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Article: Desperately Seeking Helen
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- December 29, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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HELEN OF TROY
Goddess, Princess, Whore
By Bettany Hughes
Knopf. 458 pp. $30
In a temple in Sparta dedicated to Helen's twin brothers, Castor
and Pollux, hung a giant eggshell from which she hatched after her
mother, Leda, was visited by the king of the gods in the shape of a
swan. The egg was worshiped as a sign of the gods' activity in the
world, a talisman of Helen's magical origin. She wasn't a goddess,
exactly, but she was transfigured by divine power, and at the end of
her eventful earthly existence, was snatched up to heaven and turned
into a star.
W.B. Yeats dramatized Leda's encounter with the swan and its
prophetic violence: "A sudden blow: the great wings beating still . .
. / A ...