i just finished reading the Menelaiad the other day because thank Gods @menelaiad was really annoyingly adamant about it being a masterpiece and i am absolutely ?? flabbergasted?? that this work isnt more recognised and acknowledged in the HCU circles?? like what do you mean some american guy who lived in the 60s had a better grasp on menelaus' character and his relationship with helen than emily wilson and half the classicists alive today? rip homer and euripides you would've loved the menelaiad
like my mouth was on the floooor from the very first page "she's the death of me and my peculiar immortality" duuuuude "your wife was leagues and years away, mine but an arms-length, yet less near" the yearning? the desperation? the borderline pathetic worship and devotion? "if aeneas aphrodite's son couldn't stick her, how should i, a mere near mortal?"
the way he goes from "this offer wont stand forever" to "therefore come to bed my equal, uncursing, uncursed" to "forgive me" and that's still not enough because it's not about her, it's about him
the repetition of the why? why? why? WHY? throughout the whole story that gets more and more desperate every single time. the way nobody has an answer for him. the way he asks PARIS this question when he first visits them. the way he doesn't ask why she went with the other, he asks why him, why menelaus in the first place.
"i don't ask why she went with you, he paused to say, but tell me, as i spear you: did Helen ever mention while you clipped and tumbled, how she happened to choose me in the first place?" is INSAAAANE, john barth is absolutely insane for this and yet this is the only thing i've ever read that makes sense.
less something that any of the other suitors, etcetera. the way he will accept an answer of "i judged you least likely to distract me from my lovers" or "what one seeks in the husband way is a good provider, gentle companion, fit father" but he won't accept the answer "love" because he can't comprehend it.
the way the oracle tells him "no other can as well espouse her" and he has no idea what that means. the way he keeps asking everyone over and over again and then the entire trojan war is written as an answer to that question. he doesn't find the answer, he makes it. the way outsmarted Odysseys, unsmocked Achilles, mustered Agamemnon all tell him "let her go" and he says "can't" and they tell him" to kill her "she must die" and he drops the sword and takes her to the ship instead, and isn't that precisely the proof of "no other can as well espouse her"?
"you ask too many questions. not Athena, but Aphrodite is your besetter. Helen chose you without reason because she loves you without cause; embrace her without questions and watch yoru weather change" and so he finally embraces it with "i believe all. i understand nothing. i love you" he finally GETS it without understanding it.
and this is such an insane approach to their story because it's always about HELEN, it's about whether she cheated or not, it's about Paris and Aphrodite taking her, it's about whether she can be forgiven; but here it reverses their roles - this isn't Helen's war, it's Menelaus', it's his chance to prove to himself that he IS worthy of her, it's his change to find the non-existing answer to his eternal WHY. we don't ask Why Paris, we ask Why Menelaus? Helen's abduction is not Aphrodite's punishment - it's her gift to him, to come to terms with himself and their relationship. this is NOT a test of Helen's loyalty, it's a test of Menelaus' love.
and then it ends with "not fair-haired battleshouts or people-leadering preserves you, but forasmuch as and only that you are beloved of Helen, they count you immortal as themselves" - it is not war that saves him, it is love. it is doing precisely everything they all tell him not to. it is trusting blindly. it's accepting himself. because as Helen puts it, "it's being loved that kills" and "do you love me to punish me for loving you?"
and that is why Menelaus is the eternal husband.
