Every Greek school kid is well enough versed in the classics to know that Paris, the besotted Trojan prince, first slept with Helen, the unfaithful Queen of Sparta, on the island of Kranai before whisking her home to Troy 3,205 years ago.
Their fateful frolic and reckless spree led, of course, to the long-running Trojan War and a few centuries later prompted Homer to compose “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.”
Many contemporary Greek lovers in the Peloponnese know that the tiny island, which is also called Marathonissi and is now connected by a causeway to the village of Githio on the Mani Peninsula, is a hot spot to go on a romantic date.
Indeed, couples consider an evening spent on Kranai/Marathonissi a requisite rite of passage in the evolution of their relationship.
The romantic island of Kranai/Marathonissi.
Naturally The Idiot wanted to get in on the amorous action when he arrived in Githio. A dedicated adventure walker and MedTrekking researcher, he decided to camp last night on the island in exactly the same spot — and maybe even in exactly the same bed — that Helen slept with Paris.
Although Kranai/Marathonissi is small, it took The Idiot a somewhat lengthy investigation and time-consuming process of elimination to determine precisely where the couple actually bedded down. The Idiot, no fool, immediately discarded structures that didn’t exist on that momentous night under a full moon circa 1195 BC.
They didn’t sleep in the Byzantine chapel.
They didn’t sleep in the lighthouse.
They didn’t sleep in the Tzanetaki Tower/museum.
There was no information about the whereabouts of their liaison, or their bed, in the Kranai/Marathonissi museum but the curator advised The Idiot to walk towards the lighthouse at the tip of the island and look for a stunted column. That, some archeologists apparently claim, is the precise site of the Trojan encampment before Paris and Helen sailed for the nearby island of Kythera and then on to Troy.
“That is where they slept and that is where you might find their bed,” the curator affirmed.
Some archeologists contend Paris and Helen slept here.
As soon as The Idiot located the stunted column, he set up his Spartan camp. Although he didn’t find the bed used back in the day, he looked forward to sleeping with the fabled Helen of Troy in his lightweight sleeping bag.
Despite noisy thunderstorms and torrential rain, everything went well under last night’s rarely visible full moon. At around midnight Helen, the daughter of Zeus who still resembles the golden-arrowed goddess Artemis, appeared in all her splendor at The Idiot’s sleeping bag.
But an island romance? Forget it!
Much to The Idiot’s dismay Helen only wanted to have a profound discussion.
About the agony of her misguided affair with Paris (“I acted so disgracefully”); about how the whole melodrama was due to a wretched curse by the scheming goddess Aphrodite (“I was sorry for the blindness Aphrodite brought me”); about how tough it is being known as the woman who launched a thousand ships and started a war (“all because of me and my mad passion for Trojan Paris”); and about how she still admires Odysseus (“I bathed him and rubbed him with oil”) because of his Trojan Horse ruse at Troy.
The Idiot, the ideal listener, let Helen run the nocturnal show and only made one comment throughout the entire sleepless and damp night.
“I’m not quite sure if blaming this whole thing on Aphrodite’s curse would get you off the hook these days,” he told her as the clouds cleared and the somewhat rosy-fingered dawn approached.
The Idiot slept on this matted grass last night.
But this was not a one-night stand and The Idiot hooked up with Helen again on Saturday.
This time he found her lying next to her husband, King Menelaus (they got back together after the Trojan War because, despite everything, he royally accepted the Aphrodite rationalization), in the Menelaion, the stone sanctuary of Menelaus and Helen in a lovely high-up-on-a-hillside olive grove overlooking Sparta and the Taygatos Mountains.
Helen and The Idiot met again on Saturday at the tomb she shares with King Menelaus.
The Idiot was so absorbed by the site, the view and the proximity of the former King and Queen of Sparta that he told Helen he would return at sunset to ask a few questions about the whole mess she provoked by sleeping with Paris on Kranai/Marathonissi.
If you would like to Follow the Idiot and sleep with Helen of Troy (aka Queen of Sparta) or the Trojan Paris you can find them @ http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=36.75427,22.575&ll=36.75427,22.575&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1
Text and Photos: Joel Stratte-McClure
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