THEOCRITUS' EPITHALAMIUM FOR HELEN
Commentators on Theocritus' Idyll 18 have not faced squarely the central question : can anyone be expected to read an epithalamium for Helen and Menelaus, no matter how charming and happy its tone, without remembering what the future of that marriage will be? The poet can hardly have expected his reader to be ignorant (or to pretend ignorance) of what is one of the best known Greek myths. It begs the question to suggest that there is within this elegant Song of Marriage little or nothing which leads us to any negative thoughts or doubtful fears about the future of Helen and Menelaus. For the point is precisely the reverse : when we hear the name of Helen we do not need to be led to ominous thoughts ; rather, it is impossible to imagine that we will not think them. Idyll 1 8 has, in fact, a whole unspoken dimension which the topic itself instantaneously implants in the reader's mind ; Theocritus can hardly have presumed otherwise (*).
We are, to be sure, reminded by the critics of certain mitigating facts (2) : that Stesichorus and Euripides had so altered Helen's myth as to absolve her from culpability (3) ; that Gorgias and Isocrates, while granting the truth of the more
(1) It may be correct to note with M. S. Khafaga, Absolutio Helenae, in BFAC, 14 (1952), p. 95 : "II laisse donc de côté tous les autres épisodes de la vie d'Hélène comme s'il les ignorait et choisit intentionnellement le jour de ses noces" ; but the question is whether the reader is as willing to pretend ignorance. Nor may we with M. Sanchez-Wii.dberger, Theokrit Interpretationen (Zurich, 1955), p. 39, fail to stress properly "die böse Vorbedeutung, die Helenas Ehe haben konnte". The effect in Idyll 18 depends upon a type of "tragic irony" which the reader cannot help but realize ; a similar case is Sappho, 44LP, on which see the exemplary essay of J. Kakridis, Zu Sappho 44LP, in WS, 79 (1966), p. 25, and below note 6.
The text used here is Theocritus, éd. A. S. F. Gow (Cambridge, 1952), the second volume of which is hereafter cited as 'Gow'.
(2) E.g. Khafaga (above, note 1), pp. 88-91, and Sanchez -Wild berg er (above, note 1), p. 39.
(3) The history of Stesichorus' Palinode (Page, PMG, 192) and the phantom-Helen are familiar ; cf. Euripides, Helen, 16-65, although in Troiades we find the orthodox version of her myth. For a general discussion see Euripides, Helen, ed. A. M. Dale (Oxford, 1967), pp. xvn-xxiv ; she rightly notes that the version in Hdt., 2, 112 f., can hardly be said to absolve Helen from guilt.
