Eἰ καλὸν τὸ δυστυχές: the ‘newʼ Helen’s beauty from Stesichorus to Euripides

It was probably born in Western Greece the Palinode by Stesichorus, one of the most controversial works of the archaic Greek literature because of an ʻalternativeʼ narration of the Helen’s abduction famous episode. The meagreness of surviving fragments does not allow us to say anything sure about the role of the woman’s celebrated beauty in the poem, which, however, certainly provided the basis for Euripides’ masterful revision in the Helen. Eἰ καλὸν τὸ δυστυχές: when in the prologue, line 27, Helen says these lapidary words, it is the beginning of a shocking rework of a mythical character whom the literary the tradition, as well as Euripides’ tragedy itself, had canonized as the ἀρχὴ κακῶν. By means of a lexical and thematic analysis of the several references to beauty in the Helen, this paper has the purpose to highlight the significance of the euripidean revolution, whereby τὸ καλόν is not just the exterior aspect anymore, but it acquires a philosophical meaning as the reason of scission between being and appearing, between fame and reality. So, despite the clear intertextuality, exactly the role entrusted to τὸ καλόν expresses the remarkable gap separating Stesichorus’ poem and Euripides’ tragedy, the first one originated by the the requirements of the poet’s likely Locrian or Crotonian audience, the second one well integrated in the historical and cultural season of the 5th century end and in the ultimate Euripides’ artistic experimentalism.