Author’s Note: I titled the poem “Helen to Euripides” because in Euripides’ play, “The Trojan Women,” I was struck by a scene where the mother of Paris is blaming Helen and saying, in effect, we should just kill her. Helen strides in and says, how is this my fault? That indignant strength, despite her lack of power, relative to the men around her, inspired me to let her tell her own story.
Helen to Euripides
My face didn’t launch a thousand ships; men did.
Zeus was my father, and, swan-like my mother
Raped, doing her great honor. When I was
Just seven, another honor, Theseus
Stole me from my playroom. Old, fat, he held
Me down beneath his paunch til I could bear
His child. Then kings of Greece abducted me
In turns, so to possess some beautiful
Thing, ‘til proud Odysseus declared: Why
Should this divide us? Let her decide which
Shall have her. I almost chose him but feared
A man whose power was to mystify minds,
When Menelaus, simple and strong, could promise
Enough bronze spears to end my endless passage
From king to king. End it did, ended til
Paris princeling from careless goddess bought
Me with an envied apple, my husband three,
My second noble thief, coward who took me
Into his Trojan bed as payment made!
Greek kings to Anatolian shores brought war
In turn—and better men than Paris died
(Like Hector, the sole Trojan who never wished
Me dead). When that poor warrior tried to fight,
Eternal Aphrodite had to save my husband three
From under husband two’s bronze blade and whisked
Him from that dusty field to silken bed.
I would have spurned his princely prick, but fair
Goddess demanded I make homage to it.
When Ilium’s towers fell, before my husband
Two could return his prize to Spartan bed,
I heard Odysseus’ remark, our trade
will flourish once we colonize these shores.
Now, beside once proud Menelaus, again
I sit. Now nightly, I nepenthe add
To watered wine to stop the weeping that
Afflicts him when the ghosts invariably
Appear. Content, at last, I reign, a stately
Achaean Queen of quiet, broken kings.
♦
Christopher Honey is an MFA candidate at the University of Saint Thomas. His poetry, essays, and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Rumpus, the Decadent Review, Vita Poetica, the Pomona Valley Review, the Building Trades News, and Montgomery Living Magazine. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and daughter.
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