Helen of Troy Read online

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  I grew older. I was eight, then nine. I stayed behind the walls, but I made a habit of dragging a log over to one stretch of them and, standing on it, spying out the valley lying at the foot of the palace mountain.

  At length I won a small victory: persuading Mother and Father to let my brothers take me hunting. They allowed me to go into the private royal hunting grounds in the Taygetus Mountains behind us, where no outsiders could trespass.

  “We will start you off with hares,” said Castor. “They cannot turn on you, but they move fast and are a challenge to hit with a bow and arrow.”

  The forest glades and mountain glens became my world. I cared less about hunting than chasing the game. I loved running through the woods. I was fleet of foot, so much so that my brothers called me Atalanta, after the woman whom no one could outrun. In the legend many suitors raced against her, but she defeated them all; only a trick of Aphrodite allowed a man to finish ahead of her.

  “That Aphrodite,” Castor had said, when he teased me about my swiftness. “She will make sure you trip.”

  “But, my dear sister, perhaps a suitors’ race would not be a bad idea,” Polydeuces said. “You are sure to win the first few rounds, and that will delay the inevitable.”

  I sighed, leaning back against an oak tree, letting its bark press into my skin. Father had begun talking about Clytemnestra’s marriage; he said it was soon time she be wed. All the eligible young men of our surrounding area, and even as far away as Crete or Rhodes, might compete for her. For with the hand of Clytemnestra came a crown: her husband would be king of Sparta after Father—unless he was a king in his own right, and then he would take Clytemnestra away to his realm.

  “In olden times, did not the losers have to die?” I asked.

  “Those are the legends,” said Polydeuces. “In truth, I think men are much more cautious.”

  “Then if I made it a condition for my contest . . . it would discourage men?” I said, meaning it as jest, but suddenly the Sibyl’s words many Greeks will die came into my mind. “No, I don’t mean it,” I quickly said.

  As I gained skill, my brothers let me range on my own; they did not shadow me everywhere. Often when I was pursuing game I let it go, and stopped to linger in the green glades of the foothills of the lofty Taygetus Mountains. There were misty glens with carpets of moss where the sun was reduced to pale shafts seeking the ground. I loved to stay here, where it felt so private that even the sun could not penetrate.

  Then I would forget the arguments I heard more and more when I came unexpectedly upon the king and queen, their sharp voices as they sparred with each other. In the forest, animals did not jeer, nor did the trees make me feel uneasy. You knew which animals were dangerous and likely to attack you. In the forest there were no secret enemies.

  III

  Nine winters had passed since I was born, and now I was almost as tall as my mother. Lately she had insisted we stand back to back whenever I was summoned to her chamber, so she could see how I had grown. She called for a stick to be laid across the tops of our heads, and would ask her attendant, “I am still taller, am I not?” and the attendant would dutifully nod. I wondered what would happen on the day the stick would tilt and I would be taller. I wished that day would never come, for I knew it would displease her, only I did not know why.

  When she called me into her chamber, often it was on the pretext of asking me what my tutor was teaching me. If I told her we were learning the family of the gods, she would ask questions. At first they were easy: Name the Olympian gods, she would say. Only the twelve who live on Mount Olympus, none of the others. And I would recite them. But later she put much harder questions to me. One day she asked me to name all of Zeus’s offspring.

  “Do you mean the immortal ones, or all of them?”

  She gave a strange smile. “Begin with the immortals.”

  I named them—Athena and Persephone, Apollo and Artemis, Ares and Hermes. I added that Hera was his sister, and that Aphrodite was not the child of Zeus but of his grandfather Uranus.

  “Aphrodite was not born, strictly speaking,” said Mother with a dry little laugh. “But Zeus has made sure that Mount Olympus teems with his children. Since he will never die or step down from his throne, he need not worry who will succeed him. They can bicker and brawl to their hearts’ content, it makes no difference. None of them will die, none will have to go into exile.” She paused, settling herself down on a bench, extending her long legs beneath their thin linen gown. I could see them through the fabric, the flesh turning the white linen pinkish.

  She saw me looking and smoothed the linen over her thighs. “The best, from Egypt,” she said. “I would have preferred blue, but we are last to receive anything here. It comes first to Mycenae, after it has gone through Troy and Crete and the gods know where else first.”

  She was about to begin her lament on Sparta’s isolation. “Still, it is very lovely,” I assured her.

  “Now for the mortal children!” she suddenly said. “Name them!”

  “The ones Zeus had by earthly women? Oh, Mother, how could I ever count them all?” I laughed. The tutor had told me the most important ones, such as Perseus and Minos, and, of course, Heracles, but some were unknown.

  “Someone did count them all; Zeus has singled out one hundred and fifteen mortal women to give his . . . his attention to.”

  “And of course they all had children,” I said. The gods could never take up with anyone, god or mortal, and not leave proof.

  “Yes, always,” she said.

  “But it is so—so—peculiar that the women can’t look at the god, at least not in his divine form. Now, when he is disguised as a bull, or a shower of gold—”

  “He does that for their protection! You know what happened to that foolish Semele, who wished to gaze on his divinity.”

  Yes, no less a woman than the mother of Dionysus had seen Zeus in his godhood and had instantly been turned to cinders. “It was very sad,” I agreed. She seemed agitated, as if it were very important what the tutor had taught me. I sought to soothe her. “So it seems that curiosity can be dangerous,” I said.

  She took a deep breath. “Just so. Now, what of the other ones, besides Heracles and Dionysus?”

  I tried to remember. “They are the most famous because they became gods themselves, which is very unusual. The rest of them just die in the regular way. There’s Perseus, he lived near here, at Argos, and then there’s Niobe, Zeus’s first mortal woman, and her son Argus, and oh, Mother, there are so many of them! Zeus was everywhere, it seems, and—no, I cannot name them all.” It was hopeless. Even the tutor most likely could not. “Alcmene, the mother of Heracles, was the last,” I said. “Zeus comes no more amongst us.” For that I was thankful—no more additions to memorize.

  Now she burst out into that laugh I hated. “Is that what he’s told you?”

  “Yes, it is.” I backed up a step or two. She was frightening when she gave that laugh. “He said that Zeus—that that time had ended.”

  “Not entirely,” she said. She opened her mouth as if to speak more, but gave a great sigh of resignation. “Now it has. Now it has. But not with Heracles. There are younger children of Zeus. Now, did your tutor point out any odd thing about the offspring of Zeus?”

  I could not imagine what she meant. “No,” I finally said. “Of course, they are all lovely, and tall, and strong, and have—what is the saying, ‘more than mortal beauty’?—but aside from that, I do not know. They are all very different.”

  “They are all men!” she cried, leaping up from the couch so quickly my eyes could barely follow her. “Men! All men!”

  “Perhaps he has daughters, but does not recognize them,” I said. “Perhaps he feels it is not fitting to sire daughters, and so he will not claim them.” It seemed as if Zeus might believe that.

  “Nonsense!” She was trembling. “He has daughters, divine ones on Mount Olympus, and he is proud of them. Perhaps mortal women did not
give him any daughters worthy of him. If they did, you can be sure he would be proud of them. If he knows of them. If he knows of them!”

  “I thought he knew everything.”

  Now came that dreadful laugh again. “Oh, Hera fools him all the time! No, it is entirely possible he has overlooked his mortal daughter, if she has been hidden away, in a place where no one comes, no one sees her.”

  Suddenly I had this dreadful feeling, as her words rang in my ears. Hidden away, in a place where no one comes, no one sees her. They had kept me hidden away, and few visitors came to Sparta, and there was so much whispering about me between Mother and Father . . . and there were the forbidden mirrors. And Mother so fierce about Zeus, so adamant about him. But no, that was a foolish fancy. All children like to think they are special, or even unique.

  I suddenly remembered something. Perhaps it was what she had been hinting at. “I am descended from Zeus!” I cried. “Yes, he told me that Zeus and a nymph of the mountain, Taygete, had a child, Lacedaemon, and that child is Father’s ancestor.” I expected her to reward me, to clap and say, Yes! Yes!

  She shook her head. “That was a very long time ago, and I see nothing godlike in your father. The blood has run very thin, if indeed it ever stretched back to Mount Olympus.”

  She was trembling. I touched her shoulder, wishing I could embrace her, but knowing she would push me away. “Well, it is of no matter,” I said. “I cannot see how it would affect us in any way.” What happened long ago, in a story, was of no moment.

  She looked very hard at me. “It is time we go to the Mysteries,” she said. “The goddesses Demeter and Persephone are bound to our family. You are old enough. We will all go to the shrine on the mountain, and there you will learn of your guardian goddess. And she can reveal much, if she so chooses.”

  It was decided that we would go at the time of the celebration of the Greater Mysteries, in the autumn. I could begin my initiation now so that when I arrived at the sanctuary I could experience the secret rites in their fullest measure. Only those who had trained and been accepted by the goddesses could look upon their secret nature.

  An older woman who had served my mother since childhood instructed me in private. We are forbidden ever to reveal what we learned, but I can tell of the things everyone knows. Mother’s friend Agave began by taking me on a walk through the newly planted fields, while telling the story in a singsong voice. I was forced to wear a veil to hide my face lest any of the field-workers see me. It made the clear day seem overcast. Tramping beside us were two guards, armed with stout swords. They, too, were initiates.

  Though my sight was dimmed, I could still hear, and the birds and cries of human voices told me it was that exultant time of year when the earth rejoices as it warms again. I could smell the musty odor of just-turned earth, and hear the snorting and deep rumbles of oxen pulling the plow. Behind the curved plow came the farmer scattering the seeds, dropping them into the fur-row, and behind him, a boy with a mattock to cover them over again. Cawing and wheeling around his head, the crows were looking for a meal. Even the low rasp of their cries sounded happy to me. The boy yelled and beat them off with his hat, laughing all the while.

  “The earth rejoices, and why?” Agave suddenly stopped, so abruptly that I ran into her. She turned around and peered at me, but she could not see me through the veil.

  “Because Persephone has returned from the underworld,” I dutifully recited. Everyone knew that; you did not have to be an initiate.

  “And?”

  “And now her grieving mother, Demeter, who withered all the blooming and growing things, will bring them back to life again. And that is why we have the planting, and the flowering of the fruit trees.”

  She nodded. “Good. Yes. And might we see and hear Demeter? Walking here amongst us?”

  I was puzzled. “I am not sure. If we did, I think she would be in disguise. She disguised herself when she went searching for Persephone, did she not?”

  “Yes.” Agave took my hand and we began walking again, skirting between two fields—one of barley, one of wheat. Now the rows were just little green hairs, looking very fragile. “While the daughter is with her, the mother will be gracious to us all,” she said. “But when she leaves again, then it is we who are punished. The vines shrivel and the cold kills the flowers, and we call it winter.”

  “And we hate it!” muttered one of the guards. “Blue toes, stiff fingers, still we’re expected to fight as if it’s summer. The fields get to rest, the bears to sleep, but a Spartan soldier must carry on.”

  Agave laughed. “No wars are fought in winter, so you cannot whine about that.”

  “Kings must be guarded in winter. Princesses, too.” He winked at me. “Yes, and where were Persephone’s guards that day that Hades got her? If Demeter had been a good mother, she wouldn’t have left her unprotected like that.”

  “Don’t demean her or she’ll strike these fields, and you, my friend, won’t be eating,” said Agave.

  “No danger of anyone making off with Helen here. The king keeps a guard on her at all times, even though she’s locked up in the palace grounds. What’s he so worried about, I ask?”

  “It is best you don’t ask,” said Agave. Her voice changed. “Demeter may be in these very fields, so watch your words,” she told us all. Then to me she said, “But the correct answer to my question is just that. We might see her here. But you will surely see her at the Greater Mysteries. That I promise you.”

  I felt a shiver of excitement just thinking of that. But it was Persephone I most wanted to see. She was young, like me.

  Persephone chose the time of year when the days and nights were equal to come and go, from a special cave at a place called Eleusis. But that was far from Sparta, close to Athens, over the mountains from us. Since no one in our families came from there, I wondered why the goddess and her mother had chosen us to protect.

  Mother told me that because Demeter was the goddess of crops and plenty, it was natural that she would favor Sparta, as our valley was so rich and fertile. We lay protected on both sides by high mountains, and through our flat green valley ran the Eurotas River, broad and swift, watering our crops. Fields of grain, trees heavy with their burden of apples, pomegranates, olives, and figs, vines twining themselves around oak trees and hung with grapes, all would please Demeter, proclaim her power in our lives.

  “You saw how barren it was in Aetolia,” she said. “Or perhaps you don’t remember, you were so young. But there’s no place as lush as Sparta and our valley, no, not for all the airs of Argos or Tiryns or Mycenae. Even Pylos cannot match us.” The unmistakable lilt of pride filled her voice. “For this Demeter loves us.”

  “Or are we this way because Demeter loves us?” I asked. “Which came first?”

  She frowned. “Really, Helen, you are most argumentative and contrary.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “You often sound it nonetheless. I don’t know the answer to why the Eurotas Valley is rich, or which came first, and I don’t think it matters. What matters is that Demeter is our goddess. She has blessed this land we rule over, and she thereby blesses us.”

  “But what if we didn’t have the land? Would she still bless us?” After all, if I married and left Sparta, I would no longer be in that fertile land. Would Demeter then dismiss me?

  She bent her head and closed her eyes. Was she angry? Had I offended her? She was breathing heavily, almost as if she had fallen asleep. But when she spoke, her voice was quiet and hesitant. “You have spoken true,” she said. “Often kings are driven from their thrones, lose their kingdoms. Your father has almost lost his, twice. Kings have drowned themselves in the Eurotas. In Mycenae, the family has a curse on it because of the fighting between the brothers for that throne. Dreadful things were done . . .” She gave a shudder. “Perhaps then the gods abandon us,” she said. “They do not like to involve themselves in our troubles.”

  We had been sitting in the bright courtya
rd of the palace, caressed by the sunny day. In summer, the open area was a rustle of leaves from the ornamental trees scattered throughout, and birds, expecting food, hopped from branch to branch. They were so tame they would swoop down and strut at our feet, darting toward our toes to grab a crumb or two. Then they would chirp, jump back, and fly swiftly away, over the palace roof and far away. When she saw them flying, Mother would laugh, a thrilling low laugh, and I could look at her and see that she was beautiful. Her dark eyes would follow the flight of the birds and I could trace them by looking at her.

  “Come with me, Helen,” she suddenly said. “I wish to show you something.” She stood up and held out her slender hand, weighted with rings. When she squeezed my hand, the rings bit down and hurt. Obediently I followed her, back into her quarters.

  Now that I was growing older, I was aware that her rooms were furnished more richly than the rest of the palace. Usually there were few stools and the tables were plain three-legged things, their tops bare. But in Mother’s rooms there were chairs with arms, couches to lie upon in daytime, spread with soft coverlets, tables with ivory inlays, carved ornamental boxes and alabaster bowls on them. Sheer curtains shielded the room against the stabbing sunlight of noon, softening it while rippling with the breeze. Being so high meant we always caught the best breezes, and Mother’s rooms were a cool dim haven.

  On one of the tables flush against a wall she kept her favorite precious items: I always saw several cups and round boxes of purest gold, and her ivory-handled mirror lay face down. Several long bronze pins, their ends tipped with crystal, were arranged side by side between them. I had a desire to grab the mirror and look long and hard at my face.

  She saw my eyes go in that direction and she shook her head. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. “You long to see for yourself what is the object of curiosity for so many. Well, on the day you are betrothed, and we know you are safe, then you may look. Until then . . . I have something for you.” She opened an oblong box and drew out a shimmering piece of what looked like a cloud. But it was attached to a circlet of gold. She waved it to and fro, so that the cloth danced and the sunlight played through it. Little rainbows chased across it, disappearing in a wink. She settled it on my head, pressing the circlet down. “It is time you had a proper veil,” she said, as the fuzziness blurred my vision.