Etymology
A title has been in comparison Vedic Saraṇyū, daughter of Tvastar, who is abducted inside RV 10.17.Deuce; the title can so exist as from either a PIE root *sel "to elope" and last back to the Proto-Indo-European abduction myth. A title is in any experience unrelated to Hellenes, as is occasionally claimed (Hellenes existence from either a root *sed "settle").

Helen in Greek Mythology
Based on data from late Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus while at the equivalent instance bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her hubby Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. When the story goes, Zeus cohabited by owning Leda in the form of a swan on the same nighttime when her married man, King Tyndareus. To the previous she gave birth to Helen & Polydeuces, & to the latter, Clytemnestra & Castor. Within a few versions she placed deuce eggs from either which them hatched. Around more versions, Helen occurs as girl of Nemesis, a goddess world health organization personified a disaster that awaited victims suffering from either the pride of hubris.

2 Athenians, Theseus and Pirithous, pledged to marry daughters of Zeus. Theseus chose Helen. He & Pirithous kidnapped her & decided to hang on to onto her until she was old plenty to marry. Pirithous chose Persephone. It left Helen sustaining Theseus' mother, Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her married man, Hades. Hades pretended to offer a two cordial reception & placed the feast; when soon when the pair sat down, snakes coiled as much as their feet & held the babies there.

Whenever it was instance for even Helen to marry, several Greek kings & princes come to search her hand or sent envoy to clean soh in their behalf. Among a challenger were Odysseus, Menestheus, Ajax the Great, Patroclus and Idomeneus, but a favorite was Menelaus, who did non are personally however was represented by his brother Agamemnon, both of whom were around exile, getting fled Thyestes. Almost Odysseus brought many rich gifts using the two.

Tyndareus would assume none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the wooer away for fear of offending the babies & rendering evidence for the quarrel. Odysseus promised to solve the condition withwithin the acceptable manner in case Tyndareus would trend lines him in his courting of Penelope, the girl of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed & Odysseus proposed that, before a guide was processed, all the suer should swear a virtually all solemn oath to defend the chosen married man against whoever should quarrel using him. This stratagem succeeded & Helen & Menelaus were married. Below Tyndareus' demise, Menelaus became king of Sparta because the single male heirs, Castor and Polydeuces, had died & ascended to Mount Olympus.

A bit of years late, Paris, a Trojan prince came to Sparta to marry Helen, whom he experienced been promised by Aphrodite after he had chosen her when a virtually all beautiful of a goddesses, earning the wrath of Athena and Hera. Helen fell soft on using him, when a goddess experienced promised, volitionally allowing behind Menelaus & Hermione, their nine-year-old girl, to exist as using her fresh love.

After he found that his married woman was missing, Menelaus required all a more suer to fulfill their oaths, so beginning the Trojan War. Most of Greece took part, either attacking Troy using Menelaus or even defending it from either the babies.

Helen's relationship sustaining Paris varies based on the source of the story. Within a few, she loved him dearly (maybe from either Aphrodite, who got promised her to Paris). Within others, she was the cruel, selfish woman world health organization brought disaster to everyone about her, & she despised him. 1 version, utilized by Euripides in his play Helen claims Hermes fashioned a likeness of her away from clouds at Zeus's request, and Helen never even went to Troy, having spent the entire war in Egypt.

After Paris died in the war, his brother, Deiphobus, married Helen. Deiphobus was flushed by Menelaus in the sack of Troy. Menelaus got demanded that single he should slay his treasonous married woman; however, while he raised his blade to launder soh, a sight of her beauty induced him to let a brand drop from either his hand. Instead, he led her around safety to the Greek ships. Helen returned to Sparta by owning Menelaus. Fallowing Menelaus' dying, Helen was exiled by their boy, Megapenthes. Based on data from an additional version, utilized by Euripides in his Orestes, Helen had long since left a human globe by so, getting been taken as much as Olympus nearly immediately when Menelaus's go to.

Assuming the story of Helen is, to the bit of extent, according to a really event these are worth caring that this & several more Greek legends point to the being of a matrilineal inheritance system. So Menelaus' perfect to the potty is according to his existence married to the girl of the last king. Notwithstanding beautiful Helen might use at times been this gives the additional misanthropical understanding to fight on top her.

Helen in modern literature
Helen is typically known as "the face that launched a thousand ships", though this sentence is post-classical, from either Christopher Marlowe:

Around Goethe's version, Helen has a boy by Faust named Euphorion.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees Helen along with Paris in the second circle of Hell, where it use been consigned for succumbing to the sin of lust.

Timeline
A as a result is an estimation of her life according to a traditional dates of the Trojan War:

1225 BC - Birth of Helen to King Tyndareus of Sparta and his wife Leda. Thanks to her beauty she might later on become considered girl of Zeus. 1213 BC - At the age of 12 Helen is abducted by King Theseus of Athens who marries her against her father's and brothers' consent. In a period of the absence of Theseus, her brothers Castor and Polydeuces help a insurrection by his full cousin Menestheus. Menestheus profits a potty & comes back Helen to her brothers. Based on data from a select few versions Helen was pregnant & two or three months late gives birth to Iphigeneia. She trusts her girl to her married sister Clytemnestra who will raise her when her have. Soon Menestheus of Athens & more kings & princes gather at Sparta when Helen's wooer. 1212 BC - Tyndareus marries Helen to Menelaus of Mycenae. Menelaus' brother is King Agamemnon who is married to Helen's sister Clytemnestra. Helen before long gives birth to Hermione. A early deaths of her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, soon produce Menelaus Tyndareus successor at a potty of Sparta. 1203 BC - After nine years of marriage, Paris of Troy visits Sparta and in Menelaus' absence convinces Helen to flee with him. Menelaus discovers that his married woman & guest betrayed him & starts contemplating war. King Priam of Troy marries Helen to Paris. Menelaus' preparations for war & gathering of allies & armies took him 10 years based on data from occasionally versions. 1194 BC - Beginning of the Trojan War. 1184 BC - Paris mortally wounded within battle by Philoctetes. Priam marries Helen to Deiphobus, a immature brother of Paris. April 24, 1184 BC - Fall of Troy. Deiphobus is slain by Menelaus who reclaims Helen as his married woman. It sail in their go to journeying however come stranded on the shores of Egypt. 1176 BC - After spending eight years inside Egypt, they handle to placed sail again & email a shores of the Peloponnesus. Based on data from Euripides they visit Mycenae, arriving shortly after a execution of King Aegisthus, who was Menelaus' number 1 cousin, & Queen Clytemnestra, who was Helen's sister, by their most common nephew Orestes, the recently King of Mycenae. Orestes tries to defeat his aunty however fails. A royal few go to to Sparta (or else Helen is taken off by Apollo) 1174 BC - According to a Odyssey, Telemachus of Ithaca visits Sparta seeking information all about his father Odysseus. Menelaus & Helen reply that it develop non heard of him since it left Troy ten years ago. It mourn their numbers of misused relatives & friends. 1154 BC - According to Pausanias, Menelaus dies of old age & natural is the causal agent of. Megapenthes, his illegitimate boy, seizes a potty & exiles Helen. He before long loses a potty to his 1st cousin King Orestes of Mycenae who is married to Hermione, the merely legitimate girl of Menelaus & Helen & half-sister of Megapenthes. By this point Orestes had also seized a vacant thrones of Argos and Arcadia and becomes the resole ruler of the Peloponnesus. Helen tries refuge around Rhodes near Polyxo, widow of Tlepolemus, an old friend of hers. Tlepolemus was famously a 1st human to become flushed when you took a Trojan War. Inside retaliation for her married man's dying, Polyxo ordered her maidens to pretend to become a ghosts of the numbers of dead shopping for retaliation from either Helen. Helen committed suicide by hanging herself from the tree. Fallowing her demise she is deified.

Sources
Iliad (Homer) Odyssey (Homer) Electra (Euripides) Bibliotheke III, x,7-xi, 1 (Apollodorus) Epitome II, 15-III, 6; V, Xxii; VI, Xxix (Apollodorus) Theseus (Plutarch)