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Helen of Troy, possessor of "the face that launched a thousand ships," in truth possessed the tongue that launched a thousand ships.

The reason that history has accorded her face the honor is not so much that she was beautiful (though she was admittedly that, perhaps the most beautiful nudnik in all history, even though there are those who favor Cleopatra), is that the Greeks put a higher premium on facial beauty than on nudging. (Discourse, or rhetoric, had declined in Greek esteem ever since Demosthenes had espoused marbles in the mouth as an aid to effective speaking).

First, Helen nudged Paris to take her to Troy (some say she urged one Troy to take her to Paris, but this is a canard). She was tired of the "ennui" of Sparta, and Troy had a reputation as a metropolis with plenty of glitz. It was called "the Big Olive" for the same reason that New York (centuries later) was called "the Big Apple."

Then Helen nudged Troy to fight the Greeks instead of surrendering her. "Achilles has a weak heel," she nudged. "He and I once engaged in a mild flirtation during which I became intimately familiar with every part of his body. Of course that was before I met you."

Then, after the victory was apparently achieved, Helen nudged Paris to take in the wooden horse. "Wood is in this year and I am betting on that horse to make our victory garden party the talk of the whole Aegean-Mediterranean."

In her twin set of memoirs (Recollections of a Distaff Ship-Launcher and The Last Time I Saw Paris), Helen claimed that she had actually nudged Paris to burn the horse, as it turned out on closer inspection to be decidedly non-avant garde in design and was made of olive wood and not the mahogany which was in fashion - but that he refused, saying he needed it as a knight for a giant chess set he planned to construct on the forum.

It is difficult to judge the truth of much of the above, as Homer, who used Helen's memoirs as the basis for a large part of the Iliad, could not abide nudniks and Helen may have accordingly suffered image-wise in Homer's tale.

- Larry Lefkowitz

Larry Lefkowitz's literary novel (with humor): The Novel, Kunzman, the Novel! is available as an ebook and in print from Lulu.com.