SOURCE: "The Duality of Helen," in Helen: Myth, Legend, and the Culture of Misogyny, Continuum, 1995, pp. 49-69.

In the following essay, Meagher examines the depiction of women as both goddesses and humans in Greek mythology, specifically in Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days. Meagher notes the ways in which Hesiod subverts earlier oral traditions, in which women were birth goddesses and creators rather than (as in Olympian myths) created by male gods to bring misery and death to human men.

The many facets and faces of Helen have come down to two. The one is bright, provoking desire and joy. The other is dark, provoking hatred and grief. The relationship and balance between these two, however, remains to be examined. To minds like the Greeks', noted for critical reasoning, committed to ratio and proportion, unresolved dualism is no better than an unanswered question. Besides, the poetic and political...