Page 26 - GALIET BEAUTY´S LURE: WAR Helen of Troy and Margareta of Germany IV

attempts are made to return Helen. King Priam’s death-drive, or nihilism, or antagonism to save Troy when its fall seems imminent, appears more vicious than Hitler’s. Hitler protects his Aryan race; Priam does not. The Walls of Troy become Troy’s prison: its citizens, its prisoners; its Meister King, its oblivious tyrant who neglects temperate counsels; its elders, failed chiefs who neglect to retort, to revolt, or act. There is a macabre absence of reasoning, a neglect to safeguard the welfare of Troy in the wise elders’ failure to act, and in Prince Paris and King Priam’s absurd disregard of the wise elders’ advice.
King Priam’s detestable lunacy neither has the welfare of Troy, its elders, its citizens, and those of his own family and theirs, in mind. He is a menace to Troy. He blindly gives in, and obeys Paris desires, and further, justifies the war on divinely ordained grounds. His kingship is weak and powerless against the gods, and against Paris’ will to preserve beautiful Helen at whatever tango of death to Troy. Paris’ obsession is such that he is willing to give back her possessions and to recompense the Argives from his own fortune, but glorious Helen must stay. Thus beauty-lured, they sacrifice Troy’s wellbeing, and drive their own beloved nation, families and heroes to nobly live, or to nobly march and dance with death, a requiem, while aged King Priam grieves and dwells within his Palace walls; while fierce King Menelaus fights, and awaits, and strategizes in his ship; while Achilles sulks; while cowardly Paris, shunning to fight, plays with his curved bow in his connubial bedroom;42
42 Il., 3.320. Paris is depicted as fiddling with his curved bow.
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