Helen

Lines 1-403 of Euripides’s Helen contain three main segments: an opening monologue by Helen (lines 1-75), which acts as an introduction to relate important expository information to the audience; then Helen’s interaction with Teucer, a castaway Greek veteran of the Trojan War (76-172); and finally, Helen’s conversation with the Chorus and its Leader (173-403). In the opening monologue, Helen provides the context of the play, identifying herself to the audience and going over some features of her backstory, including the legend of her birth to Leda by Zeus. The setting is identified as King Proteus’s realm in Egypt, but Proteus himself is now dead, and his tomb features prominently on the play’s stage, just to one side of the palace doors. Helen also provides the initial explanation for how she got to Egypt instead of Troy, whisked there by Hermes, and reveals the play’s underlying premise: that the Helen who went to Troy with Paris was not her, but a phantom copy designed by the goddess Hera, “a living likeness conjured out of air” (37).

Despite Helen’s apparent knowledge of the Trojan War, Teucer’s arrival provides an opportunity to learn more specific information about what happened at Troy and about her own family’s circumstances.