The Encomium of Helen: What it’s Like When Gorgian Sophistry Actually Sort of Works
I am a graduate student in the era of COVID-19. The majority of my writing nowadays exists for/because of the two seminars I’m taking: Greek Tragedy and The Films of Stanley Kubrick. So, I offer my thoughts and musings to you, people of Medium, who may be interested.
During the second week of school, I completed my readings out of order: first the theory, next the plays. With all of Simon Critchley’s explanation of Sophist argument and antilogia alongside Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen,” I read The Trojan Women by Euripides and found myself in awe of Helen’s self-defense, her anachronistic Gorgian testimony. Critchley says that “Helen seems to follow the precise line of defense that was prepared for her by Gorgias,” and it is against this statement that I read her speech (Critchley, 117).
First, Helen absolves herself of blame by placing responsibility with Hecuba and Paris, for without Hecuba birthing Paris and without Paris judging a contest between the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, none of the ensuing trouble would have occurred. Here is when she begins to adopt Gorgias’ argument: “Consider // What followed from that: Aphrodite won. // I married Paris, and Greece reaped the benefit” (Euripides, lines 1077–79). In other words, she is blameless because of “the will of the Fate // and the wishes of the Gods // and the votes of Necessity” (Gorgias, page 78).
Though the once-living Gorgias did not of course confer with the mythological Helen prior to her self-defense, it is interesting to see Critchley’s theory about the connected nature of Gorgias’ rhetoric and that of Euripidean tragedy in action — the way that this particular character engages in persuasive rhetoric and performs a role reversal of enemy and lover. Euripides’ tragic language shows that, indeed, the weaker can become the stronger if a good enough argument is made.
Helen goes on to another of Gorgias’ points, referring to herself as “more slave // Than bride” (Euripides, lines 1114–1115). The latter defends Helen with a similar argument, stating clearly that if Helen were forced into this marriage and raped violently, outraged unjustly, that the one in the wrong would be Paris, and that Helen’s role as “the raped, as the outraged” means that she’s suffered enough already (Gorgias, 79).
One aspect that I am drawn to in this comparison is the context of each of these arguments. (Here I ask you to suspend disbelief and consider Helen a real person, as once-alive as Gorgias.) I am interested in how completely believable her self-defense is, and therefore Gorgias’ of her would be if he had left out the part about “Encomium” being just an amusement.
Don’t you believe her? In the context of a court of law, wouldn’t you believe her?
Without evidence to argue otherwise — here I ignore Hecuba’s reproach, in part because she engages in a blasphemy that goes un-countered when she says Aphrodite is merely the name of lust run wild, in part because to analyze this would send me wildly over the word count — Helen makes many fair points. Note that she has already absolved herself quite thoroughly in the beginning of her speech, explaining how in every outcome of the goddess’ beauty contest, Greece loses, and then continuing through her Sophist argument with counterpoints included. Several times throughout her speech, she anticipates how Menelaus will receive her and surmounts those points with further logical explanation. She assesses her own situation and evokes the gods multiple times.
I read through it thrice and despite my conditioning by Hecuba, the Chorus, and Andromache, I still believe Helen; I don’t want her to die.
For any reason provided by Gorgias or brought up by Helen, all she actually did was get remarried. The Greeks didn’t have to fight a war to get her back; she pushed the first domino and didn’t realize she was playing a game.
All that to say, I was thoroughly convinced by Helen’s self-defense, and even though Gorgias’ “Encomium” was a jest to prove how persuasive his speech could be, it worked on me.
What does that say about me, if I am on Helen’s side at the end of this?
(References texts: Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us by Simon Critchley, “The Encomium of Helen” by Gorgias, The Trojan Women by Euripides)
