Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy (2 page)

As I’ve said, I didn’t resemble my mother in any of the important ways. I was my father’s daughter, from copper red hair to skin darkened and freckled by the sun and eyes as black as olives. Like Menelaus, I was thin, and as my mother had pointed out, entirely lacking in shapeliness. On the plus side, my memory was excellent, like my father’s. Sometimes a little forgetting can be a good thing. But I am unable to forget. Only my voice is like my mother’s, clear and melodious. I was grateful at least for that.

It was no wonder that every man who looked at Helen, from the ridiculous flat-bottomed Theseus to the handsomest Greek prince, desired her and was willing to go to any length to have her.

“Suitors came to Sparta from every part of Greece,” my mother liked to tell me, knowing there would be no such lineup waiting impatiently at the palace door when I was old enough to wed. She never gave a moment’s thought to what it was like being the unspectacular daughter of a spectacularly great beauty.

“All these men came with the most delightful gifts for me and my father,” she said, describing the treasures brought to Tyndareus’s palace. “But my father refused to accept any. From gilded chariots and handsome horses to the most magnificent jewels and embroidered robes, the treasures filled the megaron—the great hall—of our palace. And I wanted all of it!”

“But why didn’t Grandfather accept the gifts?”

Helen shrugged her splendid shoulders. “He was afraid of starting a quarrel among my suitors. Those who had been refused would turn against the one who had been chosen. With such men a quarrel could quickly become bloody. But one man knew he had not a chance of being chosen. Odysseus was short legged and far from handsome. He didn’t even bother to bring a gift, because he had a fair idea of which man Father actually wanted as a new son-in-law: Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, my sister’s husband. But Odysseus was a clever fellow. He quietly promised to help Father avoid a quarrel if Father agreed to help him marry the girl he wanted, a rather plain creature named Penelope. Father leaped at this solution to his dilemma.”

My mother paused to sip watered wine from a two-handled cup of hammered silver. A cool breeze had sprung up, and our maids hurried to bring us our woolen cloaks.

“Odysseus told Father to make the suitors swear to defend whichever man among them was chosen to marry me. Tyndareus agreed, and that very day he sacrificed a horse and cut it into pieces, then ordered the suitors to stand on those pieces and swear an oath to come to the defense of the winner, no matter what happened. I watched all this from behind a screen—it was a bloody mess, I can tell you!”

“And of course you chose Menelaus,” I said—always my contribution to her story.

Helen frowned. Even frowning, my mother lost none of her beauty. “Do you think I had any choice in the matter?” she asked. “It was my father’s decision to make, not mine. It could have been Great Ajax or Little Ajax or Menestheus or Philoctetes or Patroclus, or any one of many others—it made not the slightest difference. I was to marry, and that was the end of the discussion. So Father called out, ‘Helen, my dear, come crown your husband with a laurel wreath.’ I did as I was told and set the wreath on Menelaus’s head. Everyone cheered, though of course the cheers were not sincere, for every man except the winner was disappointed that he hadn’t seized the prize. Menelaus smiled triumphantly and took my hand. Three days later we were wed. And now here we are,” she added with a shrug.

I was born like any ordinary baby—there was no night-time visit from Zeus in disguise, no improbable blue egg. In the years that followed, two baby boys were born and died. Then came little Pleisthenes, who looked more like Helen than I did, blessed with our mother’s hyacinth eyes and golden ringlets. My dear grandparents, Leda and Tyndareus, died, as did Helen’s twin brothers. Menelaus became king of Sparta.

Beginning when I was very young, my father took me for long walks into the countryside, just the two of us, and he told me stories of the twelve gods who live on Mount Olympus. There was Zeus, the mighty king of the gods, and Hera, his wife and sister, the queen; Zeus’s son, Apollo, is the god of light and prophecy. I particularly liked the story of Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis, goddess of the hunt and of childbirth—she was born first and assisted in the delivery of her twin. That was not the only strange birth: according to Father, Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom and warfare, sprang fully grown from Zeus’s brow.

“Zeus has had many lovers and many children by them. Hera is a jealous wife and often tries to take revenge on her rivals. This causes all kinds of problems. Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and desire, is married to Hephaestus, god of fire, but she’s had many affairs. Fidelity in marriage doesn’t mean a thing to her.” My father chuckled. “The gods are magnificent: they hold our lives in their hands and control our destiny, but in some ways they’re not much different from ordinary mortals.”

We grew close on these walks as my father explained to me the ways of gods and men—closer than my mother and I would ever be.

2

THE YEAR I TURNED
eleven was the most important of my young life. The sheep, relieved of their thick winter coats, leaped about friskily, and the women of our household had taken up their spindles. We worked our way through heaps of fleece that had been washed and carded by the slaves. Spinning went on everywhere. Whether we were out walking or sitting by the hearth, talking or staying silent, our hands were always busy. I could spin a fine, even thread, and I was proud of that.

As the days passed and the bright moon waxed and waned and waxed again, I could sense my mother’s growing discontent. Helen was restless and moody. She often sighed deeply, and when I asked if something troubled her, she shook her head and, smiling wistfully, said, “No, no, nothing.” But I didn’t believe her.

Toward the end of summer we received a welcome visit from Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and my cousins, Orestes and his sisters Iphigenia, Electra, and Chrysothemis, all older than I. Leaving their great ship anchored at the port of Gythion at the mouth of the River Eurotas, they were rowed upriver to Sparta in small boats, accompanied by scores of servants and attendants. Agamemnon was a big man, taller and heavier than my father, broad chested and strong, with long hair and a full, dark beard. During the day, the two men rode off together to hunt while my mother and my aunt sat in the palace garden, drinking wine and complaining about their husbands. I passed the time with my cousins. Orestes liked to show off his skill with a bow, dropping birds unlucky enough to be flying within range. While his sisters and I dutifully applauded Orestes’ marksmanship, the girls rattled on and on about whom they might marry someday.

“I wonder who they’ll find for you,” Iphigenia mused, coolly appraising me. She was nearly thirteen, closest to my age, and I knew what she was thinking:
You’re not a beauty like your mother, Hermione.

“I’m only eleven,” I reminded her. “I don’t care a fig about a husband.” I was thinking:
You’re nothing to brag about either, Iphigenia.
But that wasn’t entirely true. She had beautiful hair, ebony black and thick, and she spent a great deal of time fussing with it, asking me which way she should wear it. She also had breasts, and I envied them.

Orestes brought down another unfortunate bird. Then he glanced at me and smiled, and I smiled back. He seemed a nice boy, Orestes, with merry brown eyes flecked with gold, like tiny pinpoints of light. His smile charmed me. It wasn’t perfect—his two front teeth overlapped—and I liked that.

AT THE BEGINNING OF
the grape harvest, Agamemnon and his family prepared to go home to Mycenae. A farewell banquet was laid out—platters of roasted lamb and venison, baskets of bread, bowls of olives and pomegranate seeds—and noble families from nearby towns were invited to join the feast. Our guests lounged on couches, enjoying the food and drink and passing around a myrtle branch. It was the custom for the one holding the branch to sing a song, recite a poem, or tell a story. The shadows were growing long, and many of the banquet guests had already left for their homes when heralds announced the arrival of a courier from Troy, a city that lay across the Chief Sea, far from Sparta. The courier, having no small boat to bring him from the port, was dusty and weary from his journey by foot over the mountains when he stumbled into the hall to deliver his message: King Menelaus would soon receive a visitor, Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy.

“When may we expect this prince?” asked my father.

“His fleet is being prepared. With the blessing of the gods, Prince Paris will arrive at the end of the harvest, before the new moon.”

This news created plenty of excitement. A royal traveler from such a great distance was a rare thing, and a Trojan prince was assured an elaborate reception. The food and drink at our table nearly forgotten, my father and my uncle Agamemnon immediately got into an intense discussion of King Priam and the enormous wealth of Troy, its importance in trade for silks and spices from the Orient, and its military capability and political situation. This was the kind of discussion that made the women at the table yawn in boredom.

When the last guests had gone, my mother proposed a walk in the orchard. Clytemnestra and her daughters were already strapping on their sandals. I wanted to stay behind to listen to the men, as Orestes was doing, but I wouldn’t have been welcome. Little Pleisthenes tugged on our mother’s peplos, but I was the one who scooped him up and set him on my hip.

“Aren’t you the lucky one!” Clytemnestra said, linking her arm with Helen’s. “Prince Paris coming to visit! I hear he’s divinely handsome and captivating as well.”

“Really?” my mother said, seeming only mildly interested. “I know nothing about him.”

But Clytemnestra appeared to know a lot about Paris, the youngest of King Priam’s nineteen legitimate sons by his second wife, Queen Hecabe; there were another thirty sons by various concubines and an uncountable number by lowly servants. Paris was gifted with good looks and a winning personality, she said, but he lacked ambition. “The eldest brother, Hector, is the ambitious one.”

“So Paris is indolent, then?” my mother asked, idly plucking flowers from bushes and then dropping them, leaving a fragrant trail.

“Not exactly indolent,” Clytemnestra explained, “just the badly spoiled favorite. It’s an interesting story—I’m surprised you haven’t heard it. A seer warned Priam that a baby soon to be born would be responsible for bringing about the fall of Troy. Soon after, Queen Hecabe gave birth to a boy, and the seer tried to persuade Priam to have the infant killed. King Priam couldn’t bring himself to do it. He called in his chief herdsman, Agelaus, and ordered
him
to kill the baby. Agelaus carried the baby away, but he couldn’t kill him either. Instead, he took the newborn up into the mountains and left him there to die. Five days later, the story goes, the herdsman went back, expecting to bury the body. Instead, he found the baby alive and healthy, suckled by a she bear.”

A she bear nursed the baby! I tried to imagine that.

We reached the riverbank, our servants spread blankets, and we sat down. “And then what happened?” I asked. Iphigenia and I waited eagerly to hear Clytemnestra’s story. The servants, too, edged nearer. The myrtle branch was never passed to a woman at our banquets; it was only among ourselves that we told stories.

“Agelaus took the baby home with him to raise as his own son. He killed a newborn goat and presented its tongue to King Priam as proof that his orders had been carried out and the baby was dead. But little Paris—the name given him by Agelaus—was no ordinary child. He was so beautiful, so intelligent, and so strong! He was just six when he chased down a band of cattle thieves and retrieved the cows they had stolen. Still, no one knew that Paris was of royal blood. He was only a common slave, in charge of Agelaus’s cattle. When he got older, Paris arranged to have the best bulls of the herd fight one another. Eventually his prize bull was defeated, but not by any ordinary bull. As a joke, Ares, the god of war and manly courage, had turned himself into a bull. The other gods, watching the contest from their home on Mount Olympus, were much amused. They all loved Paris. It seems that Paris has always lived a charmed life.”

“Is that the end of the story?” Helen asked. “Surely not! He’s no longer a slave but a prince!”

Clytemnestra was enjoying her role as storyteller. “There
is
more. King Priam sent servants to Agelaus, ordering him to bring his best bull to be awarded as a prize at the funeral games held each year in honor of King Priam’s son who had been lost at birth. Paris heard about it and made up his mind to compete in the games. He still had no idea that he was the king’s son. No one knew. First he won the boxing match, and next the foot race. That so angered Priam’s other sons that they challenged Paris to a second race. He won that as well! The princes were so furious that they swore to kill this interloper.”

Clytemnestra paused and called for a cup of watered wine. “And then?” Helen cried when a servant had filled their goblets. “What happened then?”

Clytemnestra sipped a little and continued, “As they drew their swords and prepared to attack Paris, Agelaus rushed up shouting, ‘King Priam, you must not kill him! This is your long-lost son!’ To prove it, the old herdsman produced the tiny bracelet that was on the baby’s ankle when he was abandoned and left to die. Paris’s mother, Hecabe, saw the bracelet and burst into tears. The king was overjoyed. The jealous brothers were unhappy, and the priests and seers tore their garments and warned King Priam that the young man must be killed at once, or Troy would be brought to utter ruin. But Priam could not be persuaded. He had lost his son once, and he was not going to lose him again. ‘Better that Troy be destroyed than my beloved son be taken from me.’”

For a moment we were silent, spellbound by the story.

My mother scrambled to her feet, her face flushed, a few damp curls clinging to her forehead. “This glorious Paris whom you have described so winningly—has he chosen a wife? And if he has, who is she?”