The New Student's Reference Work/Helen of Troy

Hel′en of Troy, one of the most beautiful women of ancient history. She was the daughter of Zeus and Leda and wife of the Spartan king, Menelaus. She was carried off by Theseus at the age of ten, but was recovered by her brothers, Castor and Pollux. Among all the Greek princes who paid her court, she chose Menelaus. Then Paris, the son of Priam of Troy, carried her off, and Menelaus, gathering all the Greeks about him, began the ten years' Trojan War. Upon the death of Paris she was married to his brother, Deiphobus, but betrayed him to Menelaus and returned with her husband to Sparta. Helen is the subject of story and poem by Vergil, Homer, Pausanias, Euripides and Goethe. See Dream of Fair Women by Tennyson and Helen of Troy, poem and essay by Lang.