PHIL 211 South University Gorgias Encomium to Helen Discussion This discussion is based on “Helen of Troy” GORGIAS’ DEFENSE OF HELEN Set aside the very

PHIL 211 South University Gorgias Encomium to Helen Discussion This discussion is based on “Helen of Troy”

GORGIAS’ DEFENSE OF HELEN

Set aside the very interesting rhetorical features of Gorgias’ “Encomium to Helen”, and treat it only as an argument about Helen’s guilt or innocence. How does Gorgias propose rehabilitating Helen? How successful is he in doing so?

PERSUASION, CAUSATION, AND RESPONSIBILITY

Aside from the second possibility that Gorgias proposes i.e. that Paris kidnapped Helen and tossed her into the boat bound for Troy – a possibility occasionally entertained in the ancient world – do any of the arguments sketched by Gorgias help in getting Helen off the hook of responsibility? Do they not succeed at all? Do they help but don’t quite do the trick perfectly, or what? All of them? Some of them? None of them? one should rightly be held responsible: it is impossible to prevent a
god’s predetermination by human premeditation, since by nature the
stronger force is not prevented by the weaker but the weaker is ruled
and driven by the stronger; the stronger leads, the weaker follows. But
god is stronger than man in force and in wisdom and in other ways. If,
therefore, by fate and god the cause had been decreed, Helen must of
all disgrace be freed.
But if she was seized by force and illegally assaulted and
unjustly insulted, it is clear that the assailant as insulter did the wrong
and the assailed as insulted suffered wrongly. It is right for the
barbarian who laid barbarous hands on her by word and deed to meet
with blame in word, disenfranchisement in law, and punishment in
deed, while she who was seized and deprived of her country and
bereft of her friends,—how should she not be pitied rather than
pilloried? He did dread deeds; she suffered them. Her it is just to pity;
him to hate.
But if speech persuaded her and deceived her soul, not even
to this is it difficult to make an answer and to banish blame, as follows.
Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible
body accomplishes god-like works. It can banish fear and remove
grief and instill pleasure and enhance pity. I shall show how this is so.
It is necessary for it to seem so as well in the opinion of my hearers.
All poetry I regard and name as speech having metre. On those who
hear it come fearful shuddering and tearful pity and grievous longing
as the soul, through words, experiences some experience of its own
and others’ good fortune and ill fortune. Listen as I turn from one
argument to another.
Divine sweetness transmitted through words is inductive of
pleasure, reductive of pain. Thus by entering into the opinion of the
soul the force of incantation is wont to beguile and persuade and alter
it by witchcraft, and the two arts of witchcraft and magic are errors of
the soul and deceivers of opinion. How many speakers on how many
subject have persuaded others and continue to persuade by molding
false speech? If everyone, on every subject, had memory of the past
and knowledge of the present and foresight of the future, speech
would not do what it does, but as things are it is easy neither to
remember the past nor consider the present nor predict the future; so
that on most subjects most people take opinion as counselor to the
soul. But opinion, being slippery and insecure, casts those relying on
it into slippery and insecure fortune. What is there to prevent the
Gorgias: Encomium to Helen
(Proeminon) Fairest ornament to a city is a goodly army and to
a body beauty and to a soul wisdom and to an action virtue and to
speech truth, but their opposites are unbefitting. Man and woman and
speech and deed and city and object should be honored with praise if
praiseworthy, but on the unworthy blame should be laid; for it is equal
error and ignorance to blame the praiseworthy and to praise the
blameworthy. It is the function of a single speaker both to prove the
needful rightly and to disprove the wrongly spoken. Thus I shall refute
those who rebuke Helen, a woman about whom there is univocal and
unanimous testimony among those who have believed the poet, and
whose ill-omened name has become a memorial of disasters. I wish
by giving some logic to language to free the accused of blame and to
show that her critics are lying and to demonstrate the truth and to put
an end to ignorance.
[Narration] Now that by nature and birth the woman who is the
subject of this speech was preeminent among preeminent men and
women, this is not unclear, not even to a few. For it is clear that Leda
was her mother, the latter Tyndareus, the former Zeus; and of these
the one seemed her father because he was and the other was
disproved because he was only said to be; and one was the greatest
of men, the other the lord of all. Born from such parents she
possessed god-like beauty, which getting and not forgetting she
preserved. On many did she work the greatest passions of love, and
by her one body she brought together many bodies of men greatly
minded for great deeds. Some had the greatness of wealth, some the
glory of ancient noblesse, some the vigor of personal prowess, some
the power of acquired knowledge. And all came because of a passion
that loved conquest and a love of honor that was unconquered. who
he was and why and how he (Paris) sailed away taking Helen as his
love, I shall not say; for to tell the knowing what they know is
believable but not enjoyable. Having now exceeded the time already
allotted for my introduction, I shall now proceed to my intended speech
and shall propose the causes for which Helen’s voyage to Troy was
likely to have taken place.
[Proposition] For by Fate’s will and gods wishes and
Necessity’s decrees she did what she did, or by force reduced, or by
words seduced, or by love induced.
[Proof] Now if for the first reason (the gods), the responsible
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conclusion that Helen too, when still young, was carried off by speech
just as if constrained by force? Her mind was swept away by
persuasion, and persuasion has the same power as necessity,
although it may bring shame. For speech, by persuading the soul it
persuaded, constrained her body to obey what was said and to
approve what was done. The persuader, as user of force, did wrong;
the persuaded, forced by speech, is unreasonably blamed. To
understand that persuasion, joining with speech, is wont to stamp the
soul as it wishes one must study, first, the words of astronomers who,
substituting opinion for opinion, removing one and instilling another,
make incredible and unclear things appear true to the eyes of opinion
[e.g.; by demonstrating that the world is round]; second, forceful
speeches in public debate, where one side of an argument pleases a
large crowd and persuades by being written with art even though not
spoken with the truth; third, the verbal wrangling of philosophers in
which too a swiftness of thought is exhibited, making confidence in
opinion easily changed. The power of speech has the same effect on
the condition of the soul as the application of drugs to the state of
bodies, for just as different drugs dispel different fluids from the body,
and some bring an end to disease but other end life, so also some
speeches cause pain, some pleasure, some fear; some instill courage,
some drug and bewitch the soul with a kind of evil persuasion.
Thus it has been explained that if she was persuaded by
speech she did no wrong but was unfortunate. I shall now go on to
the fourth cause in a fourth discourse. If it was love that did these
things it will not be difficult to escape the charge of error that is
alleged. For we see not what we wish but what each of us has
experienced: through sight the soul is stamped in diverse ways.
Whenever men at war, enemy against enemy, buckle up in the
armaments of bronze and iron, whether in defense or offense, when
their sight beholds the scene it is alarmed and causes alarm in the
soul, so that often they flee in terror from future danger as though it
were present. Obedience to law is strongly brought home by fear
derived from sight which, coming upon people, made them desire both
what is judged seemly by law and thought good by the mind, but as
soon as they have seen terrible sights they abandon the thought of the
moment. Thus discipline is extinguished and fear drives out the
concept. Many fall victim to imaginary diseases and dreadful pains
and hard-to-cure mental aberrations; thus does sight engrave on the
images of things seen. Many many terrors remain, and those that
remain are very like things that have been said. Moreover, whenever
pictures of many colors and figures create a perfect image of a single
figure and form they delight the sight. How much does the production
of statues and the workmanship of artifacts furnish pleasurable sight to
the eyes! Thus it is natural for the sight sometimes to grieve,
sometimes to delight. Much love and desire for many objects is
created in many minds. If then the eye of Helen, pleased by the body
of Alexander (Paris), gave to her soul an eagerness and response in
love, what wonder? If love, a god, prevails over the divine power of
the gods, how could a lesser one be able to reject and refuse it? But if
love is a human disease and an ignorance of the soul it should not be
blamed as a mistake but regarded as a misfortune. For she (Helen)
went (with Paris) caught by the nets around her soul, not by the
wishes of her mind, and by the necessity of love, not by the devices of
art.
[Epilogue] How then can blame of Helen be thought just?
Whether she did what she did by falling in love or persuaded by
speech or seized by violence or forced by divine necessity, she is
completely acquitted. By speech I have removed disgrace from a
woman. I have abided by the principle I posed at the start of my
speech: I have tried to refute the injustice of defamation and the
ignorance of allegation. I wished to write a speech that would be
Helen’s celebration and my own recreation.
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