Talk:Helen

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Contents 1 Helen v. Helen of Troy 2 Origin of the Helen myth 3 Dates 4 Ancient Greek pronuciation 5 Helen's suitors 6 Etymology 7 the "timeline" section 8 Sparing the life of Helen 9 Vandalism

[edit] Helen v. Helen of Troy

I suggest the entry for this Helen be entitled Helen of Troy, which is how she is most commonly known. user:Deb

I agree. Ruakh 17:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Might be premature because we don't have enough other entries under "helen" to warrant a disambiguation page. Ellsworth 22:44, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

How is that a justification for not titling the article with the name by which nearly all readers will look for it and all writers will link to it? Regardless, there seem to be enough other Helens for disambiguation. --Tysto 05:24, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, should be Helen of Troy. --JW1805 (Talk) 05:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the Helen myth

I have removed the following paragraph, which as far as I can tell is not mainstream (or even not-so-mainstream) scholarship. Moreover, the language "was believed to be" doesn't tell us who initially believed her to be this.... --Macrakis 03:48, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Helen was believed to be initially the chief mother-goddess worshipped through the area, until the arrival of the Dodecatheon. Then, she was replaced by Zeus, and her role was demoted and 'survived' through mythology only to the most beautiful woman of the world.

Why was the painting removed? Fuelbottle | Talk

[edit] Dates

So the Trojan War started in 1194BC? Glad we cleared up centuries of scholarly debate there. Would be quite nice if someone could cite a source for this astonishing discovery.

If not, shall we just stick to saying that many scholars consider it to have taken place sometime between 1300 BC and 1200 BC, as the Trojan War article does? The timeline could be given in a "0: birth of Helen; +12 Helen abducted..." format.

sjcollier 11:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies for the tone of that, I was having a bad day. My point still stands, though: this timeline is faintly absurd.

sjcollier 20:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The source is the timeline of Eratosthenes. As it already says in the Trojan War article. This is not a newfound discovery but the traditional date. User:Dimadick

Actually, 1194BC is only one of the traditional dates. But considering that we're talking about a mythological war which may or may not correspond to a historical war, why should this article bother to give the date at all? Furthermore, since this article is about a character in mythology, rather than a historical individual, why should we give a timeline? --Akhilleus (talk) 03:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The timeline is based on Mythical chronology of Greece, which I have put up on AfD. If, as seems likely, the chronology article is deleted, I will remove the timeline from the article. If it contains useful info that isn't elsewhere in the article, I'll put it in the appropriate spot, of course.

If anyone thinks the timeline should stay, this would be a good time to say so... --Akhilleus (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient Greek pronuciation

What was Helen in Ancient Greek? 'Elen? 'Elene? 'Elena?

It was probably something like Helenee in Attic, and diferently in othere dialectsIkokki 16:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Helen's suitors

I have added a list of suitors, just like there is one at Penelope. I hope there is no objectionIkokki 16:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

Is anyone sure about the (previous) etymology? Of her name supposedly being derived from the root *sel-. As you can see, the American Heritage Dictionary clearly says otherwise. Lemegeton 17:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The American Heritage Dictionary isn't a great source for Greek etymology. However, it is superior to no source at all, which is what the *sel- etymology has right now. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:36, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the "timeline" section

I find the "timeline" section a bit odd. Surely we don't want to give the impression that we can give calendar dates for the life of a mythological figure. In addition, the article given as a reference for the dates, Mythical chronology of Greece, looks like a huge pile of original research to me. I'd like to take the "timeline" section out. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sparing the life of Helen

In the version I learned of this myth, Menelaus spares the life of Helen at the request of Odysseus, to whom he owed a debt. I'll dig out my texts and see if I can verify it. 68.39.127.114 02:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

There been lots of vandalism recently... Ustimika 19:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)