The Trojan War Myth Exposed!

J

 Jeff–Saturday

How many of you have heard of the Trojan War?  I bet there’s not one of you who hasn’t. It’s the world’s best known epic tale of romance, action, and intrigue, and thanks to Homer’s telling in the Illiad and the Odyssey, a source for countless storylines down through the ages…including the Coen Brothers’ 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou.

But how many of you know the actual story of the War? Other than of course the bit about the (possibly) kidnapped Helen’s face launching a thousand ships and The Horse.  Aha, the ranks are thinning quickly.

Well, here’s my adapted telling of the tale based upon a version I came across while reading The Everything Classical Mythology Book, by Lesley Bolton.

The most well-known character in the myth is, of course, Helen of Troy, though she really wasn’t from Troy.  That’s just where she ended up spending ten years waiting to be “rescued.”  Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world and the daughter of the union of Zeus and Leda (not Leto, whose children with couldn’t-keep-it-in-his-pants-Zeus were the twins Apollo and Artemis).

Helen by Evelyn De Morgan

However the aggravation of raising such a beautiful daughter (something I know first hand) didn’t fall to her natural mother and father (assuming there’s anything natural about a Greek god turning himself into a swan to seduce a mortal), but to her foster father, King Tyndareus of Sparta.  

King Ty, as I like to call him, worked out a way of keeping all the suitors for his daughter’s hand (and a lot more) at bay by making all swear that in order to participate in the competition, they had to agree to abide by Helen’s choice of husband and defend her against anyone who might try to kidnap her.  The winner was Menelaus of Sparta and they were wed.

Menelaus by Giacomo Brogi

Then along came Paris of Troy, who stopped in to say “Hi” to the groom and, when the opportunity presented itself in the form of a quick trip out of town for Menelaus, to repay his host’s hospitality by stealing away his bride. 

Paris and Helen by Jacques Louis-David

But the kidnapping wasn’t a spontaneous whim.  Paris felt he had a right to claim Helen.  You see, Paris had been the judge in a beauty contest among the gods Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera to settle a dispute as to which of the three was the fairest.  In keeping with the sort of judging still seen in many parts of the world today, Paris made a side deal with Aphrodite that he’d choose her in return for her promising him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. But before he could claim her, she’d married. 

No matter, to Paris a deal was a deal and he’d come to Sparta to collect his prize. He spirited Helen away and, after spending their first night together on Kranae, a tiny island just off the port city of Gytheio on Greece’s Southern Peloponnese, it was off to Troy.  

Abduction of Helen, Francesco Primaticcio

Church on Kranae

[As a side note, that one-night diversion has created a thriving cottage industry on modern day Kranae, for today couples exchange marriage vows at a church on that spot, no doubt hoping for better luck than came to Paris and Helen.]

Not surprisingly, Menelaus didn’t take kindly to Paris’ thank you, and when Menelaus’ trip to Troy with Odysseus (aka Ulysses) to demand of King Priam of Troy her immediate return proved futile, Menelaus returned home to Sparta, massed Helen’s former suitors who’d pledged to defend her against kidnappers, and with his brother Agamemnon in command, dispatched an army of a thousand ships to reclaim her. 

But the Olympian biggie gods were involved in this mess up to their tiarasses.  Some had aligned with Greece (e.g., Poseidon because he was pissed at the Trojans for not having paid his bill for construction work, and Athena and Hera because of Paris’ involvement in fixing their beauty contest).  Others sided with Troy (e.g., Aphrodite who’d created the mess in the first place, and Apollo joined in it with his twin sister, Artemis.)

Anytime the gods got involved in something there were problems.  And in this instance, just to get things started, Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter to the god Artemis (a backer of Troy) for the winds to blow and launch his thousand ships. 

The Greek plan was simple, conquer the numerous towns surrounding Troy and thereby squeeze it into submission.  A simple plan turned into nine years of war with still no end in sight. Hmm, sound familiar? 

In the tenth year everything went to hell in a hand-basket for the Greeks.

First, the Greeks’ greatest warrior, Achilles (slayer of the Trojans’ greatest, Hector) died when pierced in the heel (surely you knew that) by an arrow cast into the air by Paris from behind his fortress walls and guided to its mark by Apollo.  

Then a fight broke out between Odysseus and Ajax of Salamis (non-kosher style for sure) over who’d get to wear Achilles armor (starting to sound more and more like that Brad Pitt 2004 version of the tale called Troy, does it not?), an honor ultimately bestowed on Odysseus that led Ajax into madness and ultimately taking his own life.  And then the Amazons weighed in to fight on the side of the Trojans.

But the Greeks did not give up.  Led by Odysseus they captured the King of Troy’s son, and through him learned what they needed to do if there were to be any hope of Troy falling.  The Greeks did as the prince had said, culminating in snatching away the sacred statue of Athena—the Palladium—which stood within Troy to protect the city from destruction.

But still Troy did not fall.  Then Odysseus came up with a plan, perhaps the most famous hustle in history: one requiring a gigantic wooden horse and some mighty gullible Trojans.

It was the blueprint for a classic scam that’s since played out countless times in print and film:  Present the mark with a fascinating unexpected gift.  Get a shill to tell a believable story compete with a hook that gets the mark to thinking it’s come up with a way to outsmart the hustler, and toss in a last minute twist that threatens to destroy the plan but fails because of an even greater surprise twist.

In this case, the Trojan Horse (more aptly the Greek or Spartan Horse, since they built it) appeared one morning outside the walls of Troy with the Greek army nowhere to be seen, leaving the Trojans confused over what to do with it: destroy the horse, or bring it within their city’s walls.   Then appeared a man in rags—the disguised Greek soldier Sinon—who claimed he’d escaped being sacrificed to Athena by the Greeks as an offering to appease her ire at their having stolen the Palladium from Troy. 

Then seemingly by chance he revealed a secret of the Greeks: that the great wooden horse before them was also meant to appease Athena by serving to replace the Palladium, but the sneaky Greeks had intentionally built it far too large to pass inside the walls of Troy out of fear that if brought inside it would bring victory to the besieged city.

Just as the Greeks’ plan seemed to be working, one Trojan stepped forward to challenge Sinon’s story (standard screenwriting fare these days), and hurled his spear at the wooden horse, no doubt hoping to elicit a cry from whomever it struck within. But just as he did, a giant sea monster reared up and devoured the cynic, distracting the crowd from the point of both his logic and spear.

The Trojans took the monster as a sign of Athena’s anger at the spear being tossed at an offering to her—rather than of an effort on her part (remember, she was on the side of the Greeks) to silence one threatening to expose the Greeks’ plan.

Surprise, surprise the Trojans figured out a way to bring the horse within their walls, and while rejoicing in their good fortune missed Sinon freeing the soldiers inside it and opening Troy’s gates for the rest of the Greek army to enter the city.

We all know what happened next. Or at least we think we do.  Helen was returned to her husband.  But not until after the Greeks had engaged in a bloodlust rage of battle so unsettling and sacrilegious to gods that had once backed the Greeks that they turned on them, bringing Odysseus ten more years of trials and tribulations before reaching home (after all, it was a two-book deal for Homer) and far worse fates for far more.

Homer 850 BCE

Yes, that’s a plot line we’ve seen before and will see again. And though there were no real winners in the Trojan War, there sure have been a lot of modern day literary and box office triumphs.

Many thanks again to Lesley Bolton for the inspiration I found for this post in her The Everything Classical Mythology Book.

–Jeff

Torn Between Four Novels

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

I’m stuck.

 

For 35 years, I’ve believed that you have to write every day. And I have. Not always well, but I realized early on that if I showed up every day, then every third or fourth day I might write something worthwhile. I couldn’t just wait for the worthwhile days—they didn’t come without the worthless ones.

 

I even wrote every morning while I was traveling. Here's my favorite spot in Brisbane.

 

I’ve always tried to start every morning, early, to be sure I got my writing done before I started in on my full time job—teaching and lecturing on screenwriting and helping other writers figure out their voices and their stories.

 

Finally, I guess the burden of trying to think for myself and help so many others at the same time has gotten the better of me.

 

It feels a little bit like being on the tea cups ride at Disneyland, spinning around and dizzy in the same place. . .

 

I seem to be paralyzed with indecision about what to write next. So, I am trying to get my mojo back by doing my favorite part of the writing process—research. Of course, since I am researching four projects at once, it’s also possible I’m making the problem worse.

 

I love research, probably too much. I remember doing my first research project ever, in fourth grade, on the history of Hawai’i. I can still remember how much I loved learning about Queen Liliʻuokalani and, as my education continued, and the libraries got bigger and more beautiful, the delights of learning about things and places that were new to me has never really gotten old.

 

The Wilson Library and Archive at my alma mater, The University of North Carolina.

 

I can honestly say I have spent some of my happiest days ever in libraries, and my particular delight in working in the Humanities Reading Room in the British Library wound up informing two major subplots in my novel, Fogged Off.

 

The exterior of the "new" British Library.

 

The Humanities Reading Room.

Even though we are lucky to have the internet for research, I still prefer doing it in person, with primary sources, surrounded by real books, documents, and photos and making at least some of my notes by hand, in a proper notebook. Of course, all my old notebooks don’t have a convenient “search” function, but I always learn something by going back through them.

 

Some of my favorite Edwardian headlines.

 

A real life trial I'm drawing from.

 

My "inspired by" real life advocate's office in the Inns of Court.

 

Here are a few more documents, books, and photos for my current(?) projects.

 

My aunt at NBC Radio City in Los Angeles in 1942.

And at the Brown Derby.

One of my favorite books on 40s LA.

Something else that's bubbling.

I'm doing research on Paris, both on 19th century ex-pats. . .

 

And in 2006/2007. . .

Aquarium de Paris.

And, of course, on some of its inhabitants.

Wish me luck!!!

---Wendall

In a garret in Paris - Guest Post by Ann Aptaker.

Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker’s Cantor Gold novels have won the Lambda Literary and multiple Goldie awards. Her short stories have appeared in the Fedora II and III anthologies, the Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir anthology Volumes 1, 3, and 4, Switchblade Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Our Happy Hours: LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars, the upcoming Private Dicks & Disco Balls anthology, and the online zine Punk Soul Poet. Her novella, A Taco, A T-Bird, A Beretta and One Furious Night, is featured in season two of the Guns & Tacos crime fiction series. 

Her latest novel, A Crime of Secrets, is the start of a new series introducing the crime-fighting duo of Fin Donner and Devorah Longstreet, women ahead of their time, an historical mystery set in the dark streets of New York in 1899.

When not writing crime fiction, Ann likes to kick back with old movies (and not so old movies), enjoyed with a big dish of ice cream.

In today's guest post, Ann tells us about a very special experience in the City of Light.

It’s been my good fortune to enjoy extended stays in Paris every year since 2020.

But oh, Paris in 2020, the first year of the Covid pandemic. I arrived in the city on March 1st, settled into my teeny-tiny AirBnB garret overlooking a courtyard and the famous Paris rooftops, and then—wham!—two weeks later the whole country, indeed the whole world, shut down.

The French government was very strict about the lockdown. Everyone, locals and visitors alike, was required to download, print, and fill out daily forms stating exactly why you were outside. Legitimate reasons were: shopping for necessities (groceries, pharmacy needs, etc.), medical or other required appointments, going to a job considered essential by the government, or a one-hour daily walkabout for fresh air and exercise, masked of course. If a gendarme stopped you and you didn’t have the form filled out for that day, there was a hefty fine among other penalties. As a non-citizen, you could even be deported. 

As in cities around the world, ambulance sirens wailed day and night, the sick and dying driven to overcrowded hospitals staffed by overworked, helpless nurses and doctors. Basic necessities were often scarce. Fear descended on Paris with a choking grip.

And yet…

And yet it was Paris. No plague could take away its beauty, its, well, Paris-ness. The famous Paris springtime lived up to its reputation. The air was clear and sweet. The sky was an incredible shade of blue. The curlicued beauty of the city’s architecture, Art Nouveau Metro signs and entrances, and my romantic view of the rooftops were sensual balms to my soul.

Rooftops

Bird atop Metro entrance
Place de la Nation

Nevertheless, I was locked away in my garret hour after hour, day after day. I was alone with myself, and yet I wasn’t alone. It was as if Paris, or at least my immediate bit of it, announced itself on my small balcony and beckoned me to step outside through my windowed balcony door. My little piece of Paris showed itself to me layer by layer, the classiest stripper in town revealing her fabulous flesh and bones. She showed me that her zinc rooftops were not really just gray but had subtle colors. The geometric confluence of walls and sloping rooflines became odes to Picasso. Commonplace details like water drains curved in Leger-like forms. 

Colors on the rooftop

Angles and chimneys

Curvy drain pipe

And on dark, rainy days, there was mystery in the courtyard in the black sheen of wet rooftops (I half-expected to see Fantomas slink along the skyline), the shuttered windows and balcony doors, the silver light on the ubiquitous chimneys. 

Bird on rooftop during hard rain

Clouds and silvery chimney

I was out on my balcony with my iPhone camera every day, several times a day and into the evening, seeing with a depth I’d never experienced.

As a writer, it wasn’t hard to fill all those other hours confined to my garret. As it happens, I was already contracted to write the fifth book in my Cantor Gold crime series. So there I was, writing eight hours a day or more, immersed in murder and mayhem on the page while outside were the twin realities of death by plague and the glorious insistence of le joie de vivre. There was a dreamlike quality to my days and nights. But of course, who hasn’t dreamt of writing a novel in a little garret in Paris?

Paris Break

 Ovidia--Every Other Tuesday

Every time I go online I'm reminded this isn't the best time to be out of Singapore given the Singapore Writers Festival is on 'Live' now, over three festival weekends. 

But oh, I really needed this break! And the timing was right, given I'd just submitted a short story and the rough of the next book and got my Covid bivalent booster before leaving. And also because it's l'automne here in Paris now, our favourite season for visiting and our first trip here in three years!

The agenda was to do nothing except rest and recuperate. It's also our first trip since our dogs died, so it marks a turning point. Some people celebrate becoming empty nesters, we'll just be shifting things around and getting rid of dog stairs/ dog exits etc. 

But for now, Paris!

We're back in Astotel Bergere, my favourite hotel because it's small enough that you don't feel you have to put on your LVs to chat in the foyer and it has this lovely skylight in the lounge, so we can sit comfortably with an outdoor feel. It was still on air-conditioning when we arrived but just switched to heating (10 C today).

But of course most of our time has been spent outdoors. Walking here is great, but I need to be around water. I only swim outdoors back home, but here it's getting cold, really cold for someone just in from the equator.

We found an indoor (heated) pool with some help--

The most convenient pool for us turned out to be the Piscine Suzanne-Berlioux in the Forum des Halles. It's not very popular with the locals here who say being in the complex is like being trapped in a giant shopping mall/ metro station... which sadly might be why Singaporeans feel right at home here!

Phones aren't allowed inside, but this is a snap of the outside:

The entrance fee is 5 euros and lockers are digital and included. The water is warm, the chlorine is strong and the shallow end very shallow, but people were still doing flip turns!

What was interesting was, certain lanes allow swim aids like fins and paddles (pretty much forbidden in Singapore public pools) and in the lanes where training aids are forbidden, it's also forbidden to swim butterfly stroke!

Granted, this anti-butterfly stroke discrimination might not surprise anyone else, but I (not a butterfly stroker) found it interesting. The other thing I found curious and a little off-putting was music being played in the pool area? I guess making it more like a gym workout? 

But enough of swimming. We've met up with family from the UK, visited old haunts like the Parc Monceau,

where the plants are getting ready for winter. But the ducks are still here!

and just walking and walking. 

The greatest difference between walking here and in Singapore is being able to walk outdoors without getting overheated before you get tired out!

It's clear that winter is coming. But though the trees are brown the sky's still blessedly blue.

And some are determined to stay green through the grey months,

Like this magnificent evergreen... and like my new friend Toby!

I'll be sorry to leave. But I'm glad I'm looking forward to getting home too! 

We'll be back in Singapore for next weekend and I'm half looking forward to/ half dreading a yoga workshop (backbends and balances) on Saturday and an SWF panel on Sunday.

I'll catch up with you all once I'm back! In the meantime, this is a fantastic time to visit Paris if you've any inclination to at all!