Helen of Troy
Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics
BBC
4.8 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2020
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Natalie Haynes tells stories of the most beautiful woman in the world, who hatched from an egg and was the daughter of Zeus: Helen of Troy. Men fought over her from an early age, but was she really to blame for all those wars on epic scale?
Helen's face may have launched a thousand ships but it didn't make her happy: being kidnapped repeatedly does not make for contented relationships. How have her life and beauty been exploited by writers and artists across the centuries, to justify their own world-views?
In this locked down, more intimate version of her show, Natalie offers escape to a different realm: the mythological. As fresh and funny as ever, Natalie brings us new insights into feathery sex as well as gossipy erudition from a couple of thousand years of culture, with the help of Professor Edith Hall.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.3 | Hello and welcome to Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics for one series only, |
| 0:10.3 | rebranded as Natalie Haynes sits down in the corridor of her flat for the classics. |
| 0:15.5 | We decided it was just too easy recording this in front of an audience of hundreds of people |
| 0:19.0 | who love it. So this time we're recording it from my Flat. Sorry about that. Or hooray, depending on how much you like crowds. |
| 0:25.8 | The other change we've made is that we decided it would be the perfect time for escapism. So instead |
| 0:31.1 | of doing historical figures, this series, we're going to do figures from myth. So today I am |
| 0:36.3 | standing up for, and by standing up, I really do |
| 0:38.7 | mean sitting on the floor for Helen of Troy. Helen of Troy is famously the face that launched |
| 0:45.3 | a thousand ships, according to Marlowe's Dr Faustus. She makes no reply in Marlowe's play. In fact, |
| 0:52.2 | she doesn't speak once in the play. It is almost as though the world's |
| 0:56.1 | most beautiful woman is slightly more desirable to some men if she is essentially mute. Although, |
| 1:02.7 | of course, she is the daughter of a swan, so maybe that runs in the family. Specifically, |
| 1:07.4 | she is the daughter of L-E-D-A, not L-A-A-D-R, and Zeus, King of the Gods. |
| 1:13.2 | Zeus famously impregnates leader, having taken on the form of a swan. |
| 1:18.2 | Now, this is odd even by the standards of Greek myth, because I don't want to shock you, Radio 4, |
| 1:24.7 | with confidences from my floor, but I've had sex with quite a few people |
| 1:29.8 | and I have never wished that any of them had more feathers. It is, no one's yearned for a beak. |
| 1:34.9 | It is such a niche idea that you'll be more attractive as a swan and as a regular human person |
| 1:41.9 | slash God. It's a little strange. It's an incredibly popular scene, though, with visual artists through history. So, for example, a fresco was uncovered in Pompeii a couple of years ago, in which Zeus and leader, well, he is, he's quite peevish, actually, as sw she looks a little bit you know like she might regret |
| 2:01.7 | the whole affair as you have to assume she does uh it was presented to us by archaeologists |
| 2:07.1 | this must be in a bedroom because it's an erotic fresco and you're like well i'm not sure we |
... |
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