ABSTRACT
A refusal to go with Paris and to comply with Aphrodite’s order is not, however, characteristic of the shameless Helen who had wantonly deserted husband, hearth, and child in order to go with the handsome Trojan. In each of Helen’s appearances in the Iliad, she mentions her marriage and the shame involved in the marriage to Paris and regrets her past action. The particular discourse of the funeral lament, then, could have introduced the shame that is such a prominent part of Helen’s character in the Iliad. Helen begins by describing how she is related to Hektor, the very relationship that makes her the object of scorn, and she expresses a wish that she had died before she went with Paris. Helen, using speech that resembles both the blame and the self-awareness that are integral to lament, expresses both the shame and the nemesis about her own deeds in her own speeches.
