Tag: Helen

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy (in Greek, Ἑλένη – Helénē), also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda (or Nemesis), step-daughter of King Tyndareus, wife of Menelaus and sister of Castor, Polydeuces and Clytemnestra. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War.
The etymology of Helen’s name has been a problem to scholars until the present. Georg Curtius related Helen (Ἑλένη) to the moon (Selene Σελήνη). Émile Boisacq considered Ἑλένη from the noun ἐλένη meaning “torch”. It has also been suggested that the λ of Ἑλένη arose from an original ν, and thus the etymology of the name is connected with the root of Venus. Linda Lee Clader points out however that none of the above suggestions offers much satisfaction.
If the name has an Indo-European etymology, it is possibly a suffixed form of a root *wel- “to turn, roll”, or of *sel- “to flow, run”. The latter possibility would allow comparison to the Vedic Sanskrit Saraṇyū, a character who is abducted in…