Helen of Troy

Helena, from Latinized Ancient Greek Ἑλένη Helene, was worshiped in pre-Greek times as a local goddess of vegetation in Sparta.

In Greek mythology she was born from an egg daughter of Zeus and Leda. Leda was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan, which she was the mother of Helen and the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux (Roman: Pollux ) was. Clytemnestra was the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus of; she was a half sister of Helena.

Other traditions, according to Helena and the Dioscuri of one or two eggs were born or Leda used the egg of Nemesis and Zeus, from the Helena was born, the Leda reared as her own child.

The lovely Helena

Helena was considered the most beautiful woman of her time. Her beauty was said to be so great that every man who saw her, wanted to own Helena. You've been kidnapped as a twelve year old of Theseus and Pirithous after Aphidnai in Attica and, freed from the Dioscuri, her brothers.

To they hired very many Greeks princes. Your earthly father feared in favor of a suitor the enmity of all rejected and therefore made them swear all applicants to Helena that they recognize the election of Helen and would defend against anyone - a typical justification Sage for the alliance of almost all Greeks kings against Troy. Helen chose Menelaus, the prince of Mycenae and thus became King of Sparta, where she gave birth to her daughter Hermione.

In the dispute between the three goddesses Hera, Aphrodite and Athena at the apple of Eris was promised by Aphrodite the Trojan prince Paris, and let yourself be carried away by it, with their own consent, to Troy. Hera and Athena decided to fight against Troy.

According to a version of the legend she was never in Troy, as it has lagged in a long and circuitous trip in Egypt - in Troja was only a Helena same forming "Phantom" arrived at the will of the gods. However, the major version of the legend, she followed Paris to Troy, triggering the Trojan War the Greeks against Troy from when the disgraced Menelaus turned to all rejected suitors for help. After the fall of Paris she married his brother Deiphobus and yet, despite all accepted again after the defeat of Troy of Menelaus. Both returned safely to Sparta back, lived and reigned there long - unlike most other Greek princes, almost all perished after the fall of Troy.

Reception

The Helena figure appears in the oldest Western ( Greek ) epic of Homer, the Iliad, and learned a long literary afterlife (eg, in Goethe's Faust II, as well as in the Historia von D. Johann Faust and Jacques Offenbach's operetta La belle Hélène and many others). 2010 published the novel " Helena " by Selma miller's man. The book was awarded the Sir Walter Scott Prize for best historical novel of 2010/2011.

Your name appears in most European languages as a female first name, although in many cases the sacred Helena Godmother seems to have been.