpening a sword, the course of action a woman of honour would have taken if she yearned for the husband she once had? And yet how often I urged you to act: 'Leave here, my daughter! My sons will find new brides; I will smuggle you out safely to the ships of the Greeks. Bring this fighting between the Greeks and ourselves to an end! But this was not at all to your taste. You were playing the great lady in the house of Alexandros and wanted foreign servants to bow low before you. This was what mattered to you.
And after all this you come out here, you abominable creature, tricked out in these fine clothes, and look your husband in the eye, under the same sky! You should have come out humbly in tattered clothes, quaking with fear, your head shaven, with a modest bearing rather than a shameless air, in view of your past crimes.
Menelaus, so that you know how I mean to end my speech, crown Greece as your good name requires by killing this woman and establishing this law for the rest of womankind: the penalty for betraying one's husband is death.
[The Koran is rather kinder to adulteresses at 24:2
http://quran.com/24/2]
CHORUS-LEADER
Menelaus, punish your wife as your forefathers and house would approve. Show yourself noble in your enemies' eyes and prevent your fellow-Greeks from charging you with unmanliness.
MENELAUS:
We have arrived at the same conclusion, you and I, that this woman of her own choice left my house to share a stranger's bed. [To HELEN:] Off with you now to the place of stoning! I want you to die and pay in an instant for the years of suffering endured by the Greeks; I want you to learn not to bring disgrace upon me!
HELEN [throwing herself in front of him and clasping at his knees]:
No, I beg you, do not make me guilty of the madness of the goddesses and kill me! Show me some understanding!
HECABE:
Do not betray the men she killed, your comrades-in-arms! I entreat you in their name, in their children's name!
MENELAUS:
Enough, old woman. I pay her no attention. [To his servants:] Away with her, take her off to the ship that will carry her over the sea!
HECABE:
Do not let her board the same ship as you!
MENELAUS:
Why ever not? Does she weigh more than she used to?
HECABE:
There is no lover who does not love for ever.
MENELAUS:
That depends on how lovers view matters. But I will do as you wish: she will afford a different ship from mine; for there is actually sense in what you say. And once she gets to Argos she will meet a foul end as befits so foul a creature and make all women curb their lustful instincts. This is no easy task, but just the same her execution will strike fear into their wanton hearts, even if their shamelessness exceeds hers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_of_Troy suggests the slut got away with it. I propose that a prize be awarded to a modern playwright who produces the best play about how things were between Menelaus and Helen after their return to Sparta from Troy, called The Euripides Prize of Modern Greek Tragedy.
History only repeats itself for our benefit because we refuse to learn its lessons.
