But there are two passages in the Iliad which may be taken as indicating Homer's opinion that Helen was literally a victim, an unwilling victim, of Aphrodite, and that she was carried away by force a captive from Lacedaemon. These passages are in the Iliad, ii. 356, 590. In the former text Nestor says, "let none be eager to return home ere he has couched with a Trojan's wife, and avenged the longings and sorrows of Helen"—τίσσθαι δΈλένης ορμηματα τε στοναχας τε. It is thus that Mr. Gladstone, a notable champion of Helen's, would render this passage, and the same interpretation was favoured by the ancient "Separatists" (Chorizontes), who wished to prove that the Iliad and Odyssey were by different authors; but many authorities prefer to translate "to avenge our labours and sorrows for Helen's sake"—"to avenge all that we have endured in the attempt to win back Helen." Thus the evidence of this passage is ambiguous. The fairer way to seek for Homer's real view of Helen is to examine all the passages in which she occurs. The result will be something like this:—Homer sees in Helen a being of the rarest personal charm and grace of character; a woman who imputes to herself guilt much greater than the real measure of her offence. She is ever gentle except with the Goddess who betrayed her, and the unworthy lover whose lot she is compelled to share. Against them her helpless anger breaks out in flashes of eloquent scorn. Homer was apparently acquainted with the myth of Helen's capture by Theseus, a myth illustrated in the decorations of the coffer of Cypselus. But we first see Helen, the cause of the war, when Menelaus and Paris are about to fight their duel for her sake, in the tenth year of the Leaguer (Iliad, iii. 121). Iris is sent to summon Helen to the walls. She finds Helen in her chamber, weaving at a mighty loom, and embroidering on tapestry the adventures of the siege—the battles of horse–taming Trojans and bronze–clad Achaeans. The message of Iris renews in Helen's heart "a sweet desire for her lord and her own city, and them that begat her;" so, draped in silvery white, Helen goes with her three maidens to the walls. There, above the gate, like some king in the Old Testament, Paris sits among his counsellors, and they are all amazed at Helen's beauty; "no marvel is it that Trojans and Achaeans suffer long and weary toils for such a woman, so wondrous like to the immortal goddesses." Then Priam, assuring Helen that he holds her blameless, bids her name to him her kinsfolk and the other Achaean warriors. In her reply, Helen displays that grace of penitence which is certainly not often found in ancient literature:—"Would that evil death had been my choice, when I followed thy son, and left my bridal bower and my kin, and my daughter dear, and the maidens of like age with me." Agamemnon she calls, "the husband's brother of me shameless; alas, that such an one should be." She names many of the warriors, but misses her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, "own brothers of mine, one mother bare us. Either they followed not from pleasant Lacedaemon, or hither they followed in swift ships, but now they have no heart to go down into the battle for dread of the shame and many reproaches that are mine."

"So spake she, but already the life–giving earth did cover them, there in Lacedaemon, in their own dear country."

Menelaus and Paris fought out their duel, the Trojan was discomfited, but was rescued from death and carried to Helen's bower by Aphrodite. Then the Goddess came in disguise to seek Helen on the wall, and force her back into the arms of her defeated lover. Helen turned on the Goddess with an abruptness and a force of sarcasm and invective which seem quite foreign to her gentle nature. "Wilt thou take me further yet to some city of Phrygia or pleasant Maeonia, if there any man is dear to thee . . . Nay, go thyself and sit down by Paris, and forswear the paths of the Gods, but ever lament for him and cherish him, till he make thee his wife, yea, or perchance his slave, but to him will I never go." But this anger of Helen is soon overcome by fear, when the Goddess, in turn, waxes wrathful, and Helen is literally driven by threats—"for the daughter of Zeus was afraid,"—into the arms of Paris. Yet even so she taunts her lover with his cowardice, a cowardice which she never really condones. In the sixth book of the Iliad she has been urging him to return to the war. She then expresses her penitence to Hector, "would that the fury of the wind had borne me afar to the mountains, or the wave of the roaring sea—ere ever these ill deeds were done!" In this passage too, she prophesies that her fortunes will be [Greek text] famous in the songs, good or evil, of men unborn. In the last book of the Iliad we meet Helen once more, as she laments over the dead body of Hector. "'Never, in all the twenty years since I came hither, have I heard from thee one taunt or one evil word: nay, but if any other rebuked me in the halls, any one of my husband's brothers, or of their sisters, or their wives, or the mother of my husband (but the king was ever gentle to me as a father), then wouldst thou restrain them with thy loving kindness and thy gentle speech.' So spake she; weeping."

In the Odyssey, Helen is once more in Lacedaemon, the honoured but still penitent wife of Menelaus. How they became reconciled (an extremely difficult point in the story), there is nothing in Homer to tell us.

Sir John Lubbock has conjectured that in the morals of the heroic age Helen was not really regarded as guilty.