Helen in EgyptThe fabulous beauty of Helen of Troy is legendary. But some say that Helen was never in Troy, that she had been conveyed by Zeus to Egypt, and that Greeks and Trojans alike fought for an illusion. A fifty-line fragment by the poet Stesichorus of Sicily (c. 640-555 B.C.), what survives of his Pallinode, tells us almost all we know of this other Helen, and from it H. D. wove her book-length poem. Yet Helen in Egypt is not a simple retelling of the Egyptian legend but a recreation of the many myths surrounding Helen, Paris, Achilles, Theseus, and other figures of Greek tradition, fused with the mysteries of Egyptian hermeticism. |
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Achilles Achilles waits Agamemnon altar Amen-script Amen-temple ancient anger answer Aphrodite Argo arrow Aulis awake battle Book brazier brother call on Thetis caravel child Chryseis Clytaemnestra Command Cypris Daemon dark dead Death desolate beach Dioscuri dream eidolon ember enchantment Eros eternal eyes Ezra Pound Fate father fire flame flower forever forget Helen ghost god-father goddess Greece heart heaven Hector Hecuba Helen in Egypt Helen of Troy Helen seems hero hieroglyph host immortal Iphigenia iron-ring Isis king knew Labyrinth Leuké lost Love lover lure magic mast memory Menelaus mother Myrmidons mystery Nephthys never night Odysseus Oenone Orestes Pallinode Paris past phantom Polyxena priestess Proteus prow ramparts recall remember sail Scyros sea-enchantment sea-mother Selected Poems shadow shell ships sister slain snow Sparta Star stared Stesichorus story symbol temple Theseus Thetis thought trance Trojan and Greek turn Tyndareus veil of Cytheraea Walls Wheel Zeus
Popular passages
Page 293 - Paphos; so the dart of Love is the dart of Death, and the secret is no secret; the simple path refutes at last the threat of the Labyrinth, the Sphinx is seen, the Beast is slain and the Phoenix-nest reveals the innermost key or the clue to the rest of the mystery; there is no before and no after, there is one finite moment that no infinite joy can disperse...
Page 101 - I am not nor mean to be the Daemon they made of me; going forward, my will was the wind, (or the will of Aphrodite filled the sail, as the story told of my first rebellion; the sail, they said, was the veil of Aphrodite), let them sing Helena for a thousand years, let them name and re-name Helen, I can not endure the weight of eternity, they will never understand how, a second time, I am free...
Page 279 - ... followed a track in the sand though we spoke but little, and the absolute, final spark, the ember, the Star had no personal, intimate fervour; was it desire? it was Love, it was Death, but what followed before, what after? a thousand- thousand days, as many mysterious nights, and multiplied to infinity, the million personal things, things remembered, forgotten, remembered again, assembled and re-assembled in different order as thoughts and emotions, the sun and the seasons changed, and as the...
Page vii - Helen was never in Troy. She had been transposed or translated from Greece into Egypt. Helen of Troy was a phantom, substituted for the real Helen, by jealous deities.
Page 121 - I am the first in all history to say, she died, died, died when the Walls fell; what mystery is more subtle than this? what spell more potent? I saw the pomegranate, blighted by winter, I saw the flowering pomegranate and the cleft fruit on the summer branch; I wait for a miracle as simple, as inevitable as this . . . now it is dark upon...
Page 48 - I stooped to fasten a greave that was loose at the ankle, when she turned; I stood indifferent to the rasp of metal, and her eyes met mine; you say, I could not see her eyes across the field of battle, I could not see their light shimmering as light on the changeable sea?
Page 5 - How did we greet each other? here in this Amen-temple, I have all-time to remember; he comes, he goes; I do not know that memory calls him, or what Spirit-master summons him to release (as God released him) the imprisoned, the lost; few were the words we said, but the words are graven on stone, minted on gold, stamped upon lead; they are coins of a treasure or the graded weights of barter and measure; "I am a woman of pleasure...
Page xii - King of Myrmidons, unconquerable, a mountain and a grave, Achilles; few were the words we said, nor knew each other, nor asked, are you Spirit? are you sister? are you brother? are you alive? are you dead? the harpers will sing forever of how Achilles met Helen among the shades, but we were not, we are not shadows; as we walk, heel and sole leave our sandal-prints in the sand, though the wounded heel treads lightly and more lightly follow, the purple sandals.
Page 141 - Enna are in your tears; why do you weep, Helen? what cruel path have you trod? these heavy thongs, let me unclasp them; did you too seek Persephone's drear icy way to Death? your feet are wounded with this huntsman's gear; who wore these clumsy boots? there — there — let the fire cheer you; will you choose from the cedar-chest there, your own fleece-lined shoes? or shall I choose for you? Ul "A goddess speaks,
Page vii - Stesichorus was said to have been struck blind because of his invective against Helen, but later was restored to sight, when he reinstated her in his Pallinode. Euripides, notably in The Trojan Women, reviles her, but he also is "restored to sight.