DIDACTIC HELEN: OVID'S PRAECEPTRIX AND EURPIDEAN PROTO-ELEGY

Victim, agitator, seductress, lover, beloved--Helen has played every one of these roles. One under-studied role, however, is Helen as praeceptrix amoris, the erudite teacher of the arts of love. Ovid, well known for purportedly being the masculine version of this title, constructs Helen in his image in Heroides 17 especially. Yet Ovid is not the only author who fashions Helen as an alter ego; Euripides creates the lead character in the Helen as a female version of his own role as creator and potentially even a "director" of the stage-action. Each of these Helens has a similar purpose: she must teach her lover how to behave more appropriately in the service of love.