Helen of Troy by Margaret George

thick pillars shining and its hearth scrubbed. “Then you, Helen, may question him further, as much as you like.”
    “You are becoming lax in your age,” said Mother. “Letting Helen speak as much as she likes!” But she said it with approval. It was only fair that I be allowed to question the man freely to satisfy myself rather than defer to Father or my brothers.
    “Now, as to the men who woo by proxy—they must be able to answer as their master would. We must assume the master has confidence in the friend’s words. Perhaps the friend can even speak better than his master, and that’s why he was chosen.”
    “May I ask him that?” I asked.
    “Certainly, but be prepared for him to lie. After all, his task is to win you, perhaps by making his master seem more attractive than he really is.”
    “I think I shall not choose anyone unless I see him with my own eyes,” I decided. “So the men who are sending proxies are wasting their efforts.”
    Father laughed. “But not before they have presented their gifts!”
    Now was the time to say it, the thing I had decided. “I refuse to choose anyone who utters the phrase ‘the most beautiful woman in the world,’ ” I said. “He would be doing it only to please you, and in any case, it isn’t true, which also makes him a liar.”
    Father looked alarmed, but then said, “You may make that a condition in your own mind, certainly, but we will not announce it.”

    Even now, to recall the suitors is to make me smile. All told, there were some forty of them. And what an assortment of men! They ranged in age from six(!) to sixty. The extremes of age were provided by two who came not to woo but to accompany ones who did: old Nestor, king of Pylos, at least sixty, came with his son Antilochus, and Patroclus brought the boy in whose household he lived, six-year-old Achilles.
    There was a huge hulk of a man, Ajax of Salamis. There was a courtly man from Crete, Idomeneus, who, even though a king, came in his black-sailed ship to woo in person. There was a barrel-chested red-haired man, Odysseus from Ithaca. Men of every size and shape and character had assembled under our roof. Since each contestant would have a whole day to himself, that promised forty days of Father’s hospitality.
    “We’d better pick a rich one,” Father muttered the first afternoon when he lifted the curtain to look out and see how many were gathered in the megaron. “To repay my expenses!”
    Now we must emerge and take our places on the thrones to one side of the room. My hair was covered under a veil, and my shoulders were hidden as well, but still I braced myself for the predictable staring and silence when I appeared.
    Dear Persephone, I prayed, oh, cannot one of them laugh? I swear, I would fall in love with him on the instant.
    “Greetings,” Father said, taking his time in looking around the room.
    The suitors lined every wall. Some were in shadow and I could not see their faces clearly, but there was a great variation in height. The man I later knew as Ajax stood a head taller than everyone else, and Odysseus almost a head shorter. There was an enormous man shaped like an olive-oil jar, who turned out to be Elephenor from Euboea. I had my first glimpse of Patroclus, a handsome young man, with the glowering boy pressed to his side. At the time all I thought was, what is that surly child doing here?
    “You do us honor to come seeking the hand of my daughter Helen,” Father said. “Now let us pour libations before beginning the contest.” He gestured to a servant, who gave him a rhyton of unmixed wine. He solemnly poured it out in the special floor trough near the throne and asked the gods to look with favor on us.
    “Who will be first?” he said. This time he made them choose their own order.
    All of them stood there dumbly. Some of them were still staring at me.
    “Come, come, you warriors, why be bashful?” Father said. “The first to speak is the first to be finished, to enjoy