Helen of Troy.
     The daughter of Leda and Zeus (or Nemesis), Helen was worshiped as a deity in Sparta, but in literary tradition as early as Homer was given a mortal role. Known for her great beauty, she was carried off as a girl to Athens by Theseus, but rescued by her brothers Castor and Polydeuces while Theseus was in the Underworld. Back in Sparta, she was courted by all the most eligible noblemen of Greece. Odysseus suggested that Helen be allowed to choose her husband and made all the other suitors vow to defend the successful suitor at need. Helen married Menelaus and bore him a daughter, Hermione.
    Sometime later, when Menelaus was away from Sparta, the Trojan prince Paris either abducted Helen or persuaded her to go with him to Troy. Upholding their vow, the former suitors made an armed expedition to Troy, beginning the ten-year Trojan War. After Paris was killed near the end of the war, Helen was wed to his brother Deiphobus, whom she later betrayed to Menelaus. Reclaiming her after the fall of Troy, Menelaus first threatened to kill her for her treachery but then reconciled with her. On the way home from Troy, Menelaus’s fleet was battered by a storm. Helen and Menelaus eventually reached Egypt and wandered there for eight years before returning to Sparta.
    An alternate tradition suggests that Helen was first taken to King Proteus of Egypt and only her phantom went with Paris to Troy. After the war, Menelaus was reunited with the real Helen on reaching Egypt. According to this version, the Trojan War was a stratagem by the god Zeus to reduce the earth’s population.
    In the Iliad Helen is portrayed as a pitiful figure, hated by Greeks and Trojans alike, forced to be the wife of Paris, and filled with self-reproach. However, in the Odyssey, the portrait is gentler; she is pictured living peacefully with Menelaus, although he does recall that she tried to trick the Greeks as they hid in the wooden horse.
    After Menelaus died, Helen was driven from Sparta by her stepsons and fled to her friend Polyxo in Rhodes. Polyxo, who had lost her husband in the Trojan War, sought vengeance. Dressing her slaves as Furies (Greek, Erinyes), she ordered them to hang Helen, who was thereafter worshiped in Rhodes as “Helen of the Tree.”
    An auxiliary tradition says that Achilles and Helen met after death on the Isle of Leuce (“White Isle”), where they were eternal lovers. This theme was popularized by Goethe in Faust (1827), when the tide character summons Helen from the afterlife.

    Further Reference:
Hughes, Bettany. 2005. Helen of Troy: goddess, princess, whore. London: Cape.

    
    See also Achilles, Afterlife; Paris, General List, and Paris & Helen; Theseus & Helen; Troilus & Cressida; and Trojan War.