There is much wrong with this play.

The main character is despicable (as in Medea). Men are weak and ridiculous. Dialogue/text full of contradictory elements (e.g. religion receives a very unsure treatment). The plot is weak and riddled with cheap turns (e.g. Menelaos leaving his ''fake'' Helen in a cave).

This is laughable coming from a man of the calibre Euripides is.

The text itself is decent and there are several well done speeches. The writing itself is solid (Euripides is still Euripides). But the plot is completely loose and messy. Moreover, it's not credible. The most important moments hang on random chance or sheer invention, and suffer from lazy development. It feels like this is an abandoned draft rather than a play to be put on stage.

The deus ex machina stunt at the end just sums up the whole thing as a dull and an uninspired flight of fancy.

Euripides did not succeed with this one.

همونطور که قبلا گفتم علاقه عجیبی به نمایشنامه‌های یونان باستان پیدا کردم و در تکمیل بقیه شاهکارهایی که خوندم رفتم سراغ این عزیز دل و به شدت لذت بردم
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۱-هیپولیت: داستان راجع به تزه همسر پادشاه آتن و ترزنه که عاشق پسر نامشروع همسرش یعنی هیپولیت میشه.
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۲-هلن: تروا که یادتونه. اون خانمی که سرش این همه خون و خونریزی شد هم یادتونه دیگه. توی این نمایشنامه قصه این خانم روایت میشه که طفلک اصلا بی گناه بوده و به صورت مخفی توسط زئوس برده بودنش مصر و اصلا توی تروا نبوده و ...
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۳-آلسست: همسر پادشاه فره است و برای اینکه مرگ همسرش به تعویق بیوفته به صورت کاملا خودجوش پیشمرگش میشه. اینم بگم که هراکلس (همون هرکول) یکی از شخصیتهای این قصه است
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۴-ایون: حاصل رابطه نامشروع آپولون (خدای پیشگویی) با کرئوز دختر پادشاه آتنه که یتیم بزرگ میشه و داستان حول پیدا کردن پدر مادرش میگذره
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خلاصه هر کدوم از این چهارتا به تنهایی خودشون کلی جذابن و توی این مجموعه که ترجمه خیلی خوبی هم داره و قیمتش هم واقعا به صرفه است به شدت پیشنهاد میشه.
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چیزی که برای من جالبه اینه که ته همه این قصه‌ها اوریپید خیلی ریز و زیرپوستی به خدایان میتوپه و میگه اینا جز آزار جنس آدم کاری نمیکنن و سرکشی و عصیان آدما رو خیلی قشنگ توجیه میکنه و از اون جالبتر اینه که به باورهای خرافی و نذر و نذورات و پیشگویی هم اعتراض میکنه و دیگه منتهای جالبی قضیه اینه: ایشون حول و حوش سال ۴۵۰ پیش از میلاد طرفدار جدی حقوق زنان بوده !!
برای همین هم این قصه‌ها با وجود افسانه‌ای و اساطیری بودنش حتی امروز هم جذابن و تاریخ مصرف ندارن اصلا !!
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In Homer’s epic poem ODYSSEY, Telemachus: the son of Ulysses, travels to Sparta to inquire of Menelaus as to his father’s whereabouts. Menelaus and Helen reveal that, like Ulysses, they too were lost for many years during the return voyage from Troy. Unlike Ulysses; however, they were able to return home after seven years, and instead of bobbing from one Aegean island to the next as Ulysses had; they spent almost the entirety of their time in Egypt.

The drama HELEN by Euripides attempts to provide an account of the improbable reconciliation of Menelaus and Helen which occurred during their time together in Egypt. This should have been a great drama: exploring themes of forgiveness & marriage. Instead, Euripides uses deus ex machina to clumsily remove guilt from Helen.

Ακόμα ένα πολύ ωραίο έργο από τον Ευριπίδη. Ένα έργο που για ακόμα φορά δείχνει πόσο μάταια γίνεται ένας πόλεμος.

Homer wrote about Helen 800 BC and he did so like a whistleblower. His claim was beware of Helen. He was brave in this acts because deities could punish severely. Like striking with blindness. But Homer was already blind so he had nothing to fear on that.

Some 200 years later an other Greek poet made a critical poem on Helen. His name was Stechisorus. And he was indeed blinded for his act. But clever as he was he wrote a palinode on the subject and said no I never said something critical on behalf of Helen. After that he could again see.

And again 200 years later we have Euripides making a play on the life of Helen. No critical remarks here. On the contrary she is a victim herself, only virtue and good conduct has she.

It has been a slow recovery for Helen but justice is done after al by Euripides.

made me laugh so much - the moment where Menelaus and Helen meet again is just a classic moment in my head!

3.5

I read this as a follow-up to Euripides's The Trojan Women inspired by a reading of Christa Wolf's beautiful novel Cassandra to return to some of the Greek originals surrounding the female figures of the Trojan War. I read this one mostly for this alternate myth of Helen being an Eidolon or ghost-image in Troy, her real self having been spirited away to king Proteus's palace in Egypt, since the poet H. D. use this alternate version in her Helen in Egypt and Wolf uses it as well in Cassandra.

Sad to say, Euripides's version didn't really give me any new insight into this other version of Helen's story, as this play only uses it as a kind of plot device in order to create a romance kind of plot. (Needless to say there's none of the feminine critique here that H. D. and Wolf are aiming at either.) It was interesting, however, to discover that there were romance plays in the Greek tradition as I'd always assumed it was merely a catch-all phrase invented to explain those later Shakespearean plays like The Tempest and A Midsummer's Night Dream that are neither straight comedies, histories, nor tragedies.

Frankly, I found the device a little clumsily used here, making this longer play much less aesthetically pleasing to me than The Trojan Women, which I guess I enjoyed for its unrelenting bleakness. This plot felt belabored and contrived, even if there was a certain amount of pleasant verse (particularly in the long digressive speeches of the chorus) and lovely little pearls of wisdom thrown in as commentary on the action--all offstage, as is normal in the Greek tradition. My favorite of these was Castor's final summation that things would all turn out alright for Menelaus and Helen because "Heaven never hates the noble in the end. / It is for the nameless multitude that life is hard." Ain't that the truth--although it also kind of belies the whole tragic tradition. I guess even Euripides got tired of himself sometimes.

Ne miti, ne çeviriyi sevdim. Helene’nin Menelaos ile Mısır’da kavuşması hiç ilgimi çekmedi. Türkçe'de başka alternatifi olmadığı için mecburen bu Almancadan çevirisini okuyor olmaktan mutsuzum ama Yılmaz Onay özellikle kötü çeviriyor gibi geliyor. Kelime tercihleri çok kötü olduğu gibi cümleleri de çok devrik. sanki cümleleri kendi formundan en uzak şekliyle çeviriyor gibi. Yetiş ya Ari Çokona.

3.5 stars. This play has completely changed my opinion of Helen of Troy. Euripides continues to blow me away. His portrayal of Helen was really great. I also really loved the smoke and mirrors element to this play. Nothing was solid. Every moment was layered.

(pumps fist in the air with a hearty HURRRRRAH) (sorry, spoiler alert(s) below:)







ANOTHER HAPPY ENDING LOVE IT LOVE IT this has been MULTIPLE home runs in a row for me (Philoctetes, Alcestis, Ion, and now Helen......) LOVE A SURPRISE HAPPY ENDING!!!! This wasn't a competition by a long shot but I feel like I've won somehow!!!

....this is coming from someone who willingly signed up for a class called 'Classical Tragedy' and throughout the course was surprised at every tragic ending she encountered........ I'm just glad people are doing okay in at least SOME of these stories. Forever scarred by the whole cannibalism unit in the last myth class, and also the whole Atreides family fiasco, and also that one time I read Ovid's little section on Orpheus and Eurydice (have never recovered since. Never)

روایتی متفاوت از جنگ تروا ...
هرا که از داوری پاریس ناراحت بود شبحی مانند هلن ساخت و پاریس به جای هلن، این شبح را ربود...

اوریپید در این تراژدی به طرز قابل توجهی با استفاده از نقش مایه شبح_بدل هلن، به ناهمخوانی میان نمودها و بود می پردازد و این موضوع بسیار مهم را مطرح می کند که اسطوره ها، همانند تمامی انواع نمودها و واژگان، تنها گونه دیگری از توهم اند.
این نمایشنامه گویی تردیدهای اضطراب آور فراوانی برمی انگیزد، از همان نوع تردیدهایی که آیا هرآنچه دربرابر ماست واقعیت است یا نه.
ظاهر شدن زود هنگام "همان هلن همیشگی" تماشاگران را واداشته تا تراژدی قبلی و مضامین آن را به یاد آورند. به خصوص باعث شده از خود بپرسند که آیا این هلن از آن یکی هلن واقعی تر است: هلن واقعی کیست؟