A Litany in Time of Plague

During the speaker’s catalogue of the many different types of people who will succumb to mortality despite their personal powers and abilities, the speaker references Helen of Troy. Introduced while the speaker discusses how beauty is fleeting, Helen becomes a representative of the concept of beauty itself. According to traditional mythology, as a demi-god and daughter of the god Zeus and the Spartan queen Leda, Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world, and even as a child she was sought after by suitors. She ultimately married King Menelaus and reigned as the Queen of Sparta alongside him. However, after Aphrodite the goddess of love and lust promised Helen as a prize to the Trojan prince Paris, Paris came to Sparta and took Helen back to Troy with him. Whether they eloped or Paris kidnapped Helen is often left ambiguous. An abandoned and enraged Menelaus then declared war on Troy, initiating a 10-year war between the kingdom of Troy and the alliance of the Achaean or ancient Greek people. The war only came to a close when the city of Troy was destroyed, its soldiers and princes Paris and Hector killed and Helen reclaimed by her embittered husband Menelaus.