I'm John Bachelors with Professor Emily Wilson. Her new work is a translation into English

iamic pentameter of the Iliad by Homer and we're now looking at

inside the story we've been outside in the historical Troy we've talked about the

translations inside are characters that are vivid once you

understand their relationships. I said this is like a novel and professor, because I think like a novelist sometimes, I've paired these characters

for us to go through the Dramatous persona.

And most important at everybody hears about is Helen.

Helen and Paris Alexander, the abduction of Paris.

But Helen was also related to Menelaeus.

That was her husband back in Kia.

So the relationship of Paris and Helen,

you obliged me in your note-taking to pay great attention to it.

And it is a rough relationship. taking to pay great attention to it.

And it is a rough relationship.

Helen is an ironic thinker when she's apart from Paris.

What do we need to know about Paris?

That fascinated me, that Helen understood him as her fate right now but not forever

absolutely yes I mean according to the legends of of course, Paris is not going to survive the Trojan War and Helen's going to be married after someone else before eventually rejoining her ex-husband Menelaeus back in Sparta, which is where we find

her in the Odyssey. Helen is an extraordinary character in the Iliad because she has this perspective

on the whole sequence of events of which she's apart. We see her weaving, which is the common

activity for elite women in the Homeric poems, is they're always weaving. But Helen

's weaving is different because she's doing representational weaving of the

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