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All Site ContentTaming of the ShrewAct 1Scene 2
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Helen of Troy
Mythological Allusion
Act 1,
Scene 2
Lines 234-243

An explanation of the reference to “Leda’s daughter” in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

Hortensio

That she's the chosen of Signor Hortensio.

Tranio-as-Lucentio

Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,    
Do me this right: hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman,
To whom my father is not all unknown;    
And were his daughter fairer than she is,        
She may more suitors have, and me for one.
Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;    
Then well one more may fair Bianca have,
And so she shall. Lucentio shall make one,

According to Greek mythology, Queen Leda’s daughter Helen was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. She was married at an early age to Menelaus, the King of Sparta, but soon was either kidnapped or seduced (or perhaps a combination of the two) by the Trojan prince Paris who took her back to his home city of Troy, located in modern-day Turkey.

Outraged noblemen throughout Greece rallied to Menelaus’ side and sailed to Troy to get Helen back. Thus, Helen became known as “the face that launched a thousand ships,” which Tranio has transformed into a thousand wooers.

The resulting Trojan War and its aftermath are the subjects of the two most famous works in Western literature, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. In Shakespeare’s day, even a modestly educated person would have been familiar with the entertaining exploits contained in these two classics.

Helen Brought to Paris, Benjamin West, c. 1776