Helen - Mythology.

Helen - Mythology. Greek Daughter of Zeus and Leda, said to have been born from an egg, since Zeus came to Leda and mated with her disguised as a swan. Often called Helen of Troy, Helen was in fact from Sparta. She was the sister of the Dioscuri (Castor and Polydeuces) and of Clytemnestra. She became the wife of Menelaus, king of Troy. Helen was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, a symbol of womanly beauty. Her abduction by the Trojan prince Paris was a leading cause of the Trojan War. There are varying accounts of the end of Helen. Some say that after the fall of Troy she was reconciled with her husband, Menelaus. Others say that she married Deiphobus, that she was hanged by a vengeful queen, or that she hanged herself from a tree. She was venerated as a goddess of beauty on the island of Rhodes in the eastern Mediterranean under the name Dendritis (Tree). It seems likely that Helen was an ancient goddess of fertility in Laconia, which may account for the halfhuman, halfdivine stories that feature her.