Euripide´s Helen

a matter of identity

Abstract

The present study has aim of throw some lights on the discussion of Euripides’ Helen, presented in Athens on 412 b. C. Considered as an episodic play, Helen presents some modifications in its structure made by Euripides that would have caused some influence in the last Sophoclean plays such as Philoctetes or Oidupus at Colonus. The study is mainly centered in the recognition scene between Helen (who has not gone to Troy as normally supposed, but is in Egypt, safe and intact) and her husband, Menelaus, who comes from Troy, bringing in the boat an “image” whose name is also Helen, that, at the proper time, vanishes “as smoke”. At the end of the play, wife and husband, allied in a deceiving plan, scape from the “barbarian” Egypt, and go back home safely. So the ambiguity of the name of Helen is fulfilled.