haileyoftroy-blog

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Nicola Peltz in Zayns “It’s You ” Music Video

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we will ruin ourselves like an ancient city burning in the name of a woman far too lovely, the face that launched a thousand ships forced to face all of the flames her love sparked- our love, too, will end in fire

Helen & Paris, You & I || O.L. (via poetbitesback)

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i. aphrodite; sun-kissed and pink-lipped all those hearts laid bare at your temples was that apple spray-painted gold worth a city, worth a girl to you? (forgive me, i always thought you were meant to be my protector) ii. paris; dear, sweet paris shepherd paris, prince paris lover, warrior, victor, dead was your city not worth enough or did you measure your worth by the beauty of the girl on your arm? iii. odysseus; oh, i know you all you wanted was to go home maybe you should have considered the viciousness of the ocean before you promised to uphold the honor of a girl you never loved who never asked you anyway iv. menelaus; so devoted, so in love with the beauty that you married the curls, the skin, the jewels, the silks tell me, why did you really race across the sea to fight ten years in a war you so very nearly lost? was it for the girl? or was it for the city you sank underground? v. tell me, o muse why does the whole world blame the war of sparta and of troy on a girl whose only crime was daring to be pretty?

cities and beauties | m.j. | insp (via astoriamalfoys)

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My father was a swan. My mother, a queen; She flinches when she sees feathers. My newborn brothers sobbed in sync. My sister was always a little wary, Quiet Clytemnestra. She hatched first. The difference between Menelaus and Paris? Mere geography. I may be kept and traded and bartered but this: This is my war. It leapt, fully-formed, from my heart. Mother shakes when she sees me, My bodycount could rival grim Persephone’s. I will teach you to regret every day you did not fear me.

bride of spears and blood (via owlmylove)

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There was a Helen before there was a War, but who remembers her?

H.D., “Winter Love” (via terpsikeraunos)

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                             H e l e n  of  T r o y

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nicola peltz in youth in oregon

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They call women weak But it was Helen who launched a thousand ships And Atalanta who killed the boar It was Eris who brought the downfall of Troy And Ariadne who solved the maze It was Pasiphae who bore the Minotaur And yet they still call women weak

we are not weak, we are the stuff of legends (via randomestfandoms-writing)

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deities + quotes: helen of troy // adrienne rich - the demon lover

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crushin on @badgalriri🔥

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What in fact is Helen the paradigm for? As justification for why men should wage war for a decade, her erotic aura is so overwhelming that even the Trojan elders acknowledge its irresistibility; yet she herself makes an effort to resist erōs. On the one hand, then, she is the contended object, the prize whose seizure prompts battle, according to the warriors’ own ideological representations; on the other hand, she is in Iliadic representation a speaking subject, a human being given voice in the epic, a woman who exceeds the meanings men have made of her, even as her sisters in captivity (Briseis) and marriage (Andromache) are given epic voice. Representing both the alienated condition of a Briseis and the assimilated condition of an Andromache, Helen’s speech is introspective, questioning, critical and self-critical, regretful, realistic.

Nancy Felson & Laura Slatkin, Gender and Homeric Epic (via flores-et-dracones)

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In the wake of my name (worth 1 roomful of kings), my face (worth 1 thousand ships), my bed (worth 10 years’ war), they forget that I am the daughter of two kings, not one. My unearthly father is as shapeshifter as he is god; I was born to live in animal skins as easily as my own. I was born a lion cub, ravenous, dreaming of the hearts of men. “Of Sparta” they call me. Menelaus tried to muzzle a dragon with a wedding ring. “Of Troy” they call me. Paris hoped to satisfy a she-wolf with fervent kisses and silk sheets. As if I would settle for anything less than blood.

AND I AM STILL HUNGRY | m.c. (via 100urns)

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I’m the youngest sister, but growing up with so many boys makes you tough. You get teased. There’s no tiptoeing around each other. You say it the way it is; you’re honest

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do you ever wonder how lonely it must have been to carry the face that launched a thousand ships?

marina v., loving the idea and the person are not the same (helen of troy). (via findingwordsforthoughts)

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You think I’m not a goddess? Try me. This is a torch song. Touch me and you’ll burn.

Margaret Atwood, from ‘Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing’ (via soracities)

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Spoken by Klytaimestra in Aiskhylos’s Agamemnon, translated by Anne Carson