"My heart tells me
to come right out and say I’ve never seen such a likeness,
neither in man nor woman – I’m amazed at the sight.
To the life he’s like the son of great Odysseus,
surely he’s Telemachus! The boy that hero left
a babe in arms at home when all you Achaeans
fought at Troy, launching your headlong battles
just for my sake, shameless whore that I was."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 155-162. Helen is looking at Telemachus, who is crying at the loss of his father. She immediately recognizes the similarity between between Telemachus and Odysseus. Helen describes herself as a "shameless whore" fought for by the Achaeans who waged a ten-year war when she was abducted by Paris of Troy. This speaks to the power of someone regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful women and great sexual icon.