Zeus came to Leda as a swan and seduced her, causing her to lay an egg which contained Helen. Helen was born on the same day as her brother Polydeuces, and her half siblings Castor and Clytaemnestra, whose father was Leda’s husband Tyndareus, King of Sparta. Helen and Polydeuces, being children of Zeus, were immortal, whereas Castor and Clytaemnestra had a mortal father and were therefore mortal themselves. All four lived with their mother and Tyndareus in Sparta.

Another possibility is that Helen was the daughter of the goddess Nemesis, who had turned herself into a goose to escape the amorous advances of Zeus. He in turn became a swan and mated with her. She abandoned her egg, which was found by Spartan farmers and turned over to Leda, who raised Helen as her own child.

When Helen was between ten and twelve years old, she caused her first war. Theseus, the King of Athens, fell in love with her beauty, kidnapped her, raped her, and took her to Aphidnae, a village in Attica. Her brothers raised an army and marched on Athens to rescue their sister. There they found out where she was being held. When they arrived at Aphidnae, a local hero named Titacus handed the village over to the brothers. They recovered their sister and her daughter Iphigenia, and took them back to Sparta. Helen turned her daughter over to be raised by her sister Clytaemnestra.

A few years later the time came for Helen to be married. Many suitors came to Sparta from all over Greece. Her stepfather Tyndareus feared that the suitors would fight amongst themselves or even go to war with each other. Advised by Odysseus, he caused the suitors to swear an oath to protect and support whomever he chose as Helen’s husband.

Tyndareus chose Menelaus, who became King of Sparta after Tyndareus died. The couple lived peacefully and happily together for about a decade.

All that changed when a young Trojan prince named Paris came to Sparta. Paris was the youngest son of King Priam of Troy. Soon after he was born, his mother Hecuba had a prophetic dream that Paris would be the cause of the destruction of Troy. Hoping to avert the prophesy, his father banned him to Mount Ida, where he grew up making a living as a shepherd. There he was approached by Zeus who asked him to judge a beauty contest between his wife Hera, and his daughters Athena and Aphrodite. When Paris couldn’t make up his mind, the three goddesses offered him bribes. Hera offered him power, Athena offered him wisdom, and Aphrodite offered him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris liked Aphrodite’s bribe best, and so declared her the winner of the contest.

Paris traveled to Sparta to claim his reward. There are two different versions of how he managed to win Helen. Homer states in the Iliad that Paris seduced her, Euripides asserts in his play Helen that Paris abducted her against her will. He took her to Troy where they lived in the royal palace.

Meanwhile Menelaus called upon Helen’s former suitors to honor their oath and assist him with retrieving his wife. An alliance was formed, and the Spartans and their allies set sail towards Troy. King Priam refused to return Helen to Menelaus. This decision caused the Trojan War.

After ten years of siege, Paris killed Achilles, and was in turn killed a short time later by Philoctetes. Helen was forced into marriage by Paris’ brother Deiphobus. On several occasions, she tried to escape to join the Spartan forces, but was caught each time. A short time later, Troy was infiltrated by Odysseus and a small force of men, who had hidden in a large wooden horse which the Trojans had been tricked into towing into their city. They opened the gates, and Troy was defeated. Menelaus retrieved his wife and took her back to Sparta.

Euripides and Homer also differ on the manner of Helen’s last years. According to Euripides, Menelaus and Helen traveled for eight years until they finally returned to Sparta, only to find that Orestes had just killed Clytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. When Menelaus refused to help Orestes to escape in order not to be executed for his crime, Orestes tried to kill Helen. She was taken to Olympus by Apollo, where she sat with Hera and Hebe to be worshipped as a goddess.

Homer’s Odyssey tells that Menelaus and Helen were living quite happily together after their return to Sparta. After Menelaus died, Helen was banned from Sparta. She went to Rhodes to live with her friend, Polyxo, the widow of Tlepolemus, who had died in battle during the Trojan War. Polyxo avenged her husband by having Helen hanged from a tree by some of her servants. After her death on Earth, she either lived with Achilles on the White Isle, or spent eternity with Menelaus in the Elysian Fields after he had been made immortal by Hera.