By Kate Webb
Always an outsider, born from an egg
Beauty pinning its prize to my head.
Suitors flocked, swore to a sacred oath,
Wedding me to a man and fate both.
A kind called Menelaus, of Sparta, they said.
But above our new love, our land, and our sea,
Divine wills clashes and competition did spread,
So Aphrodite beat two by promising me.
Love Goddess, with her radiant smile,
Claimed the apple, won the trial.
Ripped from my beloved husband and home,
Taken to a land all but known.
My face, they say, launched a thousand ships
While I sat still, fear coating my lips.
Greeks called me a snake, me, chained to the Trojan throne.
As I waited and prayer then years for my distant love,
Achaeans’ hate of my desertion had grown.
Is this Hera’s pain for Zeus’ crime from above?
Though returned to him understanding,
My life fell to history’s branding.
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