#leda of sparta

[gay-for-helen]

A lot of people like the headcanon that Aphrodite appears differently to each person depending on what their ideal of beauty is, but I don't think we talk enough about the potential of Helen doing the same thing.

Leda gives birth to the daughter of Zeus, and everyone says she is the most adorable baby they have ever seen. But no one can agree on the color of her hair or the shape of her features. When the young Helen looks in the mirror, she thinks she looks just like her big sister, the most beautiful woman she can imagine. But when she says as much to Clytemnestra, her sister is confused. Helen is unlike any woman she has seen in Sparta, she says, with forest-green eyes and hair like sunlight on wood.

Helen starts training with the other girls, and she sees less and less of Clytemnestra in her reflection. Instead, she sees the warm brown eyes of the visiting prince who smiled at her across the table, the square jaw of the girl who pinned her in wrestling practice and shot her a wink before she rose. The sons of Atreus come to stay in Sparta, and after a few conversations with the younger brother, Helen finds that her hair has turned his exact shade of red. It stays that way for months after he leaves, and so when scores of suitors arrive hoping to claim the woman of their dreams, he is the one she picks. And they rule together, and laugh together, and lie together, and he tells her that he loves her. But in the long hours of the night, she can't help but wonder if he would still say so if her face wasn't perfectly tailored to his desires.

She is the woman of every man's dreams, and so of course she is the perfect prize for the goddess of beauty to promise the Prince of Troy. With Paris, it is never a question of whether or not he loves her- if she were not a perfect beauty in his eyes, he would have stayed with his first wife, with whom Helen is certain he had more to talk about. In Troy, she is never just Helen. The women look at her and they see the sister that was taken in a raid, the husband that was killed on the battlefield, and they despise her.

And are the Greeks any better? Her unnatural beauty called them to the shores of Sparta all those years ago, drove them to make a pact that only one of them stood to gain from. They have been at war for ten years because of her, they mutter, and so they despise her too. But when they have her in their clutches at last and they gather together to stone her to death, she lifts her veil, and the stones drop from their hands. She bears the face of the wife they have spent ten years yearning for, the lover they lost to a Trojan blade, and not one of them can bring themself to kill her.

The gift of her beauty saves her life, and the curse of her beauty condemns her. Because for the rest of her life, she will be the most beautiful woman in the world, a woman who brought so much suffering and death simply by existing, a woman who escaped the war unscathed but bears the face of every soul lost in it. She will always be someone else's Helen, and she will never know who she is when no one is looking.

[incorrecthomer]

Leda: There's a book sitting in front of you. It contains all the bad things people have said about you behind your back. Would you open it? Penelope: Hell fucking yeah. Helen: Read it so you can find out what people really have to say about you and how you can change your character to be a better person. Clytemnestra: Read it so you know what order to murder people in.

[lesbian-iphigenia]

How do you see Helen and Menelaus relationship?

Like my personal interpretation??

I think they are a couple deeply in love with each other, both made mistakes that costed them (and everyone around them) a lot, that is if we are going with the standard version

But I personally prefer the version were Helen never went to Troy and was hidden in Egypt, because 1. I find it more fun 2. I find it even more dramatic than her just leaving with Paris (and even tho I don't hate the kidnapping version, there are very few sources that imply she went unwillingly with Paris)

I think it's also interesting to think of the possibility of both, Helen and Menelaus being full of guilt, Helen because she's the reason for a lot of people's death, even if she never went to Troy, and Menelaus because he is also responsible for a lot of people's death by making a war to get his wife back, only to discover said wife was never there

(obviously this guilt is about the Argives that died, they dgaf abt the Trojans)

Anyways, I think they are a sweet married couple that destiny tried to separate but they got back together even stronger (post-war they get more fluffy than ever) and are just trying to live with the guilt of what happened

[myth-and-magic-simblr]

King Tyndareus and Queen Leda of Sparta with their children; Helen, Castor, Clytemnestra, Pollux, Timandra, Phoebe, and Philonoe.

On the dais L to R: Helen, Tyndareus, Leda and Castor. Below the dais L to R: Clytemnestra, Pollux, Timandra, Phoebe, and Philonoe.

Many thanks to @clepysdra @mrsracooney @procrasimnation and many others to their amazing cc. Thanks to @kyriat-sims for the ancient Greek civilization save and cc

[likethexan]

Electra’s “I hate my mother” and Hermione’s “It would be so much easier if I hated my mother”

[red-moon-at-night]

Etruscan mirrors are so bloody interesting like... What do you mean Hermes carried the egg with Helen in it from the underworld to Castor/Pollux/Leda/Tyndareus/all of them??

What do you mean sometimes they're pointing down to the ground and sometimes the ground is actually depicted as the ocean??? You're saying that the egg was LAID in the underworld and not up here???? The implication being yet again that Nemesis is the mother in these scenarios.

Carpino, Alexandra (1996) "The Delivery of Helen's Egg: An Examination of an Etruscan Relief Mirror," Etruscan Studies: Vol. 3 , Article 2.

Literally knowing of death before her life has begun.

[clown-cult]

The way Stephen Fry is more respectful of Helen and humanises her more immediately than most “feminist retelling” authors do in their entire works…

You will always be famous.

[aliciavance4228]

I think that I've already talked about it but I'm going to do it again anyway.

So we already know that Heracles was both Perseus' half-sibling and great-grandson, right? And there are already people making jokes about this little aspect on the Internet. But what many people either forget or simply do not seem to talk about is that Perseus had a grandson named Tyndareus, who was the husband of Leda whom Zeus banged in the form of a swan. So if the idea of old Perseus realizing that his father left his granddaughter pregnant sounds awkard to you then imagine old Perseus finding out that his grandson's wife laid eggs AND that two of the babies who hatched from them seem unusual.

Are we sure that dude didn't die from a heart attack after figuring out that Zeus is messing up with his family tree again?

[littlesparklight]

claps hands

I think today we should celebrate egg!Helen and her family :) I'll start:

[vassal-of-nightjars]

Heyo, I've recently become fascinated with Helen of Troy, and would love to see your thoughts on my take on the story! TW: SA

My version of Helen is the daughter of Zeus and Nemesis (goddess of vengeance) conceived without consent on her mother's part.

Zeus took a liking to Nemesis and forced himself on her. Nemesis was deeply ashamed of this, and went to Leda to ask a favor.

An arrangement was struck. Leda's nurses would deliver the baby and ask no questions about who the mother was.

Leda would raise the baby as her own and take the truth of the real parents to her grave.

Nemesis stayed with Leda for a few months after the birth, recovering physically and mentally. She kissed Helen on the forehead before flying away, vowing that this would never happen to her again.

[sophie-jane-silver]

NO ZEUS GET OFF OF HER

[the-stars-were-his]

baby helen of troy: mom, how was i born? leda: you see, there was this swan...

[incorrecthomer]

Leda: Do any of you have any healthy stress outlets? Helen: Screaming! Clytemnestra: Murder. Penelope: Manipulation. Leda: Ok, so we have "screaming"

[measureformeasure]

Leda :)

[0-sunstranger-0]

once again thinking about the house of Atreus and what a shame it was that the daughters of Leda had to be shoved into that mess of a family

[likethexan]

Of course there’s a version where Leda raises Hermione as if nothing else can devastate me