Tight Lipped of Troy

 Helen, whose abduction famously precipitated the Trojan War, was one two daughters born to the mortal Leda after Zeus came onto her in the form of a swan. This heritage is subtly alluded to by the feathers round Helen's neck in the above still from Troy: Fall of a City, and less subtly alluded to in this illustration from Larry Gonick's far less trashy Cartoon History of the Universe:

 

 

 One thing I didn't know about Helen though until I read the Odyssey, was that she had known all along about the Greeks' plans to conquer her adopted city with an army hidden in a huge wooden horse. According to her account to Odysseus' son Telemachus a decade later, she had bumped into Odysseus when he sneaked into Troy disguised as a beggar, immediately recognised him, gave him a bath and then, somehow, managed to get him to tell her the whole plan. But she let him go and didn't tell anyone because she was sick of this now ten-year-long siege and just wanted to be taken back to Greece. Wait, I thought, why had I not heard his before? Was this the normal story? If this was the case, why didn't Helen just sneak out of Troy with Odysseus and end the war there? Happily I was able to ask Natalie Haynes all this, and here is Natalie's reply:

 "Ten points for reading the Odyssey, but you lose a point for thinking there is any such thing as the normal story. So, net gain: nine points... The version of Helen in the Odyssey does say/do that (there is a much madder bit, at least to my eyes, in some versions where, when the Trojan Horse is found and the Greek soldiers are suspected of being inside, Helen does a sort of Mike Yarwood thing and impersonates the voices of the wives of the Greeks. She's so convincing she reduces several horse occupants to tears... HOW MAD IS THAT?) I think the important thing to bear in mind with Helen is that you can't necessarily believe what she says - I think she probably did want to go back to Greece, but the insult of her kidnap/abduction/adultery wouldn't be removed if she just snuck off with Odysseus - the Greeks would still want revenge on Paris and they'd still want to loot Troy, which is the only reason a lot of them are there... So she might as well wait it out in the city than in the Greek camp. But that's just my reading... Also, Homer's Helen is a real plaything of the gods, esp Aphrodite, so she may not have had the option of bailing with Odysseus - Aphrodite threatens her quite pointedly in Iliad 3, when she says she's not that into Paris anymore..."

 So there you go! I now need to find out exactly what Helen did that made Odysseus talk. Might it have been her Mike Yarwood bit? If you have any mythology-based questions of your own, you can ask Natalie here.

 

 How many things can YOU name that have nothing to do with either horses or Troy?

Perhaps you'll see them in this video.