The Power Paradox

Federico Brooks

Professor Carrico

GSI: Jerilyn Sambrooke

October 7, 2016

The Power Paradox

            In the “Encomium of Helen” Gorgias is writing two speeches in one: the first is his explicit attempt to exonerate infamous Helen of Troy from the accuse of causing the war. The second, and consequent to the first, is to display the power of rhetoric to an interested audience. For the purpose of this précis, I will focus on section 4 and the beginning of section 6 of this epideictic speech, as translated by Brian R. Donovan. The sections go as follows:

(4) Born of such parentage, she had godlike beauty, which having received she not inconspicuously retained. She produced the greatest erotic desires in most men. For one body many bodies of men came together, men greatly purposing great things, of whom some possessed great wealth, some the glory of ancient and noble lineage, some the vigor of personal strength, and others the power of acquired cleverness. And they were all there together out of contentious love and unconquerable ambition.

(6) Either by the wishes of Fortune and plans of the gods and decrees of Necessity she did what she did, or abducted by force, or persuaded by speeches, <or conquered by Love>. (Gorgias, Encomium of Helen, sections 4 and 6).

More precisely, the element that will be analyzed within these sections is one: the controversial power attributed to Helen through her objectification and how it shapes the argumentative vantage point of the author.

From the beginning of the speech, the passivity of Helen is unquestioned. she is in each case only a victim of circumstance; helpless against Gods, Strength, Love, and Language. If her position was one of an evildoer in the past, Gorgias is now further reducing it to a neutral idle: incapable of evil because incapable of any action. As the speech progresses the author is actively boiling down the human attributes of Helen, by going through many of the things that we share as humans – spirituality, physical strength, passions of the soul, and language (section 6) - and explicitly depriving her from a choice in their regards.

In section 4, Gorgias mentions the one power that Helen can still possess: beauty. But seemingly unhappy with it, he uses the litotes in the first sentence to trivialize its importance; speaking of a beauty that ‘having received she not inconspicuously retained.’ The phrase could in fact translate into: a beauty, which ‘having received, she not not conspicuously retained.’ The use of a double negative and words such as ‘receiving' and ‘retaining' suggest a great deal about the frame in which he posits Helen. This is a reiteration of her role of passive victim, as her beauty is not hers to own and it is merely the product of her divine parentage, and her only responsibility to passively retain it.

The language that he uses when describing men and women is so evidently different to almost verge on sarcasm. The parallel structure where men are ‘greatly purposing great things’ and most even possessed ‘great wealth’, ‘glory of (…) noble lineage’, ‘vigor of personal strength’ and ‘power of acquired cleverness’ enables the combination of this wealth, lineage, and strength to transform fragile words like ‘love’ and ‘ambition’ to be ‘contentious’ and ‘unconquerable’ when speaking about men. The expressive way in which Gorgias attributes masculine traits to men and the extensive use of strong adjectives and repetitions create a sense of disparity between the two genders. While Helen’s only active role is that of inspiring erotic desires in men, the same are portrayed ‘greatly purposing great things’.

 After laying out the fundamental, merely logical and pragmatic arguments first, Gorgias divides section six with the diacope ‘she did what she did,’ thereby accentuating three more powers that could have coerced her: the negative power of physical ‘force’ on one side; the positive and metaphysical ‘love’ on the other, and in the middle, rhetoric: the tool that can be applied to either. It is exactly the double nature of rhetoric that finally gains center stage on the podium, as it can be used both to abduct Helen from her home through force or exonerate her from all blame through love, thus reducing the beautiful Helen, to Gorgias’ plaything, again.