ver, Helen was not an innocent pawn in this battle but was an adulteress, not the captive of Paris-Alexander but the willing participant in her own abduction. there is no atonement possible for Paris, and Menelaus wants only to be avenged. He prays to Zeus for just that:
But Helen received no punishment, and scarcely any reproach. She ended her days back in Sparta, administering magical drugs obtained in Egypt, interpreting omens, and participating in the life of the palace much like Arete and not like a proper Greek woman.
Aphrodite was made explicitly responsible for Helen. In the early passages of The Iliad, Paris and Menelaus were fighting with one another, and Paris was very near to defeat and the end of his life when Aphrodite snatched him up and covered him with a heavy mist, setting him down then in his incense-filled chamber. Aphrodite then ordered Helen to go to him. Helen at first refused because just before this, the divine messenger Iris had filled Helen's heart with a yearning for her husband and home. However, Aphrodite was not to be denied and frightened Helen so that the women did go to Paris in his chamber:
The impasse in which Helen was plac
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