Helen

The final section opens with another choral ode (1391-1459), though this one is rather more confusing than the previous ode, largely unhinged from the content of the play and focusing instead on the Demeter/Persephone myths. After the ode, the play’s narrative resumes with a short monologue from Helen, assuring the audience that the preparations for her plan have gone well. After Menelaos and Theoklymenos enter the scene, Helen not only manages to secure the promise of a ship for the funeral rite, but also gets Theoklymenos to instruct his men to obey Menelaos (here posing as merely a castaway Greek sailor). Once the king has left the stage, Helen and Menelaos put out to sea in their ship, and this is the last the audience sees of them. Their exit is accompanied by a final choral ode, in which the Chorus wishes them a good journey and future blessings back in Greece.

Theoklymenos comes back on stage, there to be met by a messenger, one of the sailors he had sent off in Helen’s ship for the funeral rite.