The Tenor of Man's Woe
An Epigraph, Three Sestets, Fourteen Footnotes
From Mans effeminate slackness it begins1
The wrath of Mars2 boils
in the eye of the red-haired King3.
Cupid4 holds fast his seething arm,
which wields a blood-stained sword.
Helen5 clings to the pillar of the great city6,
the portrait of woman—in glory—in shame.
Sparta, like the expectant embers of Hestian7 nuptials,
gushes with the smog of Apolline groves8,
as if a thousand marigolds, suddenly set ablaze,
were quenched in rivers of hecatomb9 blood.
The marriage hymn of resurrected Troy echoes
from within the caves of Tyre10 to without the universe known.
The school of Athens11 is born again
from the ashes of burning libraries; eternal Rome,
from the mountains which had melted into the sea12.
So Helen comes again to the hallowed Spartan shore,
just as she had departed—pure and blameless13
as all had been and will be once more.14
Paradise Lost, John Milton (11.634)
God of war
Menelaus, King of Sparta
Lesser god of love
Wife of Menelaus, taken by Paris
Troy
Goddess of the hearth
Where the Cumæan Sybil leads Æneas into the underworld
100 oxen offered in sacrifice
or Carthage, where the cosmic Marriage of Dido and Æneas takes place; he denies the marriage—the gods affirm it; Carthage is later destroyed
lost the Peloponnesian War, but has a greater legacy than the victor, Sparta
The “mountains which had melted into the sea” is a reference to Psalm 46:2 as well as figuratively alluding to the Trojans who fled Troy via the sea to later found Rome.
With the setup of ending the previous line with “shore,” I expect the reader to anticipate the end rhyme of “whore” as Helen often refers to herself, and as many readers regard her leaving Sparta. The red herring of defining her departure and return as “pure and blameless” is hopefully cementing the rationale of the poem which is that it is man’s sin that causes woman to fall from glory, not the other way around, but more importantly, hopefully it redeems the image of Helen (or Eve for that matter): let her not be seen as a promiscuous woman who is a snare to man’s otherwise staunch uprightness, but a victim of tragic circumstance whose redemptive long-suffering is something to rejoice in rather than resent.
Eden and the New Jerusalem are within our grasp this very moment. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The true and better Adam has prevailed over death and sin. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
I think you asked for feedback on the notes. I Like the notes, but not the footnotes. Or maybe just one or 2. This is purely a cosmetic statement -- it just looks too academic to me.
But, feel free to put an encyclopedia under the poem though, I think that's interesting.