Re: Re: Beauty vs. Beasts

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_...>
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 00:15:19 +1000


Hecuba: I thank you, Menelaus, if you will slay that wife of yours. Yet shun the sight of her, lest she strike you with longing. For she ensnares the eyes of men, overthrows their towns, and burns their houses, so potent are her witcheries! Well I know her; so do you and those her victims too.

Nils takes the laurel:

> It's from one of Euripides tragedies, cannot remember which
> at the moment (my classics studies have been moldering in
> the basemenet of my memory for ten years), but Trojan Women
> is one guess.

It is indeed from Euripides' 'The Trojan Women', 3rd Episode, 'The Helen Scene' lines 860-1059. You'll find a full text in the Classics section at Perseus - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

It's actually a dialogue between Menelaus, Hecuba, Helen and the chorus, with Hecuba saying 'kill the bitch', Menelaus determined to kill her but demonstrating his usual decisiveness, and Helen, well, being Helen...

Helen's effect on her husband is just as dramatic as Mike's example, which is worthy of a laurel in itself. As, for that matter, was the original poem shared by Melanie. Thank ya all!

John


nysalor_at_...                 John Hughes

His eyes like furnace doors ajar.
When he had got its weight
and let his industry console his grief a bit, 'I'll fight'
he said. Simple as that. 'I'll fight.'
And so Troy fell.

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