Helen of Troy

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In Canto V of the Inferno, Dante places Helen among the band of the lustful, grouping together historical figures and figures of great poetry in a single emblematic list. The verse «Helen, see, for whom so much wicked / time revolved» indicates her as the cause of a long period of mourning, identified with the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. The note on the passage specifies that «of Helen it was told that she had been killed by a Greek woman, to avenge her husband who died in the Trojan War». Helen is also mentioned, together with Dido and Tristan, among the celebrated lovers that form the backdrop to Francesca's story, and the first four figures in the list are all female, alternating between history and literature.