L'oubli d'Hésione ou le fatal aveuglement :

Abstract

Ph. LOGIE, Forgetting Hesione, or a fatal blindness : the game of right and wrong in Benoit de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie. Benoit does indeed follow the mythological tradition when he has Helen as a major cause of the Trojan war. Yet he adds the game of right and wrong to the reasons for the sack of Troy : Troy was destroyed because Priam could not stay on the right side. The fate of Hesione, Priam’s own sister, plays an essential part in this failure. Indeed Priam is in the right as long as he wants to takes his sister away from Telamon : this even justifies Paris’ expedition since it follows upon Antenor’s embassy when he tried to get Hesione back. But then Pâris abducted Helen instead, in whom Priam first saw a bargaining prize. Unacccountably, though, Priam allowed Paris to marry Helen, thus forgetting all about his sister and stepping on the side of wrong. Agamemnon used the deception of a mock embassy to profit by this mistake, which led to the fall of Troy and the death of Priam.