Articles

Trojan War: An Outcome of a Forbidden War

by Anantinee Mishra

All it takes for a lot of ruin is a bit of love.

Often, narrations of events of historic and cultural importance are done through a pen and paper. Be it the Ramcharitmanas, the Aeneid of Virgil, or the Iliad, literature continues to be one of the most notable mediums used to present stories playing a key factor in the beginnings or endings of eras.

Greek mythology. It has always been an exotic combination of gods and goddesses, conspiracies, betrayals, wars, battles, and above all, their love. The standard-setting, time-defying, eternal love, often which ended in brutal, horrific bloodshed.

Today, I am talking about a love which caused a massacre; a +massacre which resulted in the loss of some of the greatest warriors ever born. A love, which caused a far bigger rivalry than that of the Capulets and Montagues. A love, which caused what we today know of as the Trojan War.

I am talking, about the forbidden love between Helen of Sparta, or Helen of Troy as she popularly came to be known as, and Prince Paris of Troy.

As every other significantly remembered Greek tale, this one also starts with a quarrel amongst the Greek Deities. It would take me a few hundred pages if I go into detail about what exactly the quarrel was about, so I will stick to how this small fight led to one of the most important phases of Greek Mythology.

The conflict between the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite began after Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, gave them a golden apple, sometimes known as the Apple of Discord, marked “for the fairest”. Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the “fairest”, should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy.

Menelaus’s brother, Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, led an enraged expedition to Troy, consisting of Archean troops, determined to exact revenge for Paris’s insult.

There is no one or authoritative document which would tell us a chronological chain of the events that took place during the war. All of the situations described are through a series of poems and other sources, all assembled together to form an idea of what exactly happened, though often these sources presented a self-contradictory version of events too. The most popular of these sources are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Paris; the list of the lives lost is endless. Warriors, statesmen, common men, women, and children; all without sin, were gone forever, because of a love that wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. Against all odds of society.

The repercussions of what Helen and Paris did shine throughout centuries. It changed the course of Greece and filled the streets of Troy with rivers of blood.

I will end the same way I started.

All it takes for a lot of ruin is a bit of love.

About the Author:

Anantinee ‘JHUMPA’ Mishra is a prodigy author, poet and TED speaker. She is twelve years old studying in std.8th at Apeejay School, Saket, New Delhi.  She has published two books and many stories and articles in magazines and journals. At the age of ten, she published a 21,000 worded anthology of stories called ‘Treasure of Short Stories’. Last year her debut Novel ‘Manhattan to Munnar’ got released. Recently she has been conferred with a title ‘PRODIGY AUTHOR’ and an ‘HONORARY DIPLOMA’ by the Hon’ble Vice President of  India Sh. M Venkaiah Naidu.

 

3 Comments

  1. The author has versatality in her writings

  2. Reminded the glimpse of an early civilization .Her literary acumen always flowerish and presenting a micro theme in a macro horizon. Enjoyed.God Bless the Child writer.

  3. Congratulations Jhumpa! My words are falling short to give you any compliments. Just waiting to go through your more stories in future. You are treasures and above for us. God bless.