ABSTRACT
Another account of Helen’s birth makes her a daughter of Zeus and the goddess Nemesis (because she brought misfortune). Nemesis avoided Zeus’ attentions and took the form of a goose, whereupon Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduced her. In a grove at Sparta she laid an egg, which shepherds found and took to Leda, King Tyndareos’ wife. When Helen was hatched, Leda brought her up as her own. But the usual story is that it was with Leda herself that Zeus had intercourse, in the guise of a swan. Helen’s brothers were Castor and Polydeuces, the Dioscuri, and her sister was Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra. It was sometimes believed that, whereas Castor and Clytemnestra had Tyndareos as their father and were therefore mortal, Polydeuces and Helen were Zeus’ children and immortal. Again, Leda is sometimes said to have laid two eggs, one containing the mortal and the other the immortal pair. In some stories Helen eventually died, but there was also a tradition, known to Homer, that Menelaus, when the hour of his death came, was admitted to Elysium simply because she was his wife.
