Chapter XXXIX: Section VI: Hele

The sun-god who drove his flaming chariot around the heavenly vault day by day, and whose eye beheld everything throughout the earth, was in Homer’s time an entirely different personage from the “far darting Apollo,” with whom, thanks to the Romans, we confound him.

Helios was his name, a word from the root _elé_ (light), the same that has furnished the Teutonic adjective _hell_ (bright or clear), and that is met again in the Keltic _heol_ (the sun).

This root ele (heat or light) is found again in the Greek name of the moon, Sēēlēnē once a separate goddess from Artemis. One of the Cleopatras was called Selene; but it does not appear that this was used again as a name till in the last century, when Selina was adopted in England, probably by mistake, for the French Céline, and belonged to the Wesleyan Countess of Huntingdon.

From ēlē again sprang the name most of all noted among Greeks, the fatal name of Ἑλένε, Helene, the feminine of Helenos (the light or bright), though Æschylus, playing on the word, made it ἑλένας (the ship-destroying).

“Wherefore else this fatal name,
That Helen and destruction are the same.”

A woman may be a proverb for any amount of evil or misfortune, but as long as she is also a proverb for beauty, her name will be copied, and Helena never died away in Greece, and latterly was copied by Roman ladies when they first became capable of a little variety.

At last it was borne by the lady who was the wife of Constantius Chlorus, the mother of Constantine, and the restorer of the shrines at Jerusalem. St. Helena, holding the true cross, was thenceforth revered by East and West. Bithynia on the one hand, Britain on the other, laid claim to have been her birth-place, and though it is unfortunately most likely that the former country is right, and that she can hardly be the daughter of “Old King Cole,” yet it is certain that the ancient Britons held her in high honour. Eglwys Ilan, the Church of Helen, still exists in Wales, and the insular Kelts have always made great use of her name. Ellin recurs in old Welsh pedigrees from the Empress’s time. Elayne is really the old Cambrian form occurring in registers from early times, and thus explaining the gentle lady Elayne, the mother of Sir Galahad, whom Tennyson has lately identified with his own spinning Lady of Shalott. Helen, unfortunately generally pronounced Ellen, was used from the first in Scotland; Eileen or Aileen in Ireland.

Nor are these Keltic Ellens the only offspring of the name. Elena in Italy, it assumed the form of Aliénor among the Romanesque populations of Provence, who, though speaking a Latin tongue, greatly altered and disguised the words. Indeed there are some who derive this name from έλεος (pity), but there is much greater reason to suppose it another variety of Helena, not more changed than many other Provençal names. Aliénor in the land of troubadours received all the homage that the Languedoc could pay, and one Aliénor at least was entirely spoilt by it, namely, she who was called Eléonore by the French king who had the misfortune to marry her, and who became in time on English lips our grim Eleanor of the dagger and the bowl, the hateful Aquitainian grandmother, who bandies words with Constance of Brittany in _King John_. Her daughter, a person of far different nature, carried her name to Castille, where, the language being always disposed to cut off a commencing _e_, she was known as Leonor, and left hosts of namesakes. Her descendant, the daughter of San Fernando, brought the name back to England, and, as our “good Queen Eleanor,” did much to redeem its honour, which the levity of her mother-in-law, the Provençal Aliénor of Henry III., had greatly prejudiced. Eleanor continued to be a royal name as long as the Plantagenets were on the throne, and thus was widely used among the nobility, and afterwards by all ranks, when of course it lost its proper spelling and was turned into Ellinor and Elinor, still, however, owning its place in song and story. Annora, frequent in Northern England, was the contraction of Eleanora, and was further contracted into Annot. Also Ellen was Lina, or Linot.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ Greek. │ Latin. │ English. │ Scotch. │
│Ἑλένη │Helena │Helena │Helen │
│ │ │Helen │Ellen │
│ │ │Elaine │ │
│ │ │Ellen │ │
│Ἑλένἰσκη │ │Eleanor │ │
│ │ │Elinor │ │
│ │ │Nelly │ │
│Ἑλεναιαι │ │Leonora │ │
│ │ │Annora │ │
│ │ │Annot │ │
│ │ │Lina │ │
│ │ │Linot │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Irish. │ German. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │
│Helena │Helène │Elena │Helena │
│ │ │ │ │
│Eileen │Eleonore │Eleonora │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│Nelly │Lenore │Leonora │Leon │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Russian. │ Polish. │ Slavonic. │ Servian. │
│Jelena │Helena │Jelena │Jelena │
│ │Helenka │Jela │Jela │
│ │ │Jelena │Jelika │
│ │ │Jela │ │
│ │ │Jelika │ │
│ │ │Lenka │ │
│ │ │Lencica │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Lett. │ Esthonian. │ Ung. │ Albanian. │
│Lena │Leno │Ilona │ │
│ │ │Ljena │ │
│ │ │Lenia │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Meantime the Arragonese conquests in Italy had brought Leonora thither as a new name independent of Elena, and it took strong root there, still preserving its poetic fame in the person of the lovely Leonora d'Este, the object of Tasso’s hopeless affection. To France again it came with the Galigai, the Maréchale d'Ancre, the author of the famous saying about the power of a strong mind over a weak one; and unpopular as she was, Léonore has ever since been recognized in French nomenclature, and it went to Germany as Lenore.

The Greek Church was constant to the memory of the Empress, mother of the founder of Constantinople, and Helena has always been frequent there. And when the royal widow Olga came from Muscovy to seek instruction and baptism, she was called Helena, which has thus become one of the popular Russian names. It is sometimes supposed to be a translation of Olga, but this is a mistake founded on the fact that this lady, and another royal saint, were called by both names. Olga is, in fact, the feminine of Oleg (the Russian form of Helgi), which the race of Rurik had derived from their Norse ancestor, and it thus means holy.

Sweden also has a Saint Helene, who made a pilgrimage to Rome, and was put to death on her return by her cruel relations in 1160. Her relics were preserved in Zealand, near Copenhagen, making Ellin a favourite name among Danish damsels.

Helena has a perplexing double pronunciation in English, the central syllable being made long or short according to the tradition of the families where it is used. The Greek letter was certainly the short _e_, but it is believed that though the quantity of the syllable was short, the accent was upon it, and that the traditional sound of it survives in the name of the island which we learnt from the Portuguese.