Women of Troy

Love Letters From Helen of Sparta:

To all the people who have betrayed me.

To everyone who calls me Helen of Troy.

To Aphrodite, pink lipped and sun kissed,

all those hearts laid bare at your temples

Was an apple painted gold worth a city?

worth a girl to you?

(Forgive me, for I always believed you

were meant to protect me)

To Paris, sweet, young Paris. Dear loving Paris

Tell me was your city worth it?

Or do you measure worth by the

beauty of the girl on your arm?

To my husband, so devoted

who fought a war for my beauty,

or for your own honor. Did you fight ten years for me, or the city you sank?

Was murder worth a beautiful wife?

To Odysseus, who never wanted to be here.

Who only wants his wife, only wants to return home

tell me, why did you destroy a city

to uphold the honor of a woman you never loved?

who never asked for it, or wanted it anyway

To Hector the Hero,

who died for the war of his brothers lust,

Hector whom I let die for me.

Hector whom I murdered and

who slew young Patroclus

and mistakenly rallied Achilles.

to Hector, I am so very sorry.

To Achilles-the one they feared.

The one with gods blood,

you seem to forget you aren’t the only one.

My father was a swan and my monthly blood is two-parts ichor.\

To Zeus, the mightiest god, whom they say is my father

and who let me be traded like cattle.

As if I was not the most powerful of your children-

Heracles had the blood of three innocents on his hands and

I have the blood of thousands

Perseus destroyed a gorgon with his wits and a shield , but

I destroyed a city with only a smile and a kiss

And the biggest traitor of all,

to history,

who forgets more than it remembers

and only remembers me as beautiful,

tragic,

disastrous.

They say I launched a thousand ships,

They say I doomed countless men to die.

(They do not say I saved Greece)

History gave me many names,

dubbed me many things-

Seductress. Seduced.

Siren.

Villain. Victim.

Trojan.

I am not the one who rejected

wisdom and strength

in favour of beauty

They forget I was a queen.

A Spartan, A warrior in my own right.

never forget

the man who thought

he could escape

the consequences

of his own actions

My greatest burden was not

the jealousy of Menelaus

or the lust of Paris

not even the betrayal of Aphrodite.

My greatest burden is this silence

forced upon me for 2500 years,

Echoing throughout history,

the whole world blames the war of Sparta and Troy

on a girl whose only crime

was daring to be pretty

In the same breath as they glaze over Paris’ lust

And Aphrodite’s vanity,

They wash away my truth;

In the same way they glorify the thousand ships launched for my beauty,

They mythologise my existence;

Paris was not the first to carry me off,

Troy was not the first time I’d been captured for my beauty.

Do not forget Theseus the “hero”,

my brothers never will.

(is this who I am-

a woman on her back with sighs

that drive men to war?)

Did I not live or love or burn

I Burned for the sins of Beauty.

As great a sin as beauty is.

Men drowned and killed and died for my beauty-

but they did not live with it.

Should I have prayed to Artemis?

Or would she cast me aside when they stole my innocence?

Was I ever wise enough for the love of Athena?

Would I be cursed by Hera for my father?

Or for my forced adultery?

Paris, Theseus, Menelaus-they are all the same

they did not fall in love with a woman,

they fell in love with a disaster.

with beauty.

They call me many things.

Princess

Goddess

Whore,

(and hellish, they call me hell to cities, to ships, hell to men)

Yes, they made me into a monster with a thousand faces

More destructive than the waves of Poseidon.

They made me into a goddess.

Goddesses demand blood.

Call me these things I will accept them all.

I am many things,

but I am not

of Troy.

To Agammenon,

From your daughter,

All of us daughters are lambs,

To be sold and bartered and sacrificed

At the will of our fathers and husbands.

We are not our own selves.

When the gods look at us,

Do they laugh?

The Olympians bring us nothing but heartache

I imagine they find joy in our misery.

When they decide a war, a city

Is acceptable payment for an apple.

When blood is spilled so

More blood can be spilled

Oh father dearest,

You will win a war,

But at what cost?

The victory is tainted with the blood

Of one who loved you most,

Your victory was won by destroying the lives

Of women.

I wonder why my death would appease the Huntress?

Is she not supposed to protect young girls?

Why was she demanding my blood

On the altar of sacrifice?

For a war she had no stake in.

Tell me why the gods determined that I

Should die with no justice?

When you die,

At my mother’s hands,

I hope it is my name on your lips.

I died for your war father,

It is only a fitting end that you should die for me.