The Memoirs of Helen of Troy Read online

  I was stunned, yet sadly unsurprised, that Tyndareus chose to rule against his own daughter, his favorite child. For the sake of an advantageous political alliance, he sacrificed his firstborn to a brutal baby killer and ravager of women, a man lacking in both conscience and soul, and brimming with the overweening hubris that would impel him to stop at nothing to gain whatever he coveted. Although Agamemnon had demanded a full wedding celebration, Tyndareus begrudged his daughter a final request: that the ceremonies be held without undue fanfare, despite the High King’s status. Still, as I prepared Clytemnestra’s ritual bridal bath once more and cut a lock of her hair to leave as a votive tribute to Artemis—a relic of the bride’s former life—my sister remarked bitterly that the same rites were also undertaken at funerals. I remembered how happy Clytemnestra had been when she was preparing for her nuptials to Tantalus, and now I bathed, oiled, and perfumed a woman who was but a shadow of the other bride. Her entire demeanor was doleful, like a calf that knew it was bound for imminent slaughter. Holding a mirror before her as I dressed her hair, my sister looked past her own reflection to speak to me. “I wish to all the gods that you never suffer my fate. Learn from me, Helen.”

  Two days later, she would journey to Mycenae a most reluctant queen.

  FIVE

  As a younger child, I disliked spending so much time alone because it had not been my choice. But as I neared the bloom of womanhood, I learned to embrace solitude. I took to running every morning in the foothills above the plain, allowing my fair skin to become kissed by the sun. When I tired of my own company, I would invite Polyxo to join me, although she had become increasingly busy, now that she was old enough to contribute to the running of her family’s farm. Soon, she would be eligible to marry, and I would see her even less. Polyxo knew that there was a vast difference between her station and mine. As we inched closer to adulthood, the only way I, as the remaining princess of Sparta, might be able to enjoy the continued companionship of my trusted favorite playmate would be to employ her as one of my serving women. But this practical option was unthinkable for both of us.

  There would not be many more mornings when we would race each other across the plain and through the hillside, so each one became an occasion. We would bring a basket of pears and apples and cold slices of lamb, along with a small pitcher of wine, to a designated spot overlooking the sea, where we would leave it in the shade while we ran through the hills with the plentiful hares, deer, and wild boars for company. Then we would return, breathless and dripping with sweat, to devour our repast as we gazed out at the harbor watching for ships. Unfortunately, it was an unexciting tapestry, lacking all detail, as we rarely saw anything adrift on the sparkling swells.

  I had just passed my fourteenth birthday. All Sparta had joined their princess in the celebration, pouring libations to my health and bringing offerings to the altar of Artemis to guard my virginity, while they left tributes to Demeter to grant me fecundity. I was of prime marriageable age. In fact, most Achaean girls were nuptialized soon after their twelfth birthdays, as their kyrioi could pretty much guarantee their virginity at that age. It was only a matter of time before Polyxo’s father would formally announce her betrothal to a rather stalwart and earnest young man from Rhodes named Tlepolemus. The way my bosom friend admired her intended reminded me of the looks that had been exchanged between Clytemnestra and Tantalus during their wedding festivities. I wondered when my time would come and hoped that I would be able to rejoice in Tyndareus’s selection of a husband.

  “Have you ever watched his thighs when he runs?” Polyxo asked me. We were climbing toward our customary vantage point. Owing to the unusual heat we had been suffering for the past several days, our basket of provisions felt heavier than usual. Polyxo and I took turns carrying it into the mountains. “Helen, you’re not listening to me. Tlepolemus. Doesn’t he have the most beautiful legs?” I glanced at her and detected a blush spreading across her broad moonface. Polyxo began to laugh and nearly stumbled on a loose stone. I extended my arm so she could regain her balance, but she stopped to catch her breath instead. “Do you realize that every time I start to talk about Tlepolemus, you stop listening to me? Don’t you care about my happiness?”

  “Don’t whine,” I snapped. “Of course I do.” I admit that I was probably behaving very peevishly then. She was my only friend, and her increasing obligations to her farm and family had already begun to curtail our time together. Once she was wed to Tlepolemus, she would most likely live on Rhodes, and I feared that I would only see her at festivals when she came back to visit her mother. Naturally, I wanted to see her married happily, but with the selfishness of an adolescent girl, my thoughts were on how losing Polyxo might affect me. I took the basket from her hands and settled it in a crevice between two rocks. “Let’s stop,” I said. “I don’t feel like running today.”

  “What do you feel like doing? We could eat our meal and then go down to the river and pick wild oleander for our hair. You always like that,” Polyxo said helpfully.

  I sat down on one of the rocks. Its flinty roughness tickled and warmed my bottom. More and more I had begun to favor the short tunic popular with Spartan girls, particularly for running, when the longer chiton impeded my movement. The shorter garment showed the legs to great advantage and I was proud of mine. And Clytemnestra was no longer around to scold me for resembling a flute girl.

  The Great Sea was the color of lapis from the Krokeai quarries. “Polyxo, do you see that?” She had seated herself on the other rock, and I tugged at her hem. I shielded my eyes from the sun and pointed toward the sea. A distant form silhouetted against the sky had broken the monotony of blue on blue. “There’s a boat out there. With a black sail.” She spied it, too, and we wondered at its business.

  “Probably a trader coming to see the king,” Polyxo guessed.

  “Perhaps it’s sea raiders!” Where Polyxo, like my cousin Penelope, always exhibited great pragmatism, I had inherited my siblings’ tendency to high drama. Bored to distraction by the Spartan way of life, I looked for adventure anywhere I might find it, if only in my fertile imagination. I plucked a royal-blue veronica blossom, then another, with my bare toes and returned my gaze to the sea. The ship was no longer in view. The sun was not yet at its zenith. I proposed that we enjoy a brief run, then return to the basket for our meal and an afternoon nap. Feet flying, calves taut, running into the wind, we kicked dust into each other’s faces on the rocky terrain, our usual friendly competition more competitive than friendly that day.

  I had forgotten to mix the wine with water before we ventured on our journey. I tipped the oinochoe toward my throat and swallowed a long, refreshing draught, which—owing to my exhausted state after running full tilt for well over an hour, my dehydration, and my empty stomach—had an immediate effect. I lazily reached for an oat cake to chase the spirits, then ate another, and a third, before falling asleep.

  I awakened with a start. Polyxo was tugging at my tunic and regarding me anxiously. The afternoon light had begun to wane. “We should be getting back,” she told me. “We’re usually home by now. Your nurse will worry about you, and my mother will have started preparing the evening meal.”

  She stood and offered me her hand, pulling me to my feet. My head swam from the change in equilibrium. Of course, I was also unused to undiluted wine! “I think I had a dream just now,” I told her. “I was wearing the most beautiful silk chiton. It was pale rose-pink, the color of dawn. And a beautiful young man was feeding me figs.” I knew these were a symbol of fertility and supposedly an aphrodisiac.

  “You’re drunk!” Polyxo giggled.

  Her laugh was infectious and I caught the germ. “You think so?!”

  “Steady now,” she said, and gave me her arm. “A fine princess you are in this condition. We should stop at my house on our way back so we can sober you up. My mother will know what to do.”

  “Perhaps I can offer some assistance.” The man approaching us had a voice as smooth and ge
ntle as a summer breeze. His companion, who carried a large sack slung across his back, struggled to catch up. “My partner, Pirithous,” the man said, shrugging off his friend’s obvious shortness of breath. I remember noticing right away that even when he wasn’t smiling, the lines about the man’s mouth curved upward. His sorrel-colored tunic of light wool did nothing to distinguish his rank. His himation, too, was unremarkable and unembroidered.

  Travelers? Traders? I wondered what they were doing wandering in the foothills of Taygetos.

  “Princess Helen of Sparta, I presume?” the russet-clad man asked me. I nodded. “I thought as much,” he replied. “But I don’t like to make mistakes.” With a quick jerk of his head, he motioned to Pirithous, and before I could utter a word, much less a cry for help, I was whisked off my feet as though I were lighter than a whisper and was imprisoned in the great sack. Polyxo found her tongue and began to scream that I had been kidnapped, which, apparently, was just what the men had expected—and in fact hoped—she would do. But even with my body on someone’s back, the men reached the valley more swiftly than Polyxo’s short legs could bear her. Her hoarse cries grew ever fainter until they disappeared on the wind.

  The ride I took next did much to make me regret the wine I had consumed so freely, for the men did not release me from the sack, but tossed me up to the saddle where I was secured in front of one of the horsemen. Barely able to breathe, and willing myself to keep the contents of my stomach from being eliminated through my mouth, heart pounding to the rhythm of the hoofbeats, I struggled to relax and accept my fate until such time as I could attempt to free myself. They would have to remove my impromptu cocoon eventually, although I did imagine—but refused to believe—that they would leave me inside the sack to suffocate. Even in my upended and confused state, I did not think that my abductors’ motive was murder. I remember wondering what would happen if I tried to make myself go to sleep, pretending the wild gallop of the horse was just the rocking motion of an overzealous nurse. After I slowed my breathing and accepted my current helplessness, I was able to discern a faint scent of brine, which grew stronger as we rode on. We were headed for the coast.

  I heard the splash-crash of waves against the rocks and the call of hungry sea birds. The riders halted their mounts. I was handed down from one to the other like a sack of apples. The bag was untied and slipped down my body where it lay like a puddle of wine at my feet, and with wobbling legs I sought to gain my balance. The man who was not Pirithous offered me his hand with the grace of a prince, and I stepped out of my coarse confinement. “Don’t worry about your land legs,” he said. “You’ll not be needing them for a while.”

  Just offshore was the ship I had seen from the top of the hill, a fifty-oared pentekonter. The rowers, who gazed at me as though they had just seen a vision of Aphrodite herself, sat poised at the oarlocks, ready for the command to proceed. The vessel’s great prow resembled a massive bull rising out of the water, ready to charge its enemies. “I apologize, Princess, that the Minotaur is not outfitted for a woman’s comfort, but I assure you that you will be treated in a manner befitting your station when you arrive in Athens,” said the man who was not Pirithous. He held fast to my hand as we waded out to the ship, handed me up to his friend, who had boarded first, then stepped onto the Minotaur behind me. The anchor stones were raised and brought aboard, and in one great fluid motion we pushed away from the beachhead. The enormous square black sail was raised and grew big bellied from the south wind.

  One of the seamen gave a shout and pointed ahead. “Dolphins!” he cried. I followed the line of his arm out to the Great Sea. As if Poseidon himself had summoned them, we were receiving a playful escort on either side of the hull, the dolphins racing and dancing and diving into the splashing waves. Our journey would be a favorable one.

  My heart was racing. I confess that there was a part of me that was excited to be leaving the Laconian shores. The rest of me was terrified. The name of the vessel and the shape of its prow had provided me with two excellent clues as to the identity of my abductor, as had the destination he had named; but he had thus far neglected to introduce himself, although he clearly knew who I was.

  “I am Theseus, king of Athens,” he said finally, once the oarsmen had taken us several leagues from the coastline.

  “I have heard the bards sing many songs of your daring adventures. You are a legend in your own lifetime,” I said, watching the smile creases in his face.

  “As legendary as your beauty,” he replied.

  “They will sing of us now,” I said, unsure of whether I liked the idea or not. Theseus was a modern-day hero, it was true, but he was equally renowned for his amorous liaisons and multiple marriages. As Heracles was heralded by the bards for his extraordinary feats of strength, Theseus of Athens was celebrated for his seductive prowess. If the songs were true, he had married the Amazon queen Antiope—or her sister Hippolyta, depending on which bard you listened to—who loved him so much she sided with him in a war against her own people and took a fatal arrow through the heart for it. He had seduced the trusting Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete; she willingly revealed the secret of the labyrinth that enabled him to kill the monstrous Minotaur, then willingly gave him her body and soul, only to be abandoned on a rocky promontory in the middle of the sea while Theseus returned to Crete to fetch her younger sister Phaedra for his bride. “Seduction and abduction very nearly rhyme, too,” I added. “You make the bards’ task easy.”

  Theseus stood behind me to steady my balance. I had never before set foot on a ship, and riding the waves was like balancing on a gimbal, a game I used to play as a girl. I remember thinking at the time how ironic it was that my abductor’s physical proximity made me confident of my safety, rather than despairing of it. “Perhaps,” he said, “I should have thought twice about kidnapping a Spartan princess. I had forgotten that Laconian women are known for their smart tongues. In Athens, a silent woman is considered a virtuous one.”

  “Then it’s well for you—Theseus the Pirate—that we are not yet in Athens.” He laughed and said he had better things to do than trade barbs with a twelve-year-old girl. “Twelve?” I repeated. “Where did you hear I was only twelve?”

  “The same bards, I suppose! It appears they are prone to hyperbole.”

  “Then you really didn’t abandon one woman and then go off and marry her sister?”

  “They got that part right.” Theseus winced at the memory. “It was the stupidest thing I ever did—and I have been guilty of many rash acts in my lifetime.” He touched my chin with his forefinger and tipped my face toward his. I lost my balance and fell against the bulwark. Theseus helped me to my feet and stepped back to get a fuller look at my person. If I recall correctly, it was the first time he had done so, and I smile to remember that he appeared to be quite taken with the vision before him. “How old are you then?”

  “Just after the last new moon, we poured libations in honor of the arrival of my fourteenth year.” I felt my cheeks grow warm, knowing what I was about to tell him next. “They made quite a celebration of my much anticipated fertility. They sang many odes to the sky gods—I forget which ones, you have invented far too many—in praise of it.” Quickly, I wove the threads of the tapestry together. “You haven’t abducted me to marry me, have you? You needn’t have gone to all the trouble. You might have entered the palace through the front gate, and I am sure King Tyndareus would have heard your petition—providing you offered a suitably magnanimous bride-price.” I stifled a snicker at Tyndareus’s overweening greed. The king was rumored—(although no one spoke directly of such things to a girl-child)—not to be wanting for wealth, yet one would never know it to tour his kingdom. Our palace was much nicer and more spacious than any other dwelling in the city, but it was the Spartan ethos to give short shrift to any forms of luxury and adornment—of the home, of the person, and of the mind—in clear preference to a simplicity bordering on asceticism and denial. I hated it, and although I would ha
ve wished it could have been under more gracious circumstances, I was glad to see the Laconian shores recede from view.

  I realized that Theseus had not answered my question, so I repeated it. “Did you kidnap me to marry me?” As I mentioned earlier, it was common practice for invaders to obtain their wives through capture.

  “Would it disappoint you if I didn’t? Or shock you, given my history?”

  I swallowed a gulp of salt-sea air. “It would . . . shock me . . . given your history,” I echoed numbly.

  “Not that marrying the most beautiful girl in the world would be a mistake, mind you, but after one extremely happy marriage and one thoroughly miserable one, I have no interest in taking another wife. My first wife, Antiope—not her sister—brought me untold contentment and gave me a son who, for all my exploits, was my most remarkable achievement.” Theseus then told me how his second wife, Phaedra, had developed an unrequited passion for her handsome stepson Hippolytus, which brought the household to the brink of disaster. Never again, he said, after Phaedra took her own unhappy life, would he seek another bride.

  “Then what am I doing being tossed to and fro by the pitching sea like a child’s plaything?”

  Theseus did not give me a direct answer. I should have expected as much from a man who was not a Laconian. When we arrived on the shores of Attica, he said, it would not take more than the chariot ride from the port to the Athenian acropolis for me to appreciate his city’s magnificence. From the way he expressed it to me at the time, Theseus had spent so much to build up and fortify the Attic kingdom that he had taken to sea raiding in order to restore his sorely depleted coffers. It was how he had earned the sobriquet “Theseus the Pirate.” He never had any intention of making me his queen. His strategy had been to abduct the most beautiful girl in the world—how fortunate for him that she happened to be the unmarried princess of a powerful kingdom—and hold her for ransom. Tyndareus, knowing how valuable my unsurpassed looks were on the marriage market, would fear my violation at the hands of the notorious seducer and would immediately offer Theseus a large reward for my safe return.