person
Helen of Troy
Helen
also: Ἐλένα, Helen of Sparta
The most beautiful of mortal women, whose flight to Troy with Paris launched the Trojan War. Sappho makes her the proof, not the cautionary tale, of the priamel in fr. 16.
Reading notes
- The Major Poems §16 Helen
The most beautiful of mortal women, who left Sparta for Troy with Paris. Where moralists made her the warning, Sappho makes her the proof: beauty itself chose what it loved.